100 Mr. William Samuel Lilly [March 13, 



" Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his life 

 That th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, 

 And marched round in front of a drum and a fife, 

 To git, some of 'em office and some of 'em votes ; 



But John P. 



Eobinson, he 

 Sez they didn't know everything down in Judee." 



Artemus Ward, another great master of American humour, has 

 not surpassed this. But I think he has equalled it : as, for example, 

 in his account of his visit to Brigham Young : — 



" You are a married man, Mr. Young. I bleeve," says I, preparing to write 

 him some free piirsis. 



" I've 80 wives, Mr. "Ward. I sertinly am married." 

 *' How do you like'it as far as you hev got ? " said I. 

 He said, " Middlin." 



But the American newspapers, even the humblest of them, con- 

 stantly contain things just as good. A correspondent the other day- 

 sent me some obscure journal, published in the far West, I think, 

 wherein I found a story which strikes me as so superlatively excellent a 

 specimen of American humour that I shall venture to read it to you. 

 It is called, " A Cool Burglar, Too." 



" I think about the most curious man I ever met," said the retired burglar, 

 " I met in a house in Eastern Connecticut, and I shouldn't know him either if I 

 should meet him again, unless I should hear him speak ; it was so dark where 

 I met him that I never saw him at all. I had looked around the house down- 

 stairs, and actually hadn't seen a thing worth carrying off, and it wasn't a bad 

 looking house on the outside, either. I got upstairs, and groped about a little, 

 and finally turned into a room that was darker tban Egypt. I hadn't gone more 

 than three steps in tliis room when I heard a man say, ' Hello, there.' 



" ' Hello,' says I. 



" ' Who are you ? ' said the man, ' burglar ? ' 



" And I said yes, I did do something in that line occasionally. 



" ' Miserable business to be in, ain't it ? ' said the man. His voice came from 

 a bed over in the corner of the room, and 1 knew he hadn't even sat up. 



" And I said, ' Well, I dunno ; I've got to support my family someway.' 



" ' Well, you've just wasted a night here,' said the man. ' Didn't you see 

 anything downstairs worth stealing ? ' 



" And I said no, I hadn't. 



" ' Well, there's less upstairs,' says the man, and then I heard him turn over 

 and settle down to go to sleep again. I'd like to have gone over there and 

 kicked him. But I didn't. It was getting late, and I thought, all things con- 

 sidered, that I might just as weU let him have his sleep out." 



And now having thus taken, so to speak, a bird's-eye view of the 

 vast domain of the Ludicrous, let us go on to inquire if we can arrive 

 at any true theory about it. Can we define the Ludicrous ? Is there 

 a Ludicrous in the nature of things — an Objective Ludicrous, as well 

 as a Subjective Ludicrous ? In other words, what is the Ludicrous 

 in itself, and what is it to us ? And what is the faculty which com- 

 prehends and judges the Ludicrous ? These are questions which con- 

 front us when we seek to deal with the matter philosophically. And 



