Judge — July 5, 1919 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

Drews by Heawax Patera JUDGE EDITORIALS poet A. Stescuer, President -Revnen P. Sueicuen, Secretary Peat ton Mesresies Eater J. A. A! Wauprox, Literary Editor Grant E. Hauitton, Art Director E. Rottaver, Treasurer Lawton Macxatt, Managing Editor Tue Lineace oF Levity VERITABLE tramp of a tome, clad in ragged blue overalls (appropriate color for its con- tents), wandered aimlessly into the sanctum recently. Beneath its archaic exterior were the flesh and bones of a thousand witticisms compiled in 1856. It had all the invitingness of a pro- fessional pall-bearer. Its contributors were such merry wags as Lord Barrymore (no relation to the Barrymores of the stage) and “Dominico, the celebrated harle- quin.” The title of this ponderous collection of sodden quips and quirks is “The Repository of Wit and Humor.” No book of its kind and epoch could | possibly achieve any sale unless labelled “repository” “com- pendium.” But what chance for popularity “would a volume of humor have today with sich a titular handi- cap? The question 1s too easy. Chorus answers “None!” And yet this antique rem- nant of an era when authors thought themselves clever by addressing their audiences as “gentle reader” and an anecdote “made the table rock with laughter” wafts an echo to the modern ear of pleasantries recognizable as the core and stem of much that now passes current as the acme of verbal smartness. Behind the sky-hued boards of “The Repository of Wit and Humor” there cavort the great granddaddies of those “snappy lines” in the latest Broadway comedy hit. The pale, if persistent, ancestors of a hundred fip-to-the-min- ute jokes hold their attenu- ated sides with ironic mirth as they watch the antics of their present progeny i story, epigram and topical yric. Drews ty E. W. Keuue If there be aught of sub-solar novelty in our pcesent output of hurror, its ancestry is still traceable to good old Jce Miller or the “Book of a Thou- sand Anecdotes.’ The newest wheeze sprung from the loins of some jeu d’esprit of Voltaire’s or a dry ob- - servation on the weather from the lips of rain-drenched Tue New Ruc “Hey, Ma! There's a big cat in the parlor and some- body's stepped on him and squashed him.” Noah. Hilarity garbed in words may connote a pres- ent hour fad, but its lineage, you may be sure, harks back to the cave-man and his nimble chisel. The “comic strip” of the newspapers and the side-splitting cartoon with Prohibition or the Peace Treaty as its theme, links up without a break with the painted drolleries on early Egyptian pottery. A of which is in the way of an admonition to hyper- critical sniffers who cry out against “old stuff” even though it evokes the instant chuckle. We would re- buke those who damn out of hand an obvious “scream” because it sports the fringe of usage on the bottom of its metaphorical trouser legs or flourishes a whisker on its jocose chin. Away to the donjon-keep of pessi- mism with all such petty carpers! There may be new things under the sun in me- chanics and art and inter- national politics, but not in the realm of the facetious— unless, of course, you see them in Jupce. JupGELETs Republican Chairman Hays is fussing about the 1920 elections, but likely as not Mr. Wilson will arbitrate the whole shooting match through the League of Nations. . . The first half of a_presi- dent’s term we long for his success—the last half, for his successor. comicbooks.com