DEFENSIVE HUMOUR.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 77, 30 March 1912, Page 10

DEFENSIVE HUMOUR.

In, the account of the Duke of Connaught's visit to New York in the Daily Mail we read that interviewers who had joined the Duke's train at least 100 miles fiom its destination prepared to entanglo the Duke in Bt»ch invidious questions as the relative merits of American and Canadian women were kept at bay by the Duke's staff. We were particularly pleased with the discretion of the Speaker's brother, Colonel H. C. Lowther, the Military Secretary, who appeased the appetite of the tormentors by saying— if ho did say it—^something, yet nothing. The windows ot his sleeping compartment had been broken during the night, and he had been covered with the fragments. He is reported to have said, with a touch at once engaging, speculative, and irrelevant, that if this had happened to the Duke the Dukewould not hay« minded' in the least. This evasion of masterly innocence became the material of an "exclusive interview ". in come American newspaper. "DAMN CHICAGO." We are reminded of the story — perhaps no more than a story — which is told of Sir George Dibba in similar circumstances. Sir George Dibbe, tho popular Premier of New South Wales, who had received a knighthood during a visit to England, was crossing the United States ou nis way back to Australia. The newe of his knighthood had not been received well in Australia, and he was prepared to discover on landing that his popularity had vanished. Hie train arrived at Chicago at night, and he was roused from sleep by a party of American reporters. Asked what his opinion of Chicago' was he roared out, "Damn Chicago! ' and slammed the door. The next morning a Chicago paper came out with flaring headlinee: 'Special Interview With Sir George Dibbs, New South Wales's Premier," ''His Opinion of Our City," "Ik Saye, 'Damn Chicago]'" The phrase was a happy one, as it turned ■out, for Sir George Dibbs. Those of hi« countrymen, according to the atory, who held that he had forfeited his characteristic Australian manhood by the acceptance of a knighthood were satisfied that ho had regained it by his burly and heroic treatment of Chicago. " Damn Chicago Dibbs" was rehabilitated. Such are the soothing effects of humoi when it us allowed to play from one aid© or another about a delicate situation. PALMERSTON. Wo wonder whether humour as a weapon for the use of harassed officials has ever had justice done to it. Why should not someone make a compilation of the humorous sallies by monarch**, statesmen, and officials which have saved a situation ? The worst of humour as an official weapon is that it cannot bo recommended as a model. Those who cannot naturally wield it with the right r nuance will not be able to acquire the art. Nothing is more provocative than forced humour or flippancy (unless the flippancy in meant to kill, as Palrnereton s often was) in answer to a serious appeal. It is, however, impossible to continue an argument at all n> the face ot such ridicule as Palmerston's. A «oft answer turns away wrath, but humour turns the point. Such a killing comment was Palmerston's famous response to the citizens of P^ugeley when they asked that the name of their town might be changed owing to the bad leputation which had fallen on it from the minders committed by Dr. William Palmer: "Why not call it. alter me— Palmerstown? ' Palmerston overcame no end of difficulties at the Home' Office by hie liumpioua replies to deputations. LINCOLN'S METHODS. , But we suppose! that the man who employed humour more' consistently than anyon^'else ac a method of evasion was Abraham Lincoln." Sir William Russell, when he was reporting events for The Times just before the American Civil war, was a witness of Lincoln's method one night at a party at the White House. "When men bred in courts," h© wrote, "accustomed to the world, or versed in diplomacy, would use come subterfuge or make 1 a polite speech, or give a snrug of the shoulders, as the means of getting out of an embarrassing position, Mr. Lincoln raises a laugh by some bold Weßt country anecdote, and moves off

hi tho cloud oi memrhent , produced by his joke." Rue&ell then goes on: — "Thus, when Mr. BatoG was remonstrating apparently against the appointment of some indifferent lawyer to a place of judicial 'importance, the President interposed with, ' Come, now, Bates, he's not half as bad ac you think. Besides that, I must tell you h,o did me a good turn long ago. When I took to the law I was going to court one morning, with some ten or twelve mila3 of baa road before me, and 1 had no horse. The judge overtook. me in his wagon. "Hello, Lincoln ! Are you not going to tho courthouse? Come in and 111 give you a seat." Well, I got m, and the 'judge went on reading his paper. Presently the wagon struck a stump on one eide of the road, then it hopped off to the other. I looked out, and I saw the driver was jerking from side to side in his seat; so says I, "Judge, I think your coachman has been taking a little drop too much this , morning." "'VP'ell, I declare, Lincoln," , said he, "I should not much Wonder, if you are right, for ho ha 6 nearly upset; me half a dozen times since starting." •So putting his nead out of the window, he shouted, "Why, you internal scoundred, you, aro drunk 1" Upon which, pulling up his horses and turning round with great gravity, tho conchman said, '■'By gorral that's tho first rightful decision you have given for tho last .twelve-month ."' Whilst tho company was laughmg tho President beat a quiet retreat' from the neighbourhood ot the Attorney-General." THE IRON DUKE AS A HUMOURIST. The Duko of Wellington's letters had a quality of concise and formal bluntness which often had an intense effect of humour. They aro quite inimitable, and even the hastily-scribbled ones bear the indefinable marks of greatness as much as those lnore famous despatches of which De Quincey said that they were "a monument raised to his reputation which will co-oxast with our language." We cannot trace the letter which the Duke wrote to A correspondent jn the subject of Wyatft'a statue of the Duko outside ApsJoy House, but w© remember its substance. Itx will be recalled that when tho stutuo was erected in 1846 it provoked a storm of disapproval, and that ultimately tho statue was removed in 1883 to Aldershot and was replaced by Boehm'e smaller statue. A correspondent wroto to the Duke at the height of tho controversy io.' the 'forties to say that ho "took tbe 'liberty" to ask th'o Duke's own opinion of the statue. The Duke answered in effect as follows :—: — " F.M. the Duko of ''Wellington has rej ceived the letter of Mr. X., in which Mr. X. says that he 'takes ihe 'iberty of asking the Duke of Wellington's opinion of tile statue outside Apsley House. Mr. X. has taken no liberty in asking the Duke of Wellington's opinion. My. X. has a perfect right to ask the Duke of Wellington's opinion. The Diike of Wellington bogs to inform Mr. X. that he has a similar right to withhold from Mr. X. his opinion of th© , statue outside Apsley House." . EVASIVE HUMOUR. , Many legends have sprung up of Dr. Haigh Brown's wit, as, for instance, his reply to an illiterate mother, who wished to "inter" hor eon at Charterhouse, that ho was willing to "undertake" the boy's education. Another answer was to a question as to ■ what "generally", meant in a testimonial which declared that th© conduct' of a boy who was leaving tho school had been "generally good." "Generally," was the answer, means "not particularly." But, the best example, apocrypal or not, of the defensive humour of Dr. Haigh Brown, was his reply to an anxious and worldly mother, who enquired narrowly about the social standing of .the' .parents who sent their boys to Charterhouse : "If your son behaves himself well no questions will bo asked, about his parent* age."— London Spectator. Ex-Senator Depew, the American orator, at a recent dinner, told tho following story on himself:— "l have reoeived many compliments on my skill at afterdinner speaking, but the naivost compliment of all camo from an up-State farmer. 'Senator,' ho said, 'you might have typhoid -and reoover, you might have pneumonia and reoover, and you might havo > yellow fovor and rooover ; but if you over get 'lookjaw you'd burst.' "