themselves to the serious treatment of the topics of the day, and
thus leave room for the labors of _Punch_, or _Kladderadatsch_, or
_Charivari_, in America all papers do their own joking; and, if it
seems desirable to take a comic view of anything or anybody, take it
on the spot in their own columns.

Hence any paper which starts on a comic basis alone meets with
rivals in all its sober-minded contemporaries, and comes to
grief. The difficulty it has to contend with is, in short, very
like that which the professional laundress or baker has to
contend with, owing to the fact that families are accustomed to
do their own washing and bake their own bread. And, indeed, it is
not unlike that with which professional writers of all kinds have
to contend, owing to the readiness of clergymen, lawyers, and
professors to write, while doing something else. An ordinary
daily paper supplies, besides its serious disquisitions, fun
enough for one average household--sometimes in single jokes, and
sometimes in the shape of "sparkle" or "spiciness" in grave
articles. Often enough it is very poor stuff, but it amuses
people, without turning their attention away from the sober work
of life, which is the only way in which the vast body of
Americans are willing to be amused. Newspaper comedians have
here, what they would not have in London, a chance of letting off
a joke once a day, and six or seven jokes a week is more than any
comic paper is willing or able to take from any one contributor,
partly owing to the need of variety in a paper given wholly to
humor, and partly owing to want of space. Anybody, therefore, who
has humor for sale finds a readier market among the dailies or
magazines, and a far wider circle of readers, than he would in
any comic paper.