Shrapnel (Pointed Humor)

1916

A doctor's pills may cure some ill — but not ill humor.

Courtship is a game in which a girl plays her heart against a man's diamond.

If women looked like the pictures in fashion magazines men would take to the woods.

It isn't necessary for a man to be a hypnotist in order to get his mind concentrated on the toothpick.

If time were money, the average man would have his watch geared to run forty-eight hours a day.

A young widow knows that the easiest way to catch a successor to the late lamented is to run away from him.

If the phoenix of common sense rises from the ashes of a fool's money the conflagration has not been in vain.

Possibly an honest man might be otherwise if an opportunity worth while were to knock at his front door.

Many Powers of Intuition in Life

1910

By Lyne S. Metcalfe

A surface motorman awakened a train of thought not long ago when he stopped his ear shortly at a crossing. There was apparently no one there waiting to get on; a woman was standing on the curb not even looking toward the moving car, yet when the car came to this corner the motorman brought it to a standstill and sure enough the women hurried out of the crowd and clambered aboard.

"How'd you know that woman wanted to get on?" he was asked as the controller was thrown on again and the car started with a jerk.

"Just felt it," he laughed, "didn't know it. A fellow's affected that way in this business. How many people nowadays signal the motorman when they want him to stop? It's some sort of power, I guess, that tells me. I can't explain just what it is."

The patient knight of the motor voiced one of the most bewildering psychological truths found in the entire downtown propaganda, where about every nip and tuck of the human habit, custom or peculiarity finds a shining place. Taking metropolitan humanity as a whole, there are few who do not use intuition in the course of the average workday.

A certain teller in a large Chicago bank recognizes intuition so a faithful and valuable ally, one that can be put to good uses, though one that is not infallible. A "J. Rufus Wallingford" may stroll into this man's bank, toss a thousand dollar check over the counter in a blasé manner and something may "tell" the teller that the check isn't any good.

"I just feel it," he explains this strange power at intuition.

And the check may be turned down or, on the other hand, something may "tell" the cashier that the man is good — he just feels it.

Scoffers are referred to the average policeman.

Does the city detective always know a crook when he plucks him out of a downtown crowd, when the man's back perhaps is turned to the officer of the law?

He feels that the shoulders and neck ahead of him — the head crowned with a battered derby — is wanted. Often he does not know the crook's name and could not tell why he arrests him until the man is hauled back to the station and his photo is found gracing the limelight in the rogues' gallery some months or years back, the intuition in a case of this sort being extremely strong, as records prove amply.

Mrs. Humphrey's Strong Feelings About Fashion

1911

Editorial Zingers

The truth is that the love of dress is, next after drink and gambling, one of the curses of our country. -- Mrs. Humphrey.

The Boston young woman who worked eight years on her trousseau must have had unusual, though not well founded, faith in the stability of the styles.

A Montreal doctor recently contributed a pint of his own blood to save the life of a patient. Some doctors seem to be actuated by a sincere desire to cure.

The autocrats of fashion may succeed in making women wear the ugly Turkish "harem" stress, but no autocrat now living will ever succeed in shutting women up.

"I know not where I am," cried a poetess in one of the magazines. English critics of American literature will wonder why she did not say: "I know not where I am at."

An English paper announces that Americans lack the sense of humor. That sounds like the argument of the man who satisfies himself by exclaiming: "You're another!"

A Canadian highbrow tells us that the temperature seven and a half miles above the earth is 90 degrees below zero. Let this be a warning to builders of skyscrapers.

Differences Seen in Men's and Women's Sense of Humor

1904

Best Judges of Humor

It takes a better joke to make a woman smile than it takes to make a man laugh for five minutes. A man will laugh at a stale joke every time, but a stale joke makes a woman feel like weeping.

These are two of the comparisons between the feminine and the masculine senses of humor made by Oreola Williams Haskell in the current number of The Club Woman, the official publication of the General Federation of Women's Clubs.

"One of the differences between man and woman," declares the writer, "and one frequently alluded to by the former, is that he has a strong sense of humor and she has none at all. This truth by woman is accounted for by the fact that her long association with man through the centuries has effectively knocked out whatever festive spirit she once possessed, and man attributes his easily aroused risibilities to a habit acquired while observing the vagaries of the feminine mind.

"Whatever the true explanation may be, it is conceded by all that man would rather laugh than weep, and that woman is at least undecided as to whether she prefers to smile at a stale joke or to attend a tragic play with four pocket handkerchiefs ready to dry her tears.

The writer objects strongly to man's habit of making fun of his wife's shortcomings as a housekeeper to call forth a laugh.

She urges that man's play upon woman's credulity is one of his chief joys, and, speaking of this, Mrs. Haskell declares, "Thus it is seen on what a high plane man indulges his sense of humor. If woman would be his true companion, let her sympathize with and heartily enjoy what amuses and attracts him and appreciate the comic gems of which he is the author. For woman must remember that we are put here to be disciplined, and, though the funny side of life is often the saddest, she must be content to suffer, to pay for the exquisite privilege of living in the same world with him."

Speaking of the various kinds of humor enjoyed by men and women, the writer says, "At the present time man evinces a great fondness for what may be called physical humor. While the petticoated portion of an audience will receive a vaudeville set-to with stolid indifference, what interest it awakens in the kind of people who have a proclivity for rushing out between the acts!

"When the heavy comedian comes out and greets a diminutive companion with such a resounding whack on the back that the latter falls prostrate on the stage, the bass roar of the male voice peals from orchestra circle to highest balcony, while soprano giggle is strangely silent. Again, when an individual whom burnt cork and paint have rendered almost unhuman portrays the inebriate with his zigzag promenade and his hiccoughed utterances, with what responsive glee he is hailed by his own sex!

"Woman lacks the keen intellect to see the delicate wit in pugilistic thumps rained on crouching shoulders and spasmodic kicks that result in nasty and undignified departures from the scene of action. She is also without the power to appreciate the sidesplitting humor of a drunkard's tumbles or a rough-and-tumble fight. It is man alone who can understand just where the comic element comes in and who can enjoy the fine shades of distinction between a punch and a pound, a misstep and a fall, a disagreement and a rumpus.

"But besides physical fun man indulges his love for the spoken, the written and the acted joke. So great indeed, is his fondness for the former that he even bears with equanimity the constant repetition of the same witticisms from one year's end to another."