BOOKS OF JOKES, STORIES AND QUOTATIONS

TOASTER'S HANDBOOK. Peggy Edmond and Harold Workman Williams. 501p. $1.80

MORE TOASTS. Marion D. Mosher. 552p. $1.80

MORE TOASTS

JOKES, STORIES AND QUOTATIONS

COMPILED BY

MARION DIX MOSHER

Librarian, Genesee Branch, Rochester (N.Y.) Public Library

NEW YORK THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY LONDON: GRAFTON & CO. 1922

Contents

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

MORE TOASTS

ABSENT-MINDEDNESS

ACCIDENTS

ACCURACY

ACTORS AND ACTRESSES

ADVERTISING

ADVICE

AFTER DINNER SPEECHES

AGE

AGRICULTURE

ALARM CLOCKS

ALIBI

ALIMONY

ALPHABET

ALTERNATIVES

AMBITION

AMERICANS

AMUSEMENTS

ANCESTRY

ANIMALS

ANTICIPATION

ANTIQUES

APARTMENTS

APPEARANCES

APPETITE

APPLAUSE

ARITHMETIC

ARMIES

ART AND ARTISTS

ASTRONOMY

AUTHORS

AUTHORSHIP

AUTOMOBILE TOURISTS

AUTOMOBILES AND AUTOMOBILING

AVIATION

BACHELORS

BAGGAGE

BALDNESS

BANKS AND BANKING

BAPTISM

BAPTISTS

BARGAINS

BASEBALL

BATHS AND BATHING

BEAUTY, PERSONAL

BEGGING

BEQUESTS

BETTING

BIBLE INTERPRETATION

BIGAMY

BILLS

BLUFFING

BOARD OF HEALTH

BOARDING HOUSES

BOASTING

BOLSHEVISM

BOOKS AND READING

BOOKSELLERS AND BOOKSELLING

BOOMERANGS

BOOSTING

BORROWERS

BOSTON

BOY SCOUTS

BOYS

BRIDES

BROOKLYN

BROTHERHOOD

BURBANK

BUSINESS

BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

BUSINESS ETHICS

BUSINESS WOMEN

CAMPAIGNS

CANDIDATES

CANDOR

CAPITAL AND LABOR

CARD INDEX

CARELESSNESS

CATALOGING

CAUSE AND EFFECT

CAUTION

CHARACTER

CHARITY

CHEERFULNESS

CHICKEN STEALING

CHILD LABOR

CHILDREN

CHOICES

CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS

CHRISTMAS GIFTS

CHURCH

CHURCH ATTENDANCE

CHURCH DISCIPLINE

CITIZENS

CITY AND COUNTRY

CIVICS

CIVILIZATION

CLASS DISTINCTIONS

CLEANLINESS

CLERGY

CLOTHING

CLUBS

COAL

COFFEE

COLLECTING OF ACCOUNTS

COLLECTION BOX

COLLEGE GRADUATES

COLLEGE STUDENTS

COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

COMMITTEE

COMMON SENSE

COMMUNISM

COMMUTERS

COMPARISONS

COMPENSATION

COMPETITION

COMPLIMENTS

CONCEIT

CONDUCT

CONFESSIONS

CONFIDENCES

CONGRESS

CONSCIENCE

CONSCRIPTION

CONSERVATIVES

CONSOLATION

CONTENTMENT

CONTRIBUTION BOX

CONUNDRUMS

COOKERY

COOKS

COOPERATION

CORPULENCE

CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOLS

COSMOPOLITANISM

COST OF LIVING

COUNTRY LIFE

COURAGE

COURTESY

COURTS

COURTSHIP

CREDIT

CRIME

CRITICISM

CULTURE

CURES

CURIOSITY

CURRENT EVENTS

CUSTOM

DACHSHUNDS

DAMAGES

DANCING

DAYLIGHT SAVING

DEAD BEATS

DEBTS

DEGREES

DEMAGOG

DEMOCRACY

DENTISTS

DEPARTMENT STORES

DESTINATION

DETECTIVES

DETERMINATION

DIAGNOSIS

DILEMMAS

DINING

DIPLOMACY

DISARMAMENT

DISCHARGE

DISCIPLINE

DISCOUNTS

DISCRETION

DISPOSITION

DISTANCES

DIVORCE

DOCTORS

DOGS

DOMESTIC FINANCE

DOMESTIC RELATIONS

DREAMS

DRINKING

DRUNKARDS

DUTCH

DYSPEPSIA

EATING

ECONOMY

EDITORS

EDUCATION

EFFICIENCY

EGOTISM

EINSTEIN

EMBARRASSING SITUATIONS

EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES

ENEMIES

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

ENGLISHMEN

ENTHUSIASM

EPIGRAMS

EPITAPHS

EQUALITY

ETIQUET

EUROPEAN WAR

EUROPEAN WAR-POEMS

EVIDENCE

EXAGGERATION

EXAMINATIONS

EXCUSES

EXECUTIVE ABILITY

EXPENSES

EXPERIENCE

EXTRAVAGANCE

FAILURES

FAME

FAMILIES

FARMING

FASHION

FATE

FATHERS

FAULTS

FEES

FICTION

FIGHTING

FINANCE

FISH

FISHERMEN

FISHING

FLATTERY

FOOD

FOOD CONSERVATION

FOOLS

FORDS

FOREIGNERS

FORESIGHT

FORGETFULNESS

FORTUNE HUNTERS

FOUNTAIN PENS

FRANKLIN

FREAKS

FREE VERSE

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

FRENCH LANGUAGE

FRIENDS

FRIENDSHIP

FUTURE

FUTURE LIFE

FUTURIST ART

GAMBLING

GARAGES

GARDENING

GAS

GENEROSITY

GENIUS

GEOGRAPHY

GERMANY

GERMS

GIFTS

GIRLS

GOD

GOLF

GOSSIP

GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP

GRATITUDE

GUARANTEES

HABIT

HADES

HAPPINESS

HASH

HASTE

HEAVEN

HELL

HEREDITY

HEROES

HIGH COST OF LIVING

HINTING

HISTORY

HOME

HOME BREW

HOMELINESS

HOMESICK

HONESTY

HORSES

HOSPITALITY

HOSPITALS

HOTEL BIBLES

HOTELS

HOUSING PROBLEM

HUNGER

HUNTING

HURRY

HUSBANDS

HYPOCRISY

HYSTERICS

"IF"

