Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 125, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 October 1903 — SERIOUSNESS OF LAUGHTER. [ARTICLE]

SERIOUSNESS OF LAUGHTER.

hangh, and Laugh Heartily, All Te Who Know the Joy of Livinjr. From an editorial article in a Chicago newspaper, the following is an extract, in which Winifred Black treats of- “The Grave Seriousness of Laughter:” “The man who finds vulgar antics of poor, ignorant women amusing Is the sort of man who would laugh at his mother’s funeral if the minister happened to mispronounce a word. The man who laughs betrays his real character quicker in that laughter than in anything else he can possibly do. * * * “Talk about detectives, you can tell more about a man’s real character by watching him to see what makes him laugh than you could by putting Old Sleuth on his path for a year of long months. “Beware of the man whose laughter is ts grimace. The face which does not light up when the owner of it smiles belongs to a false, deceitful and coldhearted man. * * *

“Sit up, young woman, and take notice. Get the man you’re Interested in to take you to the theater. Tell him “a few “tittle jdkesT ask him to ~ real some light literature with you, and then watch him. “I’d rather live In a house with a good-natured burglar or a light-hearted horse thief than with a cultured gentleman wfio laughs at the wrong thing. * * * Laugh, and laugh heartily, all ye who know the joy of living, but, oh, be catefuly that your laughter has in it no taint of cruelty or of coarse delight in another’s pain. If it has it is worse than a sneer and harder to atone for than a cruel blow.”

She advises her unmarried woman readers “t 9 get the man that each ls interested in to take her to the theater, and watch him,” to see how he laugh 3 and what he laughs about. But" Winifred Black is right in her advice, in this as well as all other things she advocates. She ls particularly and properly severe about the heartlessness of some cold, hardhearted people who would and did probably laugh at the shocking and pitiful spectacle of the half-witted Mrs. Place, as she appeared bound in cords

and wires, in the electrical chair, preceding her execution in New York, but as this requires a peculiar and individual character of “heroism,” it Is well that such is confined to a limited few.