Laughs of the World.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVIII, Issue XII, 22 March 1902, Page 550

Laughs of the World.

All the world laughs, though the nations have different ways of showing mirth. The Chinese laugh is rarely as hearty or as expressive as the European or the American. It is oftener a titter than a genuine outburst o, merriment. There is little character or force iu it. As for the Arab, he is generally a stolid fellow, who must either see good reason for a laugh or be surprised into it. In Persia a man who laughs is considered effeminate, but free licence is said to be given to female inerr men,. Colonel Burnaby has written of his experiences among the laughing beauties of a certain district >n the northern part of that country. He says that under cover of the good nature implied by their pretended jollity they make bold to filch everything a traveller may have in his possession. One reads of the “grave Turk” and the “sober Egyptian,” but it is not recorded that they never have moments of mirth —when the fez bobs or the veil shakes under the pressure of some particularly “good thing.” In Mahomet himself Christian writers have noted cordiality and jocoseness, and they say there is a good ringing laugh in the prophet, with all his seriousness. A traveller has noted the Italian laugh as languid but musical, the German as deliberate, the French a spasmodic and uncertain, the upper class English as guarded and not always genuine, the lower class English as explosive, the Scottish of all classes as hearty, and the Irish as rollicking.