IGNORANCE

ILLUSIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS

IMITATION

IMMIGRANTS

IMPUDENCE

INCOME TAX

INDUSTRY

INFANTS

INFLUENZA

INHERITANCE

INITIATIVE

INSOMNIA

INSTALMENT PLAN

INSURANCE, FIRE

INSURANCE, LIFE

INTERVIEWS

INVESTMENTS

IRELAND

IRISH BULLS

IRISHMEN

JEWS

JOKES

JOURNALISM

JUDGES

JUDGMENT

JURY

JUSTICE

KINDNESS

KINGS AND RULERS

KISSES

KNOWLEDGE

LABOR AND CAPITAL

LABOR AND LABORING CLASSES

LABOR-SAVING DEVICES

LADIES

LANGUAGES

LAUGHTER

LAUNDRY

LAWS

LAWYERS

LAZINESS

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

LEAP YEAR

LEFT HANDEDNESS

LEGISLATION

LEGISLATORS

LEISURE

LIARS

LIBERTY BONDS

LIBRARIANS

LIBRARIES

LIES

LIFE

LISPING

LOGIC

LONDON

LOST AND FOUND

LOVE

LUCK

MAGAZINES

MAJORITY

MARKSMANSHIP

MARRIAGE

MASCOTS

MATHEMATICS

MATRIMONY

MEASURING INSTRUMENTS

MEDALS

MEDICAL ETHICS

MEDICINE

MEMORY

MEN

METHODISTS

MIDDLEMAN

MILITARISM

MILITARY DISCIPLINE

MILK

MILLENNIUM

MILLINERS

MILLIONAIRES

MINISTERS

MISERS

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

MISTAKES

MONEY

MONEY LENDER

MORAL EDUCATION

MOSQUITOES

MOTHERS

MOTHERS' DAY

MOTHERS-IN-LAW

MOVING PICTURES

MULES

MUSHROOMS

MUSIC

MUSICIANS

NAMES, PERSONAL

NATIONALITY

NATURAL LAWS

NEGROES

NEIGHBORS

NEW JERSEY

NEW YORK CITY

NEWSBOYS

NEWSPAPERS

"NO"

