of intellect to keep in view the various facts
that bear upon any inquiry, and as facts
multiply and theories become complex, there
cannot be a doubt that the same kind of
attention and accuracy, and somewhat similar
calculations will be needed for it, as have long
been felt necessary in the pursuit of physical
astronomy. Meteorology bids fair to be an exact
science.

AMERICAN HUMOUR.

THE origin of American humour is a difficult
question, and is surrounded by a thorny thicket
of theories and doubts.

First, comes an Irish element of humorous
exaggeration, brag and fun, with a fondness for that
special Irish feature—the bull.

Secondly, a Spanish element of pugnacity and
conceit, and hatred of negroes, with a strongly
developed love of the marvellous.

Thirdly, a German element of homeliness and
simplicity, and embracing all stories of German
settlers.

Fourthly, an Indian element of ferocity and
daring, mingled with self-applauding narratives
of hunting-stories and local lies about animals,
including especially adventures with snakes and
feats with the rifle.

Fifthly, a Puritan element, dry, grave, and
chuckling, and embracing all stories of preachers,
prayer-meetings, and anti-slavery stories.

Lastly, a special American element arising
from the fusion of all these: sobered by
German influences; made vivacious by French
influences; passionatised by Indian climate; made
bragging and chivalrous by Spanish alliances;
made dry, sectarian, fervid, by hereditary Puritan
feeling; yet in itself neither pure German,
French, Spanish, Indian, Puritan, English,
Scotch, or Irish—but American, whole and
undivided.

About five-and-twenty years since American
humour first became really popular and soundly
rooted in England. Mrs. Trollope and Marryat
heralded its advent. It gained the public ear
as soon as the prejudices of the old foolish
and lamentable war had died out; it came
wrapped in cotton; it came as a new fruit or
vegetable to try if there was a market for it;
our own old fun was dying out; our new fun was
beginning, and there was room for American fun;
we tried it and liked it, as we had done oranges
after eating apples for hundreds of years. We
learned to relish the flavour, though cross-grained
people and bitter critical people called it
"extravagant," "ridiculous," and most horrible of all
to respectable people's ears—vulgar. We had
so long been taught to think the Americans
convicts, rebels, cruel smugglers, slave-drivers,
that we scarcely liked at first to retail even their
fun. By degrees, like crinoline, hair-powder,
and other ephemeral follies, it grew from a
luxury into a necessity. Daily conversation
wanted it as much as the "dandy" wanted kid
gloves, perfumes, and boxes at the opera.
Rice, too, gave it a great impetus. He was
a second-rate American comedian, who had
suddenly hit on a new idea. He had studied the
droll negro boatman on the wharf at Vicksburg,
on the Mississippi, learnt his songs, caught his
droll jargon, copied his walk, and borrowed his
dances. Negro fun had hitherto been thought
dangerous ground—no one had imitated it.
Rice tried it, and succeeded. His negro career
was one long triumph. Even his imitators
became popular. He came over to England,
jumped Jim Crow to a pretty tune, and
introduced among us our blessing and curse in the
shape of negro minstrelsy and American jokes.
Of course, his songs were not pure negro; they
were not even American songs; they were
generally Irish and Scotch tunes, furbished up
and rearranged—good old tunes too, not
unjustly dug up again, but they were sung in the
negro manner, and his dialogue was spiced
with American jokes, divested of their provincial
shell or rind. At this time, when the New
Orleans Picayune was teeming with absurd fun,
and offering prizes "for the biggest lie,"
England was deluged with Yankee jokes—as, for
instance:

"There is a man in Nashville, Kentuck," says an
American paper, "so enormously tall that he has
to get up a ladder to shave himself."

Or,

''There is a man in Memphis, Tennessee," says an
American paper, "who is so absent, that the other
day he tucked up his wet umbrella in bed and stuck
himself up in the corner to dry."

Or,

"There is a farmer in Ohio," says an American
paper, "who, learning that skunks lived three
hundred years, has just bought one, to see if the report
is true. He is 'some pumpkins' on his new purchase."

Half these jokes were old Joe Millers, the
last one even going back as far as that primeval
joker Heraclitus; but they did very well for
"Buncombe," and the Americans are not a
reading people, nor does business leave many of
them much time to think. About this time the
dangers of travelling in America were typified
for our amusement in good stories of captains
sitting on the safety-valves of steamers; of lady
passengers giving whole deck-loads of bacon
hams to feed the fires of racing steamers; in
stories of explosions, where the captain exerts
himself to save only the passengers who haven't
paid their fares. Then we had hosts of negro
blunders, showing that half-simple, half-crafty
race in a ludicrous and good-natured light, but
never in an heroic, defiant, or intellectual
attitude.

But I can illustrate all this better by specimens
drawn from a popular jest-book, value
twenty-five cents, sold by thousands last year at
all the railway stations from New Jersey to New
Orleans. It is a good specimen of the ordinary
conversational fun of average people in America.
It is neither better nor worse; it is adorned
with the crudest wood-cuts, and is printed in
the most economically large type. It is entitled