Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1899 — HUMOR OF THE INSANE. [ARTICLE]

HUMOR OF THE INSANE.

There la Plenty of It, Says the Superintendent of an Asylum. J “I was sitting In my office the other day,” said the superintendent of the insane asylum at Parlor City, “when one of the patients, a harmless fellow who is allowed to have the freedom of the building and grounds, came in, pale with Indignation, and said that he had a complaint to make. “ ‘What is it, your Highness?’ I said, for it was the Prince of Wales I was talking to. “‘Are the rules of the palace to be observed or not?’ he demanded. ‘I want to know whether our rules can be broken with impunity.’ “ ‘Certainly not, your Highness,’ I said; ‘what is it?’' “ ‘I was coming down the corridor this morning,’ he said, ‘and in a rack on the wall I saw a dozen red palls, marked “For fire only.” Now, is that right or not?’ “ ‘lt is,’ I said. ‘The sign is correct.’ “ Well, then,’ he said, ‘John (referring to a keeper) must be punished. As I stood there he came along and filled the pails w’lth water.’ “ ‘He shall be executed at once,’ I said, and the Prince bowed with great seriousness and walked out of the room. “This incident illustrates a trick which few people know anything about,” continued the superintendent. “That is, that there is more unconscious humor about a lot of lunatics than there is genuine humor among sane people. Some of the things that my patients say and do are funnier than any of the things I read or hear from the outside world. I tell you, life isn’t so prosaic as you’d think in an insane asylum.”—New York Sun.