NOTHING

NURSES

OBEDIENCE

OBESITY

OBITUARIES

OCCUPATIONS

OCEAN TRAVEL

OFFICE BOYS

OFFICE-SEEKERS

OFFICERS

OLD AGE

OLD CLOTHES

OPPORTUNITY

OPTIMISM

ORIGINALITY

OSTRICH

OUIJA BOARD

PARENTS

PARROTS

PARTNERSHIP

PEACE

PEDESTRIANS

PENMANSHIP

PEP

PERCENTAGE

PERSISTENCE

PERSUASION

PESSIMISM

PHILADELPHIA

PHILANTHROPISTS

PHILOSOPHY

PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS

PITTSBURG

PLEASURE

POETRY

POETS

POLICE

POLITENESS

POLITICAL PARTIES

POLITICIANS

POLITICS

POSTAL SERVICE

POVERTY

PRAISE

PRAYERS

PREACHING

PREJUDICE

PREPAREDNESS

PRESCRIPTIONS

PRETENSION

PRICES

PRIDE

PRINTERS

PRISONS

PROFANITY

PROFESSIONS

PROFITEERS

PROGRESS

PROHIBITION

PROMOTERS

PROMPTNESS

PRONUNCIATION

PROPERTY

PROPOSALS

PROSPERITY

PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT

PSYCHOLOGY

PUBLIC, THE

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

PUBLIC SPEAKERS

PUBLISHERS

PUNCTUALITY

PUNCTUATION

PUNISHMENT

PUNS

PURGATORY

QUAKERS

QUESTIONS

RADICALS

RAILROADS

READING

REAL ESTATE

REAL ESTATE AGENTS

REALISM

RECOMMENDATIONS

RECRUITING

RED TAPE

REGRETS

RELATIVES

RELIGIONS

REMEDIES

REMINDERS

REPARTEE

REPORTING

REPUTATION

REST CURE

RESTAURANTS

RETALIATION

ROADS

ROOSEVELT, THEODORE

RUINS

RUMMAGE SALES

SACRIFICES

SAFETY

SALARIES

SALESMEN AND SALESMANSHIP

SALVATION

SAVING

SCANDAL

SCHOLARSHIP

SCHOOLS

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

SCOTCH, THE

SEASICKNESS

SECRETS

SELF-MADE MEN

SENATE

SENATORS

SENSE OF HUMOR

SENTRIES

SERMONS

SERVANTS

SERVICE

SERVICE STAR

SHOPPING

SIGHT SEEING

SIGNS

SILENCE

SIMPLIFIED SPELLING

SIN

SINGERS

SKEPTICS

SLANG

SMILES

SMOKING

SNOBBERY

SOCIALISTS

SOCIETY

SOCIOLOGY

SOLDIERS

SOUND

SOUVENIRS

SPECULATION

SPEED

SPELLING

SPINSTERS

STAMMERING

STAMPS

STATISTICS

STENOGRAPHERS

STOCK EXCHANGE

STRATEGY

STREET-CARS

STRIKES

SUBSTITUTES

SUBURBS

SUBWAYS

SUCCESS

SUITORS

SUMMER RESORTS

SUNDAY

SUNDAY SCHOOLS

SUPERSTITION

SURPRISE

SYMPATHY

SYNONYMS

TACT

TALKERS

TARDINESS

TAX

TEACHERS

TEACHING

TEARS

TELEGRAPH

TELEPHONE

TEMPER

TEMPERANCE

TEMPTATION

TEN COMMANDMENTS

THEATER

THERMOMETER

THIEVES

THRIFT

TIDES

TIME

TIPS

TOURISTS

TRADE

TRADE MARKS

TRADE UNIONS

TRAMPS

TRAVELERS

TREES

TRENCHES

TROUBLE

TRUTH

UMBRELLAS

UNEXPECTED

UNITED STATES

VACATIONS

VALUE

VANITY

VEGETARIANS

VENTILATION

VOICE

VOTING

WAGES

WAR

WEALTH

WEATHER

WEDDINGS

WELSH

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

WHISKY

WIDOWS

WINDOWS

WISDOM

WISHES

WITNESSES

WIVES

WOMAN

WOMAN SUFFRAGE

WOMAN'S RIGHTS

WORK

WORRY

YOUTH

ZONES

PREFACE

The success of the Toaster's Handbook has encouraged its publishers to compile another that will supplement it and bring it up-to-date. New subjects keep coming to the front, and the up-to-date toaster needs up-to-date stories to fit the up-to-date subjects. No public occasion of today is complete without its joke on the nineteenth amendment, the allied debts, the income tax, etc.

