File:Fifty years ago (1888) (14594724920).jpg

Identifier: cu31924102773813 (find matches)
Title: Fifty years ago
Year: 1888 (1880s)
Authors: Besant, Walter, Sir, 1836-1901 Wordsworth Collection
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Publisher: London, Chatto & Windus

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er; some, pity;some, contempt; a few, indignation; but not one facesmiled. Consider the difference: in the year 1837 everyface would have been broadened out in a grin. Do we,therefore, laugh no more? We do not laugh so much,certainly, and we laugh differently. Our comic man ofsociety still tells good stories, but he no longer singssongs; in his stories he prefers the rapier or the jewelleddagger to the bludgeon. Those who desire to makethe acquaintance of the comic man, as he was acceptedin society and in the middle-class, should read theworks of Theodore Hook and of Albert Smith. Tobegin with, he played practical jokes ; he continuallyplayed practical jokes, and he was never killed, aswould now happen, by his victims. I am certain thatwe should kill a man who came to our houses andplayed the jokes which then were permitted to thecomic man. He poured melted butter into coat pocketsat suppers ; he turned round signposts, and made thempoint the wrong way, in order to send people whither
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