SCIENCE ON THE FUNNYBONE

Otago Witness, Issue 3590, 2 January 1923, Page 48

SCIENCE ON THE FUNNYBONE

WHY CHARLIE CHAPLIN IS POPULAR. ANALYSIS OF LAUGHTER. LONDON, September 15. Even so solemn an assembly as the British Association must have its proceedings enlivened, and Dr C. W. Kimmins was responsible for some amusing interludes when he gave a variety of points that cause people generally to smile. This eminent educationist was addressing the psychology section, and took as his subject “The Sense of Visual Humour in Children.’’ Having foundl a boy of 14 "who never laughs, Dr Kimmins asked him to give an account of the funniest sight he had ever seen, and he replied that he 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. “When he was asked, if he ever went to the kinema, he replied: ‘Oh, yes, I go because the other boys go, but I have never seen anything in the kinema to laugh at.’ ” “It is an interesting case,” commented Dr Kimmins, “and will be further investigated.” A classification of adlult relatives who make the children laugh was unflattering to father and uncle. “The mother,” said Dr Kimmins, “is rarely tile object who provokes laughter. _ It is generally the uncle and less frequently the father. Occasionally the aunt appears as the mirth-provok-ing element.” He added that children frequently rejoiced at the failure of father, but- never mother. He quoted one girl, who remarked: “It takes a lot to make father laugh, blit even he had to join in.” He said that occurrences in trains, tramcars. and omnibuses provided a rich harvest of humorous situations which were much quoted by children of all classes. He gave as typical examples these two records by a boy and a girl: —The boy: “One evening my mother and I were in a district railway train which was rather crowded. When the train stopped at a station a woman entered the train. A man rose, and the woman said, ‘lt is quite all right, 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 I want to get out.’ ” The girl: “One day my brother, auntie, and I were travelling on the Underground Railway. There was an automatic machine standing in a corner where you put the 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 macliine, bent her head down,-and asked the machine for three to Paddington. Of course we all started laughing, even auntie.” PEDESTAL OF THE DOG AND CAT. The fairy story holds a very important place in the records of the children of funny stories. This hold of the fairy story on the child’s imagination finds expression in the funny sights in the doings of animals. In the fairy story the animals talk and give every indication of possessing a high level of intelligence. In the domestic life of the

child the dog and cat are retained on their pedestal, and are endowed by the children with a much higher range of ability and intelligence than is granted to them by adults. Their quarrels, their love affairs, and their power of dealing with difficult situations approximate to those observed in humegi behaviour. This is clearly shown in the following records: (a) Our dog is very affectionate, but he is very jealous. We had a lovely little kitten given to us, and of course we made a great fuss of it. The dog went out of the room and had a good cry, and when he came back his eyes were red and his cheeks were wet with tears. (b) My father' was reading his paper and the cat jumped on the dresser and put up her paw and stopped the pendulum of the clook. Soon my father looked up and said: “The. clock is stopped.” The cat looked very uncomfortable, ad then she jumped on the dresser again and gave the pendulum a push, and the clock went on again. (c) One day we heard a noise in cur parlour, and we went in very quietly, and there was our cat sit!ing_on the music stool at the piano. Ilis front paws wore on the keys and he-was mewing just as hard as he could. He was trying to sing. The domestic animals thus take a most important position in the kingdom of the child. At all ages the percentage of funny sights in which the cat, dog, or parrot plays an important part is much greater than would have been anticipated. This is especially the case with the girls. At nine years of age 4 per cent, of the boys and 9 per cent, of the girls give a domestic animal incident as the funniest sight they have seen. A LITTLE GIRL’S STORY. “ Mother,” said a little girl, rushing into the breakfast room on April 1, “there is a man kissing nurse upstairs.” When the mother ran upstairs the girl called after here “April fool! It is only Daddy.” Experts say the story is not new, but it caused louder laughter than any of the anecdotes told. Another April'fool story was one told of a little girl. Asked to relate the funniest thing she had seen, she said: A cockerel made himself a little nest, and sat in it, and then clucked like a hen which has laid an egg. The hens gathered round, struck dumb with amazement, but suddenly realised it was All Fools' Day and laughed. A woman, carrying many parcels, was strap-hanging in a trnincar, and dropped nor ticket. She said to the conductor, “Please hold my strap while I find my ticket.” THEORIES OF LAUGHTER. The lecturer spoke of the various kinds of incidents which moved the laughter of children, such as animal stories, fairy stories, in which the parents, especially the father, played a ridiculous part, stories which appeal to the child’s sense of superiority, and analysed and gave examples of each. He discussed various theories of laughter, especially that of Professor M'Dougall, which is that laughter has a distinct biological function—the defence of tlie organism against the many minor pains to which man is exposed by his sensitiveness. The defence is. achieved in two ways —firstly, by the arrest of the painful train of thought, and secondly, by the bodily stimulation resulting from laughter. The plain man may be pardoned perhaps for reminding the learned doctor that nearly 150 yars ago Figaro said that he laughed at the follies of mankind to stop himself from weeping. WIT v. HUMOUR. Dt Kimmins’s chief criticism was that the theory does not cover the whole ground. He dwelt' on the difference between the smile produced by wit and appeals to the mind and laughter caused by htimour and appeals to the senses. He urged the necessity of appreciating the importance to the child of the fairy land in which it lives and which is so real to it/ Repression, he urged, had very injurious consequences to the sensitive child. Incidentally he spoke of the strong appeal made to children by Grock, the famous clown, who gratified fheir sense of superiority by doing foolish things, and doing them like a true artist. THE LOST HAT. 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 ended in a boy being arrested and taken to prison, defending her position by reflections on the 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 lng 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 man 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 thare appears to be a great development cf the finer sense of humour. A simple street incident is thus described by a girl of IS. “ALLOW ME!” A girl carrying a basket on her arm was 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 a gracious smile to restore it. As she drew level the girl leapt on to a passing ’bus and was whirled away, leaving the lady 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, and relieved her of her burden. CHARLIE CHAPLIN. In the discussion which followed Dr Kimmins was asked to explain why Charlie Chaplin was so popular with the young, and he answered “that it is because he is always doing what children are forbidden to do, for the old Adam is strong even in the youngest of us.” Touching on the effect of environment, Dr Kimmins said things that make the poor child laugh, often leave the rich child cold. Guy Fawkes celebrations are mo.-e appreciated in the East than in the West. While the boys were more concerned with the firework fun, the girls were interested and amused by the odd dress of Guy. This was common to all ages.