Fitness of Wit. 
45 
if it goes down the right way is never noticed, while if it goes 
down wrong, it gets no end of notice. 
A wit was asked, How many professors are there in the Uni¬ 
versity of Wisconsin? His answer was “How many shall I set 
down the scenery oa its grounds as amounting to?” 
The smaller the point of resemblance the better for a wit. It 
was asked, Why do women hate snakes? and a wit replied, “Two 
of a trade cannot agree. ” He was thinking of 
“The first that fell of womankind, 
When on that dread yet lovely serpent smiling, 
Whose image then was stamped upon her mind, 
But once beguiled, and evermore beguiling/’ 
A tall fellow in a theater stood bolt upright in spite of hisses 
and cries of Down! till some one cried out, “Let him alone! it 
is a tailor resting his legs.” 
An American tenting in Palestine, when his shoe-black was 
careless, got up first one morning and did the work well. His hope 
was to shame the boy into faithfulness, but the Arab merely 
said, “Now I know what your business is at home. In America 
you are a boot-black. ” 
Wits are proverbially cynical. Hence it is not surprising 
that their comparisons often relate to regions infernal. Kansas 
it was said lacks nothing but water and good society. But a 
wit rejoined, “So does Hades.” 
In ante-bellum days Wendell Phillips was blamed by a pro¬ 
slavery minister because he did not go South and preach aboli¬ 
tionism there. His reply was: “ You have as good reason to go 
to Hades for your preaching. ” 
A Revolutionary camp-song was: 
“In seventeen hundred seventy-seven 
General Burgoyne set out for heaven, 
But as the Yankees would rebel, 
He missed his route and went to hell.” 
A bishop who was also a prince acknowledged at the confes¬ 
sional that he had been profane. But said he: “I swore as a 
prince not as a bishop. ” His confessor’s question was: “When 
the devil gets the prince what will become of the bishop?” 
There is much wit in conjoining things which are fitted for 
