blundering impetuosity, and double-sightedness, out of which the
Irishman of the stage and Jo Miller's Irishman who made all the
bulls were manufactured in the last century. Of the other
nationalities we need hardly speak, as the English-speaking public
knows little of them, although the German Jew is perhaps the most
durable material the comic writer has ever worked on.

The absence of class distinctions here, too, and the complete
democratization of institutions during the last forty years, have
destroyed the reverence and sense of mystery by shocking which
the European comic paper produces some of its most tickling
effects. Gladstone and Disraeli figuring as pugilists in the
ring, for instance, diverts the English public, because it gives
a very smart blow to the public sense of fitness, and makes a
strong impression of absurdity, these two men being to the
English public real dignitaries, in the strict sense of the word,
and under the strongest obligations to behave properly. But a
representation of Grant and Sumner as pugilists would hardly make
Americans laugh, because, though absurd, it would not be nearly
so absurd, or run counter to any so sharply defined standard of
official demeanor. The Lord Chief-Justice playing croquet with a
pretty girl owes nearly all its point, as a joke, to the popular
awe of him and the mystery which surrounds his mode of life in
popular eyes; a picture of Chief-Justice Chase doing the same
thing would hardly excite a smile, because everybody knows him,
and has known him all his life, and can have access to him at any
hour of the night or day. And then it must be borne in mind that
Paris and London contain all the famous men of France and
England, and anybody who jokes about them is sure of having the
whole public for an audience; while the best New York joke falls