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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 6 (September 2, 1935)

The Language of Laughter

The Language of Laughter.

Laughter, because laughter is the world's universal language understood equally by the Hottentot, the Zulu and the Hindoo.

The power of laughter is a power for good. It raises the spirits, purifies the soul, testifies to tolerance, kills resentment, routs enmity, disrupts distrust, promotes understanding, makes all skins kin, puts Man “one up” on the beasts of the field and only one down on the gods of Olympus. It is the best peace propaganda known to civilisation, being more easily understood than Esperanto or “desperanto.” It says more with less expenditure of air than any other form of human expression.

The person who laughs easiest lives easiest, and the nation which laughs longest lasts longest.

But a laugh must be a Laugh. It must have its origin far below the front collar stud. Its source must be the heart; it must be reflected in the eyes; it must even influence the feet. It must permeate the personality, titillate all territory, shake the frame with subterranean joviality and emerge full, vibrant and unstinted.

A snigger is sly, a giggle is a laugh gone wrong, a smile is a compromise, but a real laugh is a day-dream on holiday.

It may never be proved, but it's reasonable to guess that laughter has done more to promote progress than money, mortgages and motors. Probably, before man learned to laugh he was crueller and cruder. Certainly, when the “s” is subtracted from “slaughter” we have “laughter.”

Laughing lessons should be included in school curricula; there should be laughter leagues; each meal should be preceded by “laughter before meat.” Every married man should make a vow at the altar that he will make his wife laugh before breakfast each day, and she should promise to make him laugh—even when she presents bills for hats. The League of Nations should make laughter its big bet for producing international understanding and, instead of a muzzy murmur in fifty-seven varieties of language, the one universal language of laughter should rattle the rafters in the Palace of Peace. Mussolini and the King of Abyssinia should get together and have a real good laugh. Hitler should laugh instead of getting “Nazty.”

Laughter should be cultivated as assiduously as the heavier-than-air aids
“Each meal should be preceded by ‘Laughter before Meat.’”

“Each meal should be preceded by ‘Laughter before Meat.’”

to human progress; and very soon we would find that risibility has ousted irascibility from the worldly category.