Miss Thirteen and Her Father.

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 35, 4 November 1922, Page 11

Miss Thirteen and Her Father.

HOW CHILDREN TELL IN WRITING THE AMUSING THINGS THEY SEE.

X THEN asked to give an account of the funniest sight he had ever seen, a Vy b °y of fourteen years of age said he had never seen a funny sight. Inquiries seemed to indicate that he never derives any pleasure from the contemplation of a humorous situation. He is quite intelligent, but ( apparently he never laughb. Asked whether he ever went to the cinema he said, Oh, yes, I go-because the other .boys go, but I have never, seen anything in the cinema to laugh at.’ It is an interesting case and will be further investigated/ . - —Dr. C. W. McKimmins, at the British Association.

( ( -a—R. 0. W. KIMMLNS attracted a large and eagerly amused Q '{X audience to thg Psychological Section of the British Association 1 I Bby one of his studies of the growing-child. He stirs thought H yjp am&ngst teachers, and an appreciation of the problems which face them, by telling funny stories with a moral. His subject was “The Sense of Visual Humour in Children.” He considered the theory of Professor McDougall, that there is a definite instinct of laughter, with its accompanying emotion, which is of great biological significance. One ot the most amusing stories he told was this; — “Children frequently criticise their parents,” he said, "and rejoice at the failure of the father, but they never criticise the mother. One girl remarks - . ‘lt takes a lot to make father laugh, but even he had to join in.' “After her father’s unsuccessful attempt to amuse the baby in the absence of thg mother, a girl says: ‘I am afraid if baby always had to play with/ father he would not get much amusement.’ ■-‘ , i ■ FATHER TRIES TO COOK. “Here is the record reflecting on. the father of a girl of thirteen: — “When mother went away for a week to stay with a friend dad tried a hand at the cooking. Of course he was quite sure of himself, as all men are, though he' had never done any cooking before. After fussing about for some time he decided to make some cakes. He put on a big blue apron which nearly enveloped him and commenced to mix the batter. I knew he was putting the wrong flour in and not enough sugar, and 1 told him so, but he waved me aside and told me to keep quiet. I soon tired of looking at it, so I went upstairs to do my lessons. Presently I noticed a faint smell of burning. Rushing down the stairs three at a time I beheld my dad, the blue apron practically ruined, the kitchen full of smoke, and his face as red as a lobster. Thp humour of the situation struck mo and 1 burst out laughing. This was too much for him. Getting a handful of the cakes (which nad " been hopelessly burnt), he threw them at me. I managed to dodge them, and ran upstairs and laughed till the tears ran down my face. 1 shall never forget dad and the burnt cakes, which was quite the funniest thing 1 have seen for a long time. PUNCH AND JUDY. ' > “The Punch and Judy show contains many of the essential elements/Of mirth-production, and an spite of all the rival claims of various street performances and the comic incidents of train, tram, and ’bus, it makes a constant appeal to the children of all ages. It is always more popular with the boys than the girls. That the Punch and Judy show appears in some -form in practically all civilised- countries is significant. “The sights whiqh evoke laughter vary considerably with the environment. The child carefully nurtured in a good home has a different appreciation ot a comical incident to that of the clfild living in sordid surroundings. ;lhis was well shewn in the appreciation of elements in the street processions which have begn so common in large cities in recent years. Guy Fawkes celebrations attract far more attention in the East End than in tho West End. Hie poor child’s joy in a visit to the ‘Zoo,’ or 7 to the country, with all the new • expert-**-ences and laughter-provoking incidents involved, would leave thp child accustomed to sqch experiences comparatively unaffected. In all humorous situations involving a quaint attire the number selected by thp girls ns the funniest sight were greatly in excess of those selected by the boys. In the Guy Faw'kes incidents the boys were concerned with the situations created by the

fireworks and the girls with the odd dress of the Guy. This WftS common to all ages. ‘ ' HUMOURS OF THE OMNIBUS. . “Occurrences m trains, trams, and omnibuses provide a rich harvest ot humorous situations, which are much quoted by the children of all classes. The fat man who takes up too much room, the woman with too many parcels, altercations with tho conductor, overcrowding, heated discussions between fellow-passengers, the smart repartee, the curious mixture ,of all classes, the political discussions, the straphanger who treads on people’s toes, and is requested not to loiter on them, the woman, also a straphanger, who has lost her ticket and asks the conductor to hold her strap while she looks for it—all afford occasions for boisterous fun in which the child revels. ’ “Here are two typical examples of records by a boy and a “(a) One evening my mother and I were in a District Railway train wFnch, was rather crowded. When the train stopped at a station a woman entered the train. A gentleman rose, and the lady sa ’ c l : * s alright, keep your seat, for I am going to get out soon.’ With that she pushed him back into his seat. Again the man rose, and again the lady pushed him back. The man, after being pushed back three times, said: ‘When you ve finished 1 want to get out/ •* (b) One day my brother, auntie, and I were going a journey on the Underground Railway. There was an automatic machine standing in a corner where you put tho money in and the ticket falls out. My brother said to auntie: ‘That is where you get the tickets,’ so auntie walked up to the machine, bent her head down, and asked the machine for three to Paddington. Of course we all started laughing, even auntie. It was really the funniest sight I have ever seen, auntie asking the machine for tickets. A STREET INCIDENT. “Very few cases are quoted in which the spiteful element occurs, such as that of the girl who describes the funniest sight she saw, which enileq in a boy being arrested and taken to prison, defending her position by reflections on tho morality of the boy. The lost hat occupies an absurdly important position as an occasion of mirth to the onlooker, and this is accentuated when a man, after a long chase, recovers the wrong hat and finds his own on his back held there by the hat-guard. The minor accidents of the street, such as the mpn who falls into the mud in trying to get on the omnibus, or who slips on orange peel or a banana skin, form the bulk of the cases quoted. Curiously, the man who provokes mirth in these street accidents is nearly always a fat man. . “At about the age of 17 in the case of boys and about 18 years of age in the case of girls there appears to be a great development of a finer sense of humour. A simple street incident is thus described by a girl of 18: — “A girl carrying a basket on her arm wak crossing the street when out of the basket dropped a large dinner knife. The girl was apparently unaware of her loss, but an elegantly attired lady, a few paces behind, picked it up and hastened forward with a gracious smile to restore it. As she drew level the girl-leapt on to a passing bus and was whirled away, leaving the laly with the_dinner knife held in her white-gloved hand. It was obviously impossible to drop the knife again, and there was no way of concealing it. However, a somewhat peculiar knight-errant appeared in the guise of a street cornet player, who, perceiving her plight,, stepped forward with an exaggerated bow and a smiling ‘Allow me, Madam,’ and relieved her of her burden.