The English Joke

North Otago Times, 2 December 1911, Page 2 (Supplement)

The English Joke

By-Bill Nye,

The average Eugllah Jake has ltd peculiarities. A sort of mellow distance; A kind of chastened reluctance. A coy ami timid, yet trusting, though evanescent Intangibility which poftly ■ lingers In tho untroubled air, aodinlls the tired senses to dreamy rent like tk subdued murmur of a bourse Juckiw about nine miles up the gulcn. He must be a hinted wretch, Indeed, who haß not felt his bosom 'jww •and the: scalding tear sMil <lown. V.i furrowed check after he has rend an English Joke, There can Le no hope for the man who has not been tovebed by the gentle, pleading, yet all potent sadBess embodied In the hiimorods paragraph of the true Englishman, One may fritter away his •xistonce In chasing the follies of our day and generation, and have naught to look back upon, but a choice nutriment l! robust regrets; but If he will smp In his mad career to read an Lo-.'llsh pun, h.s attention will be called to the solemn '.thought that life la, after all, but a tearful Journey to the tuiiili, ': Death and d!sa«te r may on every Imn:l .fall lo turn the minds cf a tliougliiic.ii •world to serious matters; but when lb* •London funny m*u grapples with a particularly skittish and evasive joke, with Jits weeping-willow attachment, and •htirlo it at a giddy ned ieeKlf» lmJmaulty, a prolonged wall of anguish 'goes up from broken hearts, and a .sombre pall hangs In the gladsome sky [like a pair of soldier's pants with only one suspender, If the lost and undone victim to the great catalogue of damning vice and enervating dissipation will for a innjnent turn his mind to the solemn consideration of" Punch" and wrestle with It alone where the prying eves of the world cannot penetrate, though unused to tears, the fountains of the gfrntJjw) In his nature will be opened upSWie will see the blackness of Intciisetlarkhcss which surrounds hlrn, and be led - to penitence and nbject humility, The mission of the English humorist 1s to darken the horizon anil .shut otic the false and treacherous joy of exist-ence-to shut out the beauty of the landscape and scatter a two-dollar gloom over the glad green earth, English humour is like a sore toe, It makes you glad when you gel over It. It Is like Jiving the smallpox, because, If you llwjFAnigh it, you'iire not likely to haimmfo. Wh,en we pass from earth nml our place Is filled by another sad-eyed geulus whose pants are too short, an 1 who manifests other signs of greatness, let no storied urn or animated bust he placed over our lowly resting place, but stuff mi English conundrum so that It will look as it did in life, and let' It stand above our silent Just to shed Im damp and bilious inllucncc through the cemetery as a monument of desolation and a fountain of unshed tears, and the grave robber will slum our final resting place as he would the melon patch where lurks the spring gun and the alert and irritable bulldog, O : Queer I'rcrogat ves, The Earl of Denbigh, who has been appointed a lord-ln-waltlng to the Queen, has the hereditary right of-carving all the roast JolnW ot meat that appear upon the royal table, while another nobleman enjoys (the queer prerogative o( holding In his hand ithe sovereign's table napkin and of handing lit to her whenever sho wishes to wipe her I lips. The Dukes of Atholl and of Montrosejactually have appealed to the law courts to , determine which of the two possesses the (hereditary right to the office ot sergeant of ,'the scullery, whoso duty at State banquets consists In seeing that the monarch 'never Is without a clean knife and fork.

Both the Duke of Norfolk and the Duke of Rutland aro associated with the peers above mentioned In attending to the sovereign's liquids at State banquets, the Duko of Norfolk bearing the title of lord chief butler of England. Indeed, It is worthy of rote that there are a far larger number of great nobles charged with dutlw connected with furnishing drink to the sovereign than are assigned to the serving of solid food. Under the circumstances It Is not surprising that the Lord Bishops of Durham, Bath, and Wells should be assigned lo the not altogether ecclesiastical duty of "supporting" the sovorelgn.ou leaving the banqueting hall, I