Show MEN WHO SLIP the extraordinary manner aliey in from ahe Indi nill Jon nothing so quickly diverty ft man of dignity a a long fall ion a pavement ue clutched chei frantically at the sky he half recovers his equilibrium and then suddenly lurches the other way every limb starts oft on its own book he gyrates he gesticulates lie ex postulates lie rotates his right foot tarts out for heaven his left for the far west while his bat gambols gaily over the curbstone with resolutions emphasis and resonance reo nance he sits down hastily on a sharp piece of ice to reflect the last ves ige of dignity and piety gone and yet this thing goes on from day day and will to the bat syllable recorded time ordinances to enforce the are dead letters they prove like many other lawf that statutes in advance of public sentiment amount to ing they are silently ignored by common consent merchants who would seem directly in ranking pavements pleasant before their own auora quietly allow their customers to slip and slide alone to the peril of their life and limb and all for the want of an hours labor and a bucketful of ashes or sawdust there is a reason for this deep down in the heart it is found in our irre ble love of the ridiculous an am tradesman in the land would rather lose the sale of a bill of goods than miss seeing his best customer make an involuntary spread seagle of himself on an icy pavement there is something in it that pays him beter and he holds his rides and in ecstacy of mirth behind the door at the recollection trying to execute A somersault without ft handspring hande pring on the crowded pavement of a frosty morning he tries to tell you where tones hat went and how he looked at that awful moment when be looked around to see who witnessed hia astonishing toni shing exploit but he suffocates and poes off uttering sounds ic he sympathizes with the boy that roared in glee at jones biscom he could hug alie unfeeling brute ever the way who is laughing yet let smiths new silk hat be blown off his head by the winds and see how the crowd will stop to witness the race between the hat and its dia austed gusted owner nobody stops the hat yet everybody cheers smith with whoop and yell and words of encouragement coura gement now he has it now away it goes ag ain through mud and slush as smith tears madly after the crowd is evidently betting on the hal though it never fails to whoop up smith nobody is in luch a hurry ai nob to be able to stop and see that race out and contribute to the general joy with uproarious shouts and peals of laughter there ia a general disappointment when the battered bat is captured and the fun is over its mean but we all do it the politest and the rudest if we hold in until smith utterly demoralized baia retreated up a stair way we explode immediately afier warl and go ing home in convulsions to tell the tory to delighted auditors on that day in new york when one sixth of the people were in the act of constantly falling down or picking themselves up the other tive siotha might have been seen bending too and fro in agonies of merriment and laughter what a of from hundreds of miles of one sixth groans and curses five sixtus sixths yells of derision and peals of joy thea and there was a marked trail of our national character WE LAUGH AKO we really feal very sorry for brown I who has ruined his w coccyx by his sudden determination to sit down on a lick flat rock but w have no idea of restraining our joy at the picturesque and bizarre ait tude lie assumes A man slipped up recent ly in canandaigua and uni omed hi spinal column the accident elicited shouts of laughter from the street and then everybody wanted ae help carry him home before he died there is no malice or in the american sense of the ludi crom which extorts tittering from th girls and whoops from the boys old and young but an irrepressible de tire to enjoy the too few opportunities to shoot folly as it flies and laugh when we may hence our pato ments are seldom cleaned hence our city ordinances are dead letter bence we slip and alido and laugh away willing to take our chalcea in the hope eliat our pudy neighbor not we may be induced to perform acrobatic feats with tin bucket on bis arm and bottle in bis po ket the next time he goes down town the man who laughs is an am arii can |