In offering the toasts, jokes, quotations and stories in this second volume, the editor has endeavored to bring further aid to the distracted toastmaster, to the professional after-dinner speaker who must change his stories often, and to individuals inexperienced in public speaking and so unfortunate as to have public addresses forced upon them. He views the product with much the same feeling as did Alexander Pope, who said, "O'er his books his eyes began to roll, in pleasing memory of all he stole."

Paolo Bellezze expressed the same feelings in the introduction to his work "Humor" when he said "Of this work of mine, I must confess it is a great lot of stuff gathered from everywhere except from my brain.... It is a necklace of pearls strung upon a slender cord; that, I have put there; the pearls have been furnished me by the most famous jewelers, native and foreign. This said, I can—without being accused of pride—recommend it to my respectable customers as an article of great value and of absolute novelty."

In making this collection, files of such magazines as Life, Judge, Puck and Punch were drawn on extensively; also magazines having humorous pages or columns, such as the Literary Digest, Ladies' Home Journal, Everybody's, Harper's; also Bindery Talk and various other house organs. According to Samuel Johnson "A man will turn over half a library to make one book," and the compiler of this one makes humble acknowledgment to a whole library of books and periodicals where most of these jokes have already appeared. It has been impossible to give credit unless the place of first publication was definitely known.

The compiling of "More Toasts" was in large measure cooperative. The test of the humor of a story or joke is in its efficacy when applied to normal people under ordinary circumstances. With this philosophy in mind the editor made it a rule to include nothing until it had first been "tried on the dog." The original material was first graded into three classes and, before being accepted, each joke had to stand the test of appealing to the sense of humor of several persons. The result is a collection of very carefully selected jokes and stories, only about fifty per cent of the material originally chosen being used. If any over-critical reader fails to find them humorous, may not the fault possibly be due to his own imperfect sense of humor?

There is also much truth in the statement that the point of a jest lies in the telling of it and often much of the subtle humor is lost in the reading. The personality of the speaker is a necessary factor and is frequently more important in the effect produced by the story than the story itself. Elbert Hubbard once said "Next in importance to the man who first voices a great thought is the man who quotes it."

The clever compiler, like a good chef, must not only know what to select but in what order to present it. Knowledge consists in being able to find a thing when you want it and accordingly an attempt has been made to pigeonhole each joke where it would be most useful. Such a classification is at best a difficult and debatable question, and numerous cross references have been placed wherever it was thought they might direct the reader to the subject wanted.

