HO IV THE COACH PASSENGERS EARED 357 



brake tree rib." " Damn your eyes ! " roared the 

 sailor, " you're a Erencbman, are you ? Lie there 

 and be damned," and so went on his way. 



I think the brutality of this tale is even 

 more noticeable than its humour, l3ut it is 

 distinctly redolent of the age Avhen people only 

 laughed on seeing others placed in a painful 

 or uncomfortable position. When no one was 

 hurt there was no humour, according to the 

 notions of that time— a time when to crush a 

 man's hat over his eyes was exquisitely funny, 

 and for half a dozen lusty Toms and Jerrys 

 to overturn a decrepit old watchman was a 

 screaming farce. It is, by the way, significant 

 that that Avas the era when screaming farces held 

 the theatrical stage, and the rough-and-tumble 

 of the harlequinade was at its zenith. The 

 practical joker was then prominent, and the 

 more "practical" {i.e. the more wantonly cruel 

 and injurious) the joke the more it was applauded. 

 If the victim ever thought of resenting a witticism 

 of this kind, he was, in the cant of that period, 

 " no sportsman," and behind that formula the 

 blackguard jokers screened themselves. If they 

 had not very carefully, for their own protection, 

 erected that obligation to •' take a thing in good 

 part " which stayed the heavy hand of revenge, 

 it is quite likely that some of these humourists 

 would have been very severely mauled. The 

 amazing thing is that the victims agreed to that 

 convention, and allowed themselves to be harassed 

 with impunity. 



