Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 March 1877 — Concerning Jokes About People’s Sorrows and Misfortunes. [ARTICLE]

Concerning Jokes About People’s Sorrows and Misfortunes.

Recently, tn looking over the JTmas, I came across this paragraph from the New York Daily Graphic: “ See here, Danbury A>w«, and all the other boys, let's stop joking about death, coffins and funerals. It may be funny, but it is not in good taste, for it wounds thousands who have real cause to grieve.” There is a small room somewhere in this world, nothing but “four square walls,” but I wish to tell you some things that are in this room. Near one comer stands the stove, burning brightly this winter evening, the same as in thousands of other rooms; a few pictures and chromos on the wall, and a fine steel engraving of that well-meaning, honest, but erratic old man, Horace Greeley. In one comer, near the window, is a small stand, on which is an aquarium containing some very pretty shells and stones picked up, some at Cape May, some on the shore of Lake Michigan, some received from friends in far-away California. Over this is a large, three-shelf bracket, holding several juvenile books, finger-worn and soiled; miniature boat with sails spread; a “bank” partly filled with pennies, which enter the mouth of a frog, opened by a pressure upon one of its feet; a top whittled from a spool, an arrow rudely constructed from a piece of pine, two or three China cups, a ball, a knife, a beadbasket, a package of “ little one’s” letters, a fish-line, and innumerable other little articles that make up a list of juvenile property. At the left of this bracket hangs the picture of a sweet babe with the innocent smile of babyhood upon her chubby face. When she went away last September: she was ten months old. At the right of the bracket is the picture of a boy. He used to make this room ring with his shouts of merry laughter. His face wears a more thoughtful look than that of his sister just across on the other wall. He stands in an easy attitude with his legs crossed, one hand hanging by his side, the other resting upon a sofa-top stand; his eyes look a little to the left of you, and he appears to be in deep thought. At his feet crouches his dog, Prince. When Willie went away last October he was aged nine years. There comes into this room while I write a small woman with a look of sadness plainly depicted on her face. She walks to the corner and looks a moment at the fish swimming in the aquarium, and then raises her eyes and gazes long at the two pictures before her. The tears follow each other silently down her face. She turns away and seats herself in the rocker near the stove, and rests her head upon her hand. She has no child now. We wii 1 not.disturb her. She is thinking how she used to fondle her babe or make kites for her boy; she is thinking of the crape that was put upon the door; of the little coffin tliat was brought in, and tlie silver plate on the lid, “Our Babe;” of the little grave up among the oaks, and how. with Willie, she visited it the following Sabbath, when Willie said, “When we come again I will bring a nice bouquet for Clara.” She is thinking how Willie went the next time he visited the spot—in his coffin, with the bouquet in his hand; she is thinking of the future, when she shall see them again, for she says, “Thy will, not mine, be done.” There are thousands of homes Uke ours, where jife seems as nothing since so much of life and love has gone, and some thoughtless paragrapher has caused many a pang by his pencilinga. I thought when I read the mild confession of tender conscience in the Graphic editor, that perhaps he, too, had a sad home, frow which he missed the little white dress with blue knots at the shoulders, and had experienced the sorrow made fresh by these ghoulish paragraphs. A thousand homes will thank him for tlie suggestion, for sorrow is too much of a reality to be made tlie triHe of a pencil point.— Cor. Danbury News.