Life — July 2, 1914 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

“aESIARSE™ Your Last Chance There Is Just Time to Get Your Title In—if You Have Not Already Sent It—Provided It Reaches LIFE Office Before Noon on Thursday, July 2nd For the Best Tit to This Picture in Twenty Words or Less LiFE Will Pay $500 Conditions of the Contest The title, with sub-title, or in what- ever form submitted, must not exceed twenty words. The paper upon which the title is sent should contain nothing but the title, with the name and ad- dress of the author in the upper left- hand corner. Manuscripts should be addressed to The Contest Editor of Lire, 17 West 31st Street, New York. Envelopes addressed in any other way will not be considered. All titles submitted must be at Lire office not later than Thursday, July 2, 1914. The contest will close at noon of that date. Within two weeks from July 4, a check for $300 will be sent to the winner, Announcement of winner will be made in Lire’s issue of July 30. It is not necessary to be a subscriber to Lire in order to compete., Only one title from each contestant will be considered. No manuscript will be returned The editors of Lire will be the judges. They will award the prize to the title which, in their judgment, is the most deserving, and will debar any contribution not conforming to these conditions. The classification of the titles will be supervised and certi- fied by Messrs. Lybrand, Ross Bros. & Montgomery, certified public ac- countants. The sooner you get your answer in the better. In previous contests many have arrived too late. The Philosophy of Fun ‘WO or three times a year some prying psychologist, bent on split- ting the last hair on a_bald-headed joke, arises to explain the philosophy of humor. Humor, they say, is an exaggeration, a surprise, an odd com- parison, a ridiculous situation. They can put a piece of humor under the glass and show you its component parts, explain convincingly and sol- emnly. why it is funny. They can trace a joke from the time it hatches in the brain of the humorist until it scratches a laugh from the diaphragm of the serious-minded world-fixer on the nail-keg in the village store. But the funny part of it is after discovering the required elements in a joke and the exact preparations, they can’t for the life of them put one to- gether, Who ever heard of a psycholo- gist being funny—unless accidentally? And that, perhaps after all, is one of the best explanations of real humor— it is accidental. It is not intended, it is not done on purpose. It is just the peculiar, whimsical but entirely natural viewpoint of some serious-minded, solemn-faced individual—and it strikes us as funny. We laugh heartily and call him a humorist. He is surprised at first, and often shocked that we don’t take him seriously; and is only resigned to his classification as a funny man when it begins to Laughter and that which brings it are like the rains of heaven and the hot winds of Kansas. They fall upon the unjust and blow upon the justifier. We know what they are and the direc- tion from whence they come. But we cannot with all our philosophy and wit make them come when we are dry or go away when ‘ve want to play; or tell when they will come again. William H. Hamby. Urgent Necessities ON'T our scientific wizards go to work upon devis- ing ways and means out of these diffi- culties? We need devices that will keep people who overeat from having dyspepsia; people with too much re- sponsibility from being nervous wrecks ; people who overrest from being bored ; people who are overcoddled from being peevish; people who are over- worked from being consumptive; chil- dren who have to toil in factories from growing up stunted and stupid; children who are bred in evil surround- ings from being criminal; women who have nothing to do from being ex- travagant; young people who are born rich from being frivolous and incon- sequential; and people who are under- paid from being poor. some of comichookyicom