THE MISERY OF LAUGHTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 102, 2 May 1930, Page 6

THE MISERY OF LAUGHTER.

Why is it that in our preeent day society a hearty laugh is taboo? For what reason is such a healthful, natural impulse subdued? Come reformers, spend your superfluous energy on combating the stifling influence of this blase age. A young girl, freeh from the country, well bred and the daughter of a personage, enters a drawing room. The frozen atmosphere melts perceptibly as her eunny personality permeates the room. After she has been seated a while and during a conversation with her neighbour something amuses her and she laughs, a rippling, infectious laugh. She wasn't eent to a finishing school, remember, but to her maternal uncle in the backblocks whilst her mother travelled; and she had not been taught that a laugh is unladylike. So ehe laughs, but jio echoing laughter resounds through the room. "Society" is too well bred to even raise its eyebrows, but the reeponse to that laugh freezes the heart of the girl. She has committed a faux pas. The cruelty of it! Had this girl been trained as are our other society girls she would know that to crush every natural instinct, is the correct thing. Do you say this is not bo in New Zealand? In some districts it may not be, but in one little town that I know well the children are taught to be not -natural (although to be natural is supposed to be essential if one is to be considered a lady or a gentleman), and they grow up sacrificing body and soul to this foolishness of being "correct." The reason why they do not rebel is because they have never known anything different. These boys and girls are under the impression that to laugh is vulgar (a really hearty laugh, I mean), and that the being who laughs is a boor. Have you not seen the boredom on the faces of our maidens and youths ? I put the maidens first because they are less often allowed any freedom of expression even in these times of female freedom. Do they really, feel bored ? If so they can't know what a satisfaction it is to be happy, or, if ignorance is bliss, maybe they are happy in their own way. But we who laugh know what joy and health they are missing through being repressed. Our country girl, the happy, wholehearted spirit of youth, goes to the "talkies." At the first humorous scene or sally she forgets the reception of her laughter in the drawing room and bursts into a gurgle of sheer enjoyment; but evidently no one else has seen the joke, for not a laugh besides hers disturbs the silence. So our laughter-loving maiden quickly etifles her laugh. Sometimes, mind you, a comedian is clever enough to break down the barrier of control. Then the audience gives way to unrestrained mirth, and how our country girl enjoys herself , . But (oh, that horrid little "but"!) back in the drawing room she loses herself in the recollection of that glorious experience; an audience convulsed with laughter, and she laughs again—and once more there is that silence which seems to say, "What lack of control in an otherwise ladylike girl." So our country maiden cither returns to the more sympathetic companionship of wise old uncle and the birds and beasts, or, if her mother insiste on her remaining in "society," she controls her laughter, freezes her smile and acquires the habits of our blase youth. —ROCK.