With these few explanatory words, the editor presents this little volume, sincerely hoping that it may prove a friend in need to all who seek the relaxation of humor, and a lifesaver to that legion of humble men whose knees tremble when the chairman speaks those fateful words—"The next speaker of the evening...."

M.D.M.

November, 1922.

INTRODUCTION

What can be more fitting than that a compiled book should have a compiled introduction? Why should one with great pains and poor prospects of success attempt to do what has already been well done? Knowing that all readers of this book have a sense of humor and that they will approve our decision we begin with a quotation from an article1 by Mr. E. Lyttelton.

The Divine Gift of Humor The subject of humor has an attraction peculiarly its own, because it deals with a mystery which yet is pleasantly interwoven with the daily life of each one of us. We often say of one of our neighbors that he has no sense of humour. But he often laughs; he never spends a day without at least trying to laugh, tho it remains but an attempt, an effort, an aspiration after something which he seems to have lost but wishes to recover. Either, that is, he remains grave when others laugh, or he laughs, as Horace says, "with alien jaws," by constraint rather than because he cannot help it. He has a confused idea that it is expected of him. Such laughter is apparently the outcome of an uneasy sense of duty, a dismal travesty of the real thing.... Certainly humour is a singularly elusive thing, and I doubt if anyone alive can explain it; but its elusiveness gives it something of its charm; and, moreover, the illustrations which are necessary to an inquiry into its nature, its scope and meaning, are apt to be amusing without being irrelevant.

Humour has often been roughly described as a sense of the incongruous. More satisfying, however, is the following, which has been ascribed to Dean Inge: It is a sense of incongruous emotions. As soon as we think of the emotions being stirred we see that the strange difference between humourous and unhumourous people is not an intellectual matter, but follows the general law of emotional susceptibility, viz., that it is independent of the reason and varies within wide limits with each individual, and obviously with each nationality. Moreover, it appears that, as it is compounded of two emotions, one man may feel one of the emotions but be dull to the other, according to his temperament. It is a matter of sensitiveness, and in sensitiveness no two of us are alike. Crudely judged, then, humour may be described as a blessing of nature bestowed on all, but in widely varying measure, so that in the case of some of our acquaintance we deplore its non-existence, but never in ourselves. Nobody really believes that he is wholly without it, partly because, in proportion as

the sense is really defective, the defect must be in its own nature unperceived, but also because the gift is so precious, so winsome, that no one could bear to believe that it has been denied him. By a merciful law of nature, the delusion is unsuspected, for assuredly, if any wholly unhumorous person once realised the full extent of his privation, nothing could save him from "wretchlessness" and despair. I prefer to believe that, like the sense of beauty, the love of music, the thrill of admiration for uncalculating heroism, we have here a wondrous aid to us in our life's pilgrimage, but that if we trace it to a sense of our self-interest, we not only vulgarize it, but we turn it into a caricature. For there is in humour this singular property; its aroma is so subtle, delicate and undefinable that the effort to buttress it upon coarse, common utility is doomed to fail, and in the mere attempt humour vanishes. There is something deliciously contagious about laughter that is quite sincere and unthinking; whereas the only people who contrive to be always absurd, but

never amusing, are those who laugh from a sense of duty. Humour, then, in the young is restricted in scope, their experience of life being small; in women it is quicker than in men, but shallower; in the Scotch it is reticent, in the Irish voluble and refined, but cold. But wherever it is found free from counterfeit, wholesome and contagious, it is the offspring of man's heaven-bestowed power of seeing in the meannesses of earth the true presence of the Divine.

