Judge — February 2, 1918 — page 5: what you’re looking at

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

Volume 74 J UDGE Pounded 188 Number 1804 “THE HAPPY MEDIUM” $5.00 a Year ew York, F RUARY 2, 1918 Foreign $6.00 *“A Solitary Shriek; A Bubbling Cry” Being a Comment on the Difference Between English and American .Humor By CampBe.i ITH a fine and kindly condescension, as gentle as the rattling of furnace coal down an iron chute, our English cousins have admitted that we may have an occasional funny bone in our national body, but that it requires a post-mortem to locate it. And on the other hand, we, with an emollient irony that removes the hide where it touches the Anglian corporeality, have persistently wondered what brand of sawdust the English wear in their craniums that they cannot recognize true humor when it dances before them and makes signs. In the cause of a great international amity I have determined that the fool who usurped the angelic pre- rogative shall have nothing on me. Herewith I pur- pose to reveal, for the first time in the history of human- ity, just what constitutes the difference between Eng- lish and American humor, and to do it in language and terms so simple that even a college president may under- stand, with the aid of a few naive diagrams. There- fore—— To begin with, we as a nation are a funny people. We admit it. We are well aware that when it comes to cultivating a batch of smiles we have Aristophanes signalling for assistance. It is one of our congenital characteristics, and we coyly ac- knowledge that possibly Comus may have had a mild flirtation with one of our na- tional ancestors in the dim maze of ages past. The English are equally willing to concede that they possess a neat aggre- gation of humorists; that the silent chuckle is quite as potential as the raucous cachin- MacCu.tocu recently learned that one of those cruel outrages Ire- land lays at England’s door is the charge that the latter won't admit there is anything funny about Ireland, save the appearance of the natives. You'd join the Sein Fein or the Clan na Gael yourself on equal provocation. But to get down to the basic difference between English and American humor; to attempt the bridging of the gulf that is fixed between the twiggly emotions of the two nations, and so permit at least a modicum of reciprocal appreciation. i, et us put the matter in a statement of simple mien. Let us first enunciate our thesis of most ingenuous character. Listen! American humor consists of over- statement, while English humor is based upon under- statement. Never thought of that before, have you? And isn’t it absurdly and deliciously simple? Isn’t— Eh? You don’t catch the idea? Well, well! Um-h-h-h! Let’s see-e-e-e. Ah, yes, here we have two excellent examples. Let us take our own product first. I can’t give you the author’s name, but I found the story in The Best Magazine In America—Harken to that chorus of identification. Truly modesty is a charming maid, but to proceed A murder had occurred in an Ohio hotel lobby, and at the trial one of the witnesses was a colored bell-boy. The prosecutor had him on the stand. “Now, Johnson, you say you heard two shots.” “Yessah. Jes’ two shots, sah.” “And how far apart were these two shots?” “*Bout five seconds, sah. Jes’ bout laik natory exercise we indulge in, and they are N ’ ¢ > D positive that true humor cannot be located 4 A dis—” and the witness clapped his hands with a microscope outside England. I have at a brief interval.