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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 49, 19 August 1911, Page 4

COMEDIANS AND THEIR DEVICES. Unclean wit is the device of the man who has no real sense of humor. There never yet was a real humorist who descended to suggestive allusion or had any need to drag in such allusion in order to tickle tho risible faculties of the audience. A comedian (or alleged comedian) who resorts to phallic jests to extort laughter condemns himself as an artist. The management, unable to obtain the services of helpers who have no method of making laughter except by such miserable means should learn its business. The best humorists the world has or has ever had are able by their own art (and not by borrowed device) to make people laugh healthily. The use of indecent or suggestive jests on the stage is an insult to the healthyminded, who hate these indecencies, for it is a presumption that the intelligence of an audience is so low that it can only be amused by the most banal and obvious vulgarity. The idea of a man achieving a reputation as a comedian because he drags in a larrikin's lewd street joke by the ears, and fires it at an unoffending public is execrable. The days of individual merit and artistic creation on tho stage are surely passing away. If the person who hurls a- suggestive jest at decent people is a comedian, the street loafer is also a comedian, and should not be prevented from inflicting his wit on the community.