QUEER IDEA OF FUN.

Otaki Mail, 16 January 1922, Page 4

QUEER IDEA OF FUN.

JOKES THAT INVOLVE CRUELTY. Amid excitement and clanging of bells a fire engine came dashing into my street. But no forked tongues of dame or clouds of smoke revealed a eonflagation. There was none. It was a false alarm—the merry jest of one of those practical jokers who play the joke on the London Fire Brigade several times every day. For the information of these mad wags, however, it is worth while to mention that one who was caught was fined £lO for his little writes "C" in the '' Daily Sketch.'' . Another funny fellow was fined £3 for dropping a lighted match into a pillar-box. And this type of amusement is so popular that wo read frequently of the contents of pillar-boxes being destroyed or partially destroped by lighted matches inserted in the slot. A rich joke lately perpetrated was to throw a sack soaked in paraffin over a man's head and set light to it. When he succeeded in freeing himself his hair and beard were burnt off. How quaint he must have looked with his bald head and his bald face! And when he comes out of hospital no doubt tho jolly jokers will rally him archly, on having "a singe and beard trimmed free." Then there was the barber who shaved the little girl's head. Depositors in a bank received anonymous letters telling them that it was insolvent. There was a panic-stricken .ush, and many people waited outside lUc .doors all night—to learn in the morning that they, had been hoaxed.

- Of course it must have been a great relief to them that the hoax had such a happy ending. But it did not end happily for one poor old woman with a weak heart, who collapsed in the street and. had to bo taken off in an ambulance.

Practical jokes with animals are highly popular. Some dear little boys cut the whiskers off my neighbour's cat. No doubt they thought this uncommonly diverting. - But the cat's whiskers are important to the animal, and, deprived of them, the cat refused to eat, pined, and died. There is no form of practical joke that, does not inflict hurt. An advertisement recently appeared for a porter —used to heavy weights. The address given was a dentist's, and next morning 600 disappointed men were clamouring outside, while the joker responsible for the bogus advertisement, was no doubt with gay laughter watching the scene from some quiet corner. Practical joking in all its variations is a crude form of humour, which is never funny, but often brutal, and at this stage of our civilisation it is quite time it died out.