SCHOOLS OF HUMOUR.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 3174, 19 June 1900, Page 7

SCHOOLS OF HUMOUR.

It is an unhappy knack that nature has of dragging mortals through the mire in order to make them wise. Only after a long time do men learn that it ia possible to laugh and yet be wise, whilst very few attain to such a height of wisdom as to know that laughter —honest, natural, ringing laughter —ia wisdom's ally and friend. For humorous education Britishers have to visit their cousins in the Far Weat, except when their presence, as in the case of Bret Harte in our very midst, saves us the trouble. America's humour is not the least of the good things that come across the Atlantic. It is as wholesome and energizing to the mind as ozone to the body. The man or woman who does not periodically exercise his risible faculties is out of order. Either he requires pills, or preaching, or provender; and in any case he may find his way to prison. Everybody Bhould be in possea»- -• ion of the opportunity for mirth —the out- • ward chance and the inward condition. Britons are too stolid altogether. Josh • Billings says that • Man is the only crea- • ture that laughs —angels don't, animals can't, and devil's won't.' Who knows whether the humorist hadn't an eye on Englishmen when he said this ? Nothing i isjmore contagious than laughter; nothing ■ more invigorating to those occupied in l severe toil; nothing more terrifying to the i selfish exclusiveness with which man is . afflicted. Schools of laughter are sorely needed to save men and women from conventional mirth. Society laughter hardly l deserves the name. There are those whose whole life is such a falsetto that tli'eir faces follow suit. People laugh—Heaven L forgive the word ! —to deceive, to be polite, j ■ to be considered agreeable. As for the I sounds they emit, music knows them not j they come neither frora the cheat nor from ; the throat. .