43i 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[May 1. 1915. 



The Rubber Joke. 



IN "Gum-Elastic and Its Varieties, with a Detailed Account of 

 Its Application and I ses," which was not only the first rub- 

 ber book published in this country but which still remains 

 the most interesting contribution to our rubber literature, 

 Charles Goodyear gave a list of 400 different articles that could 

 In made from this substance. Considering the fact that rubber 



The Rubber Plate Lifter. 



had but recently come into use, it was a list of extraordinary 



completeness. Though it was compiled 62 years ago, almost 



rubber development that has taken place since was prac- 



Tiif. Effect of the Dancing Plate on the Uninitiated. 



tically mentioned in that list — with one exception. It said noth- 

 ing whatever about rubber jokes. But this omission was quite 

 natural under the circumstances, for, in the first place. Mr. 

 Goodyear himself was a man of an exceptionally serious cast 

 of mind. Moreover, he lived in a very serious age which had not 

 yet begun to cultivate the lighter side of life. 



But times have changed, and man no longer looks upon him- 

 self as simply a working animal. He insists upon being amused. 

 Hence, among other forms of entertainment, the rubber joke. 



The rubber j oke is really a logical development. The very nature 

 of the substance — its elasticity, plasticity, its ability to undergo 

 all manner of distortions and contortions and then return 

 serenely to its original form, and particularly its possibilities in 

 the way of pneumatic effects — its ready conveyance of air pres- 

 sure — all make it a wonderfully effective agency for the players 

 of pranks, and especially for that arch humorist known as the 

 practical joker. 



It probably would lie stretching the subject a little to say that 

 rubber jokes are as many as the sands of the seashore, but it is 

 quite true that if thi all collated they would till a very 



sizable catalog Ami the number is being added to every week. 

 'Ibis dissertation is not intended as an inventory; but its pur- 

 pose is simply to describe a few of the more popular (or more 

 unpopular — it depends upon winch end of the joke you happen to 

 of the various forms that rubber humor takes. Perhaps the 

 most effective of these rubber jokes are those that are provided 

 with a bulb and tube for accomplishing pneumatic effects — with 

 results that are often startling. One of the most noteworthy 

 of this class is the plate lifter. This consists of a small, thin 

 rubber bag which when inundated has hardly any perceptible thick- 



ness. It is connected by a fine rubber tube several feet in length 

 with a rubber bulb. Its use is after this wise: Before the diners 

 are invited to take their seats, the bag is slipped under the table- 

 cloth in front of the intended victim, under the place that his 

 plate will naturally occupy. The tube goes invisibly under the 

 table, across to the other side, where the operator is to be lo- 

 cated. By pressure on the bulb the bag under the table-cloth 

 is inflated and the plate is made to rise and fall, gently or with 

 violent movement according to the nature of the pressure on the 

 bulb. It requires no very vivid imagination to see what can be 

 accomplished by an apparatus of this sort on a suitably suscep- 

 tible person. 



Instances have been cited where club men have played this 

 prank on some fellow member who was known to be unduly ad- 

 dicted to the absorption of stimulating beverages, with the re- 

 sult that the victim, after watching the various dishes in front 

 of him wave and wobble and jump and dance during a whole 

 dinner, has fled from the banquet board and made his way with 

 all possible speed to the nearest Keeley cure. 



Another rubber joke of the pneumatic class consists of some 

 sort of button-hole ornament connected by a small, almost im- 

 perceptible, tube with a bulb carried in the pocket. This or- 

 nament may be in the form of a baby's face, which, on the pres- 

 sure of the bulb, is seen to protrude its tongue most indelicately 

 and is heard to wail most plaintively ; or possibly the ornament 

 may be a design filled with little apertures and the bulb may be 

 filled with water, with the result that when some admiring friend 

 stops to look at the unusual 

 ornament he receives a 

 gentle April shower in his 

 face. That suggests an- 

 other type, which we may 

 call the aqueous rubber joke. 

 A second good illustration 

 of this kind is the sprink- 

 ling ring. This consists of 

 a hollow rubber ball large 

 enough to be held con- 

 veniently in the hand, to which is attached a hollow metal ring 

 with fine openings at the top. The ball is filled with water and 

 the ring slipped over the linger. It is shown to some friend 

 and as he is viewing it with interest the ball is squeezed and he 



The Sprinkling Ring. 



(.i iting \ Shower from Ring with Rubber Ball Attached. 



gets a facial inundation. These water jokes are supposed to 

 particularly endear one to one's friends, especially where the 

 friends have to wear moist collars during the remainder of the 

 day. 



Another classification of the rubber joke might be called the 

 edged tool variety. These are not innumerable, but they cer- 