Darwin says the causes of humor are legion and exceedingly complex and various disquisitions upon humor and laughter would seem to support him. Its social nature is emphasized by Edwin Paxton Hood:

The sources of all laughter and merriment are in the cordial sympathies of our nature. Laughter is very nearly related to the highest and most instinctive wisdom; it stands at no distant remove from Judgment on the one hand, and Imagination on the other; and it is a proof of a healthy nature, for both thinking and acting.

C.S. Evans in his article "On Humor in Literature" gives a hint of the evolutionary process of its mechanism and its higher refinement:

On the lower plane of humor you get a laugh by the most unimaginative means—merely conceive a recognized humorous situation, or bring several things together according to a recipe, and the thing is done. Every practised comedian, in literature or on the stage, is an adept at it. But the creation of character, the expression—in terms of the words and actions of men and women—of that "social gesture" which is laughter's source, is a much greater thing, for there we touch the symbolism which is the soul of art.

The Function of Humor

In an article entitled "Why Do We Laugh?" William McDougall discusses scientifically the value of laughter:

Laughter of man presents a problem with which philosophers have wrestled in all ages with little success. Man is the only animal that laughs. And, if laughter may properly be called an instinctive reaction, the instinct of laughter is the only one peculiar to the human species.... We are saved from this multitude of small sympathetic pains and depressions by laughter, which, as we have seen, breaks up our train of mental activity and prevents our dwelling upon the distressing situation, and which also provides an antidote to the depressing influence in the form of physiological stimulation that raises the blood-pressure and promotes the circulation of the blood. This, then, is the biological function of laughter, one of the most delicate and beautiful of all nature's adjustments. In order that man should reap the full benefits of life in the social group, it was necessary that his primitive sympathetic tendencies should be strong and delicately adjusted. For without this, there could be little mutual understanding, and only imperfect cooperation

and mutual aid in the more serious difficulties and embarrassments of life. But, in endowing man with delicately responsive sympathetic tendencies, nature rendered him liable to suffer a thousand pains and depressions upon a thousand occasions of mishap to his fellows, occasions so trivial as to call for no effort of support or assistance. Here was a dilemma—whether to leave man so little sympathetic that he would be incapable of effective social life; or to render him effectively sympathetic and leave him subject to the perpetually renewed pains of sympathy, which, if not counteracted, would seriously depress his vitality and perhaps destroy the species. Nature, confronted with this problem, solved it by the invention of laughter. She endowed man with the instinct to laugh on contemplation of these minor mishaps of his fellow men; and so made them occasions of actual benefit to the beholder; all those things which, apart from laughter, would have been mildly displeasing and depressing, became objects and occasions of stimulating beneficial laughter....

For laughter is no exception to the law of primitive sympathy; but rather illustrates it most clearly and familiarly; the infectiousness of laughter is notorious and as irresistible as the infection of fear itself.... The great laugher is the person of delicately responsive sympathetic reactions; and his laughter quickly gives place to pity and comforting support, if our misfortune waxes more severe. Such persons are in little danger of giving offense by their laughter; for we detect their ready sympathy and easily laugh with them; they teach us to be humorous.

H. Merian Allen in his essay "Little Laughs in History" says "The relaxation of a full laugh clears the brain, restores fit contact with one's fellows, and so smoothes the way for the solving of knotty problems."

Linus W. Kline, Ph.D., further elucidates the psychical office of humor as follows:

The psychical function of humor is to delicately cut the surface tension of consciousness and disarrange its structure that it may begin again from a new and strengthened base. It permits our mental forces to reform under cover, as it were, while the battle is still on. Then, too, it clarifies the field and reveals the strategetic points, or, to change the figure, it pulls off the mask and exposes the real man. No stimulus, perhaps more mercifully and effectually breaks the surface tension of consciousness, thereby conditioning the mind for a stronger forward movement, than that of humor. It is the one universal dispensary for human kind: a medicine for the poor, a tonic for the rich, a recreation for the fatigued and a beneficient check to the strenuous. It acts as a shield to the reformer, as an entering wedge to the recluse and as a decoy for barter and trade.