HEARTY LAUGHTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 45, 22 February 1934, Page 6

HEARTY LAUGHTER.

TONIC IN DEPRESSION. (To the Editor.) How rare it is to hear a good hearty laugh these days! Yet there is nothing better than laughter for driving away dull care. Aucklanders rarely laugh. Have they lost this power through nerves, or has the depression cifaced laughter from their souls and substituted its own likeness instead? Why, even little children merely pucker up their faces and exhale a generally bad breath instead of laughing. But perhaps this applies only to children of the poorer districts where the depression has hit hardest. Now in my youth, it was a rare thing for a day to pass without hearing frequent sounds of happy laughter, and at that time, in overcrowded London, there was less reason for it than there is in this fair city to-day. I was reminded of this while on business in a hotel recently by hearing someone laughing gloriously. It was on© of"those good old-fashioned laughs with a clarion ring which sets one's 'blood a-tingling, and, wondering who was the possessor of such a divine gift, I turned round and saw a young priest convulsed with merriment, for he and his friends were enjoying themselves in spite of the depression. All ihose around must have felt better for that laugh; for all conversation ceased for a moment, and each face lit up with a smile. This incident suggested what I had noticed before, that only the truly religious can laugh genuinely and that whenever the worldly man laughs his laugh is invariably a failure. Can it bo that religion develops laughter in one's soul and worldliness only groans? However, laughter being one of life's true values, it behoves all of us to try and develop this gift. But if we can't of our own accord, we can at least say with the local poet: Lord give me laughter for a buckler, I>est to the blows of life I yield, When m.v head is bowwl to the press of foeman. Lord give me laughter for a shield. S. R. HALE.