WOULD-BEWITS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 2837, 18 September 1890, Page 3

WOULD-BEWITS.

TO THK EDITOR. Sik.—Ainonfj the many petty trials to which we as units of one of those aggre(rations of humanity which constitute a modern civilised community are subjected there is uone more annoying tlmn that of being compelled to listen to one of those self-sufficient and hopeless imbeciles, who with an assurance, incompatible with the possession if any higher or finer mental quality will persist in thrusting thoir illtimed and antiquated jokes—or rather what that semi-chaotic mental condition which constitutes minds of this order, leads them to believe to be such—upon all who have the dire misfortune to come within the sphere of their influence. It would be difficult, if not impossible to find a single town or village which is nut blest with one

jr more of these social pests, who in consequence of some strange and unaccimntablo mental warp delude themselves with the preposterous iden, that they are the recipients of a gift which nature bestows only upon her greatest favourites. These miserable monomaniacs are übiquitous, irrepressible, and aggravating befond measure. But, notwithstanding the torture they so ruthlessly inflictupon us, we might be tempted to forgive them, could we catch bat the faintest glance of originality in those stale old jokes, with which they are fotever bonne: us, and trying to pass off as new, but which, instead of provoking us to mirth, fill our minds with sad and mournful memories of the dim and distant past, reminding ua of the many weary years that have rolled over our heads since the first glimmerings of our infantile intelligence enabled us to vaguely catch their meaning, as they fell from the aged lips of our hoary grandsires. In a savage state where any member of the tribe becomes ft nuisance to his fellows, he may be knocked on the head with the death-dealing club of some bold asserter of the tribal rights or impaled on the ready spear of some determined avenger of the tribal wrongs, and he troubles his people no more. But a mawkish sentimentality, in civilised countries, prevents the adoption of such an elfectual and wholesome method of ridding socioty of such people. It is a remarkable fact that though laws innumerable have been framed for the protection of our lives and property, by some incomprehensible oversight no provision whatever has been made for the preservation of the most precious of all out possessions—our reason—which is left completely at the mercy of a set of insensate asses, who in their ignorance of the first principles of humour, idiotically think themselves witty, while as a matter of fact, their very best attempt at a joke would fail to win a smile, save one of pity or contempt, from anyone possessing the mental calibre of an African bushman. The bright and happy features of the most laughter-loving mortal who has ever put in an appearance on this whirling sphere would grow wild and haggard with dismay at the mere thought of undergoing such a dreadful ordeal as that of listening to what they deem jokes. Even Moimis himself would cease to smile and remain for ever after enveloped in a cloud of ciimnerian gloom and never-ending sadness, should but the faintest sound of one of their wretched witticisms vibrate ever so lightly upr.n his ears. And the man who could devise some means of suppressing either these jokers or their jokes would earu the undjing gratitude of his fellow men.— Yoars truly, Mavdhucu.