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JOKES AND JOKESMITHING
HERE are no new jokes. There may
be variations of old jokes that for a
time deceive us, but in the great system
of jociprudence there are only a few—
a very few—leading cases. The practi
tioners for a long time have only rung
changes on the principles enunciated
far back in a time whereunto the mem
ory of man runneth not. The students
T
of joke derivations know that all jokes now extant
can be traced back to a few original stems just as
Greek verbs can be traced to a few original roots.
Mr. Robert J. Burdette has said that there are but
seven original jokes and that the vast number now
doing service can be traced back through numbers
of evolutions, adornments, and adjustments to the
original seven.
Everyone has heard the joke of the servant who
ate one leg of a baked goose in the kitchen before
serving it to his master. His master upon carving
discovered that one leg was missing and immediate
ly charged the servant with having eaten it.- The
servant denied it and stated the goose had only one
leg to begin with and offered to show his master
that the remainder of the flock had but one leg
each. The master called his bluff and followed him
out to the horse lot where all the geese were stand
ing around the edge of the icy pond on one foot.
The servant triumphantly exclaimed, “See there,
didn’t I tell yon they had but one leg?” The mas
ter, however, gave a shrill whistle and the geese
immediately put down the other foot and ran off.
“Ah,” said the servant reproachfully, “you didn’t
whistle at the goose on the table.” This joke is
really funny and it is deserving of respect. In fact
its age entitles it to veneration for it is known,
proven and accredited to be one of the seven jokes.
It was found first in a book written in the time of
Augustus.
Now and then we hear a joke or a bit of repartee
and never having heard it before, are inclined to
think it original with the one who springs it. But
the fact is, it had been created perhaps ages before
and the latter day user had been fortunate enough
to find it and apply it to his needs in a critical mo
ment. As an illustration, Alexander H. Stephens,
who was a very small man and so thin that one
of his contemporaries said that his soul was in a state
of indecent exposure, was once conducting a heated
argument. His size moved his opponent to threat
en to pin Stephens’ ears back and swallow him
whole. Stephens retorted that the gentleman would
then have more brains in his stomach than he ever
had in his head. What Georgian has not heard
that repartee and gloried in it? Yet Mr. Stephens
read it in Kenilworth and Sir Walter Scott had
doubtless found it in some book of still earlier vin
tage. Some few years ago Mr. William J. Bryan
was speaking in New York City and a man in the
gallery persisted in interrupting him with questions.
Mr. Bryan would answer and attempt to go ahead
with his speech. The man in the gallery, however,
kept calling out, “Answer, answer!” Mr. Bryan
terminated the matter by saying, “My friend, I have
given you an answer—l cannot give you an under
standing.” This choice retort is in Charles Read’s
Peg Woffington.
Mr. Read probably found it in some books
that were ancient in his time. But this is no re
flection on the wit or wisdom of either Mr. Stephens
or Mr. Bryan. No man, however great or wise or
witty, is expected to tell a brand new joke. The
publication of an absolutely new joke, a joke that
would become the origin of a species, would attract
world-wide attention. It would probably influence
the prices of stocks in the markets of the world.
It would not be safe. So the humorists and the
newspapers have settled upon the few subjects upon
which jokes may legitimately be made. When any
thing is said on these subjects, it is ipse facto fun-
The Golden Age for September 20, 1906.
ny. A mention of a few of the subjects may illus
trate the point.
There is the mother-in-law subject. A fair sam
ple is this one: A man’s mother-in-law died while
'on a visit in a distant city. The undertaker who
had charge of the body wired him: “Your mother-in
law is dead—shall I pack in ice, embalm, or cre
mate?” The answer was prompt: “Do all three.”
The Americans are trained to regard slander upon
a mother-in-law as funny. An Englishman would
not laugh at this joke. But that brings to mind
another joke topic. We are given to considering
our cousins over the way as slow in catching on
to a joke. It is said that Mark Twain about a week
after he had delivered a lecture in London was walk
ing down a street of that city one morning when an
Englishman, convulsed with laughter, rushed up
and seized his hand, exclaiming, ‘ 1 Ha! ha! such a
good joke, don’t you know?” all the time laugh
ing and shaking Mark’s hand. “What joke is
that?” was Mark’s answer. “Why, the one you
told in your lecture last week. I kept thinking
it over and suddenly this morning it was funny to
me, and I took the Express to come up to town and
tell you about it.” Mark looked at him long and
seriously, “Why didn’t you come by freight?” was
his reply.
“A man named Strange,” said an American to
his English friend, “said 'he would put on his
tombstone only the words: ‘Here lies an honest law
yer.’ And then everybody will say at once, ‘That’s
Strange’ ” “Excellent, bah Jove!” responded the
Englishman, and carried the story to his club where
it was retold as follows: “An—ah—eccentric so
licitor directed that they should carve—ah—on his
—er—monument, you know, ‘Here lies an honest
lawyer,’ and folks said, you know, ‘Ah, how extra
ordinary!’ ” Another illustration of the alleged
slowness of Englishmen to quite grasp the point
is this: An Englishman and an American friend
were walking down the street in London on a very
slippery winter day. Suddenly the American’s feet
flew from under him and he fell upon the pavement.
