HUMORIST'S SATIRE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 449, 6 March 1909, Page 10

HUMORIST'S SATIRE.

"WHY I WOULD RATHER BE AN ENGLISHMAN." Mr. George Ade, the American humorist and playwright, whose "Fables in Slang," as ho would put it, "kept English readers guessing," has left Berlin for Italy and Egypt. He is on Ins second trip around the world, and beforo going to Germany "did" London and Paris, n, t ~ courso of an interview Mr. Ado stated that next to being an Englishman ho would ratner bo a German officer than anything in the world." The "Daily Hail's" Berlin correspondent asked him to amplify that apparent compliment to Britain in his own Indiana sl ™s .vernacular. This is how ho replied:— . Will you pardon me if I bog off from saying anything in slang regarding our British cousins; A serious subject should not bo treated flippantly or with a cheap and hybrid vocabulary, and tho Englishman is a serious proposition. " When I said that next to being an Englishman I would rather be a German officer than anything in the world, I merely meant to express by implication a firm belief that the linglisnman is tho most fortunate being in tho limversp, because he never has even a glimmering doubt as to the superiority of himself or his English environnent. ' vni,, Sonl *X OI i e \^' el to lcaru comparative values. The Englishman travels in order to 'corroborate. his ingrown belief that anything un-ijntisli is necessarily incorrect, bad form and declasse. Hβ never fails to find corrobora - ' tive evidence. '■ "That is why I envy him. I shouH like to wear a tweed suit, that bunched in the neck and baspd at the knees and still feel sereS confident that I was well dressed. I should like to feel assured that tho best seat next to the window and all of the luggage-racks weren, o 'I'™* right. When defeated at any game tion that the victory of the opposition must have been tho result of appalling accident "or clno to some new-fangled trickery too con.pli"C{ P nvv°n" n r rS r°{! ~y t ,' ,OrO " sh sportsmen. 1 envy the Englishman because even in his most cordial moments he patronises all ot ] "r tnoTa n ct S alUl mnitS " banner advertis 'ns "Tho German officer hasn't much to learn iu he art of self-apprtciation. And it ou»ht to b= a fine thing to bo one. It must be comforting to get up every morning and know that for another twenty-four hours- (he astral b d ° viU continue to revolve around the samo old first person singular. " The German officer regards every- civilian ""f -rf he f r ig " riivilin » "is looked' upon as a bacillus. The American civiliau is too atomic for consideration. Over here evprr ono poke, f,m at the stiff-neckr,! martinets of the army, but when doing so thev usuallv no up an alley and talk in whispers." ' B