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Jokes And Jokers

Jokes And Jokers image
Parent Issue
Day
17
Month
August
Year
1894
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Tbere is more real humor in a modern clodhopper than in an ancient j loeopher. The jokes that have coma ' down to us from Qreece are mostly poor I Bfcoff, bnt college boys are glad to get any oomfort at all from root grubbing, and therefore they laugh at Diogenes and Aristophanes. It is said that the oíd cynic begged a tub to live in and toted this about where he liked and sqnatted under it when he pleased. When Alexander called on him in this palatial residence, he asked what he oonld do for him. "Get out of my sunlight, " siiid Diogenes. That was tolerably good, but uncivil. The nasty old oub with his tub could be duplicated by a thousand tramps in America any day, and many of them are doubtless nastier and smarter. Plato is said to have preached fatality. When a rogue ran against him with a beam and excused himself as "fated to do it," "Yes," said Plato, "I see, but I also am fated 'to beat you for it, " and gave the fellow a good caning. For sportiveness Horace was the most pleasing of the ancients, but his verses are very amatory and some of them more suggestive than a French play. Charles Lamb is worth 20 of him, only that Horace could be a poet when he chose of a different sort. Homer's picture of Thersites is the oldest burlesque that I remember A joke coming down from 1000 B. C. ought to be pretty good. Will M. Quad laet as long? English joking is generally heavy. Here is one told by James Payn. A witness in a slander case swore that Miss lies was thrown over the wall a dozen times. "What, " said the judge. "Who was Miss lies, and why did they throw herover?" It was missiles. Icannotsee anything so very funny in Sydney Smith's wishing he could, on a certain hot day, take off his fiesh and sit in his bones. But Hood and Charley Lamb are a brace that no one ought ever to be without. I have given up trying to keep a complete set of either. They are borrowed and relished, and, I suppose, read to pieces. Hood was capital in every direction he turned, whether pathos, satire, pun or pure joking. His taking off of celebrated characters was as good as anything. You shonld first read Boswell's "Johnson" and then read Hood's ' ' Johnsoniana. ' ' But does anybody read Boswell nowadays? Alas, for once famous books! Hood, says Johnson, was once consulted by a lady as to the degree of turpitude and spanking due her boy for robbing an orchard. "Madam, " said the ponderous doctor, "it all hangs on the weight of the boy. I, remember my school fellow, Davy Garrick, who was a little fellow, robbing a dozen orchards with impunity, but the very first time I climbed an apple tree, for I was always solid, the bough broke, and it was called a judgment on me. I suppose that is why justice is represented with a pair of scales. " Sheridan was the best of jokers, but half that is attributed to him is floating wit that needed a father. It is probably true that he asked his roistering but highborn crew one night whether they should drink like beasts or like men. Some onesaid, "Men, of course. " "Oh, then, " cried Sheridan, "we'll get awful drunk, for beasts only drink what they need. " Irish wit is fanaous the world over. Part of it consists in the brogue, but it is rare that an Irishman has not surprises of speech, in which consists the wit of the highest order. Le Fanu, in his "Seventy Years of Irish Life," has collected a great deal that is delicions. A witness that was badgered by a lawyer was asked, "You're a nice fellow, now, ain't you?" Witness answered, "I am, sir, and if I were not on oath, sir, I'd say the same of you. " Another witness was asked by a bullyinsr counsel, "So you had a pistol?" "I had, sir." "Who did you intend to shoot?" "I wan't intendin to shoot no one." "So you got it for nothing?" "No, I didn't. " "Come, come! On your oath, what did you get that pistol for?" "For three and ninepence, sir, in Mr. Richardson's shop. " The Irish buil is often better than any delibérate wit. Sir Richard Steele insisted these bulls were owing to the air of the country, "and, sir," he added, "if an Englishman was born here, I don 't doubt he'd do the same." In a debate on taxation an Irish member of parliament insisted that ' 'a tax on lëather would press heavily on the barefooted peasantry. " Sir Boyle Roche replied they could "make thti under leathers of wood. " The same Sir Boyle urged the nnion of England and Ireland, so that "the barren hills would become fertile valleys. " Ijj another debate he answered, "I boldly answer in the affirmative - No!" He was author of "You should refrain from throwing open the floodgates of democracy, lest you should pave the way for a general conflagration. " At a race au Irishman was delighted because he was "first at last." When they laughed, he added, "Sure, ■vvasn't I behind bef ore. " One day a friend of Bishop Bramstone approached him with the remark thathe wanted "a wife, young, rich and pretty," and he wanted the bishop to piek her out for him. "Tut, tut!" said the bishop. "My name is Bramstone, not Brimstone! I

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Ann Arbor Argus
Old News