The Englishman assisted him to rise, and asked him
how he happened to fall. “Oh,” replied the Amer
ican, “notwithstanding!” The Englishman thought
it was a bully joke and when he got home told it to
his wife and quoted his friend as replying to his
inquiry, “Nevertheless,” and was astonished that
it didn’t seem funny to her.
Boston, if one forms an opinion of it by jokes,
considers itself the last word in the way of erudi
tion and culture. This is so very true and has
been true such a very long time that even the chil
dren there are very precocious at an early age. This
characteristic of the Boston infants is shown in
the following incident:
Mrs. Emerson Brown (of Boston): “Baby spoke
a sentence this morning, Oscar.”
Mr. Emerson Brown: “What was it, dear?”
Mrs. Emerson Brown (proudly): “She said,
‘Mother seems to have astigmatism in her left op
tic.’ ”
There is another story of a Boston child who was
asked if she would like a talking doll. Her reply
was: “Certainly, if you have one that converses
intelligently; I could not abide one that giggled.”
It is said that even the birds in Boston are more
cultured than any other birds, and as an evidence
of this fact, an instance is cited of a parrot who,
when asked in the usual formula, “Does Polly want
a cracker?” replied with great disdain, “I require
no sustenance from you whatever!”
Then there are jokes of Philadelphia being such
a slow and quiet town. Everyone is familiar with
the statement of Mr. Bones in the minstrels that
he once had three children—that two are now
living and the other one is in Philadelphia. A story
is told that a public school teacher asked: “Phil
adelphia was settled by the Quakers in 1762. Now,
Willie Green, what happened after that?” Willie
By A. E. RAMSAUR.
Green, who had recently moved there from New
York answered: “Nothin’!” On one occasion the
Philadelphia Record head-lined a small paragraph:
“Caterpillars are crawling.” A New York paper
copied the paragraph under the scare-head, “Ac
tivity in the Quaker City.”
Then there is the Kentucky joke. There are three
strings upon which the joke makers can play in
evolving a Kentucky joke. They are Colonel, horses
and whiskey.
This is a sample of the “Colonel” joke: A Ken
tuckian, Col. Bangs, was on a ship which was rap
idly sinking. All the other passengers were humbly
bowed upon their knees or lying flat on their faces
on the deck giving their entire attention to earnest
prayer for deliverance from what seemed to be cer
tain death by drowning. Col. Bangs, however, was
standing erect in simple sublimity remarking in a
conversational tone: ‘ ‘ Oh, Lord, if you ever mean to
do Col. Bangs a favor, now is a good time.”
A Kentuckian was present once when some people
were discussing the adulteration of the necessities
of life. He was moved to contribute as his share
of the conversation, “Terrible! Why, I saw a fellah
putting watah in whiskey the other day.”
A Kentuckian’s opinion of a tetotaler is not very
flattering. The following conversation is reported
as having occurred between a typical Kentucky col
onel and his little boy:
Son: “Papa, what is a prohibitionist?”
“My son,” solemnly answered the Colonel, “it
is a man who drinks water and talks like a blank
fool.”
Then there is the joke about Chicago. If the
newspaper jokes are to be taken as an indication of
the real state of affairs, the feminine foot in Chi
cago is something immense. A St. Louis girl, upon
being told that a certain Chicago acquaintance was
in bad health and had “one foot in the grave,” re
plied: “She needn’t fear ,she can’t get both of them
in. ’ ’
They do say there are a great many divorces
among Chicago people. This is a sample of the
divorce joke:
He (after the introduction): “I feel acquainted
with you already, Mrs. Bromley, in fact I may claim
to be a distant relative of yours.”
She: “Indeed, Mr. Smithers, I was not aware
of it.”
He: “I find by an item in the papers this morn
ing that ray second wife has just married your
fourth husband.”
There are a vast horde of “Lawyer” jokes going
about the world. Lawyers in simple fact are the
salt of the earth and everybody knows it, but there
are many jokes made touching their character. A
typical one of this class is that of the man who
upon his death bed sent for a couple of his lawyer
friends, and asked one of them to sit on each side
of the bed, and when pressed by his family to give
a reason for this strange conduct stated that he
wished to die as the Savior did—“between two
thieves. ’ ’
On one occasion a man was riding along the road
in compny with two lawyers, all on horseback, he
being in the center. They were having a discussion
about a matter which finally waxed warm, and one
of the lawyers angrily exclaimed to him: “You
are either a fool or a knave, sir.” The retort was
quick and to the point, “You are mistaken, I am
between the two.”
These are a. few typical and time seasoned jokes
which have seen service for a number of years and
will probably last for generations yet to come.
They are good, safe jokes. They bear the union
label and are guaranteed to be funny jokes. But
there are no new jokes, as I said in the beginning,
and this article is not new or original. It has been
written numbers and numbers of times before by
(Continued on page 13.)