Judge — February 5, 1910 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CONTRIBUTORS’ NOTE HE EDITOR of Jupce intended to publish a few editorials on this page about current affairs, but we found it necessary to send the following communica- tion: t Eprtor Ju Dear sir—The editors of the Waste Basket Number of Jupce thank you for submitting the _ inclosed manuscripts, which we have personally examined, and regret that we cannot make use of them in this number of Jupce. No doubt you will be more successful with the other fifty-one issues of Jupce. Besides, we only want funny stuff for the Waste Basket Number. Very truly you F. P. Pirzer, et al. THE TRIALS OF THE JOKESMITH. S$ I PLOD along the rocky path of the jokesmith, on down toward the slope of the hill where the River of Rest flows softly in the Valley of Night, I become more and more convinced that the laugh- ter-provoking citizen who dazzles us with TAKEN ESPECIALLY FOR THE MAGAZINES. his subtle wit gets it all out of some joke-book. Time and time again I have picked up an inno- cent-looking joke as it fell apparently fresh from the lips of some innocent child or old man. I have ‘bit’ it and rung it on the coun- ter tosee if it was good, and given it the acid test, then polished it anew and dressed it in 3 best and latest cloth- ing, only to find that I stung" again. It is sad, it is heart- breaking, this eternal stampede athwart the meadows of fancy in a wild endeavor to throw our hat over a gay little butterfly of a jokelet which seems to dazzle us with its rainbow splendor; and at last, as we drop pauting on the ground with our old hat over the prize, we open it carefully to find we have caught a gypsy-moth! You can trust some friends with your character—if you have any—and some men with your pocketbook—if you sell jokes enough to support such a thing; but you can trust neither of these with a joke. After a careful and most pai taking inventory of the people who have told me side-splitting jokes, I find that not one ina thousand is capable, or has the courage, to run down a wild and skit- tish original joke, and, with knife be- tween his teeth, shin up the tree and shake the ‘‘ varmint”’ out. Those two jokes which you say are old I heard ‘way back in the woods of Scho- harie where I was trout fishing. He was an old man who never saw a humoristic paper in his life nor read aught else than the county Democratic organ and the pat- ent-medicine ads in Cold Comfort. I hun- ger for no man’s gore, but deep in my heart is the everlasting wish that I could feast the man who palms off an old joke HOW THE REGULAR NUMBERS ARE EDITED. ‘on me with green apples and warm milk. — Des Comeven Shafer FROM A NEW CONTRIBUTOR. Accompanying a Sonnet to the Mocking Mae 4] DESIRE you to know that the inclosed son- net of six lines are entirely of my own composure with- out assistance from no one. It is not my first attempt at poetickal composition, as Tam the awthor of some- thing like one hundred poems wrote by myself on various lines of thought. Some has been published in our town paper. If desired, will be pleased to send you one a week for your own sheet on any subject wished. The inclosed was wrote in thirteen minutes, although T had not thought it up before I wrote it. It comes natchrel to me to write poetry, one of my own uncles having went crazy while writing poetry and my grand- mother on one side often wrote wedding, birth, and death poetry. § comicbooks.com