Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1902 — ALL CAN SEE A JOKE. [ARTICLE]

ALL CAN SEE A JOKE.

Even Britons, It Is Said, Have a Sense of Humor. To say that a man has no sense of humor is to say the thing he resents most and the thing he finds hardest to disprove. This lack-of-humor charge strikes him at once from fellowship in all that the world holds human and puts him akin to the unlaughing beasts ot the field—dull, plodding, material. It is a subtle weapon, often used when one has no case one’s self and finds refuge in abuse of one’s adversary. For a long time man employed this weapon against woman with pretty effect, and the American nation itself, quick to make a point, has stung all England with the same keen prod. The plain facts are that no man and, of course, no woman Is without a sense of humor --the difference Is only .one of kind rather than of degree. To the feminine mind there is nothing In that form of humor which makes fun of anything connected with the individual himself. Artemus Ward's readiness to sacrifice Ipa wife’s relatives on the altar of patriotism finds no response in the Lxeast of an Englishman or of a woman, but If Mr. Ward offers to sacrifice a foreigner's relatives, the personal application is removed and woman and Briton applaud, says Harper's Weekly. Max Beerbohm has been studying the kind of fun which the theater-going public demands, and sums up his study in this way: “The public can achieve no delicate process of discernment in humor. Unless a Joke hits it in the eye, drawing forth a shower of Illuminative sparks, all is darkness for the public. Unless a joke be labeled ‘Comic. Come! Why ddn't you laugh?’ the public is quite silent. Violence and obviousness are thus the essential factors.” Of course, all this applies to England only, for we of America still maintain that we can see a joke without being hit in the eye.