Editor's Note:   I found a joke book the other day. Oh, no, I thought. 21st-century jokes are bad enough. Jokes from 1883? They're probably not only worse, but politically incorrect on top of it. There are h2g2ers who think my jokes are bad – I know, I know, they don't say it where they think I can hear it, but I have my sources. You think mine are bad? Wait until you get a load of Eli Perkins. Eli Perkins was a contemporary of Mark Twain and Petroleum V Nasby, both of whom also have material in this jocular work, entitled Wit and Humor of the Age: Comprising Conundrums, Riddles, Jokes and Magic, by Mark Twain, Josh Billings, Robt B Burnette, Alex Sweet, Eli Perkins, with The Philosophy of Wit and Humor, by Melville D Landon, A.M. I think that the authors got paid for this title by the letter.

Now, what's good about an 1883 joke book isn't the 'jokes'. One of them involves counting sheep, and must have been a real knee-slapper in its day. Nor is it the analysis of the 'philosophy of wit and humor', which pretty much kills what little there is of chuckleworthiness in the pages. No. What's interesting about old joke books is the glimpse they give us into the thought processes of a bygone age. For instance, the 'counting sheep' joke tells us that the horrible cliché of people trying to sleep by counting imaginary sheep probably originated in the early 1880s. It's their fault we had to watch all those awful cartoons in the 1950s. Phooey.

Are you tired of Satnav jokes? Then you're going to get a real charge out of this amusing anecdote about the dangers of the pedometer. Mark Twain made pedometer jokes, too, in his A Tramp Abroad. It must have been the latest thing in useless technology.

So, enjoy. You will appreciate my jokes more after this. – DG.

One of the most curious little instruments brought out lately by Tiffany & Co. is the pedometer, – a small machine about the size of a watch, which you carry in your pocket to denote the distance you travel on foot or ride on horseback. It is a very accurate machine. A friend of mine put one in his pocket the other day, and walked from the Fifth Avenue Hotel to
Central Park and back. Strange to say, it marked the distance as accurately as a surveyor could measure it. The little machine works this way: It tells the number of steps you take, or that your horse takes, during any given time. To get the length of these steps you take an average. That is, you walk two hundred feet; then count the number of steps; divide the number of inches traveled by the number of steps, and you will have the length of your average step. Then set the pedometer and start.

The other morning a young married lady, Mrs. –, who had suspicions that her husband was "larking" too much when he ought to be in his office attending to business, put a pedometer in his pocket-book. Kissing his wife good-by, the innocent husband sauntered out and took the stage for his down-town office. In the stage he met a dashing widow, who took him up to Central Park to see the animals, or rather to carry on a flirtation on some retired, shady seats, roofed with woodbine and ivy. After promenading through the park, visiting the seals, the ostriches, the baby lions, and the museum, the sentimental husband returned home.

"Ah, ducky, where have you been – you look all tired out?" asked the wife, as she kissed him as usual.

"Oh, down to the office; the same old drudgery. Oh, pet, I'm so glad to get back to my little wifey."

"Did you take the stage to the door, sweet?" asked the wife, tenderly.

"Yes, lovey; and I was too tired to walk home. Why, I never went out to lunch, I was so busy."

"Just sat and wrote all day, darling, did you?"

"Yes, daisey, all day long. Oh, I'm so tired!'

"Let me see your pocket-book, precious," continued the wife; "I want to put something in it."

Then she opened it and took out the little pedometer.

"Oh, Edward!" she screamed as she held it up.

"What? Caroline!"

"Why, here you've traveled eleven miles since morning. Where have you been? How could you? Oh, you wicked, bad man, to deceive your wife so! "

"But, Caroline – "

"Don't but me, Edward! You've been walking around all day. You couldn't have been near the office at all. Oh, you naughty, naughty man! I'm going home to my mother; I won't live with you another day. Now, who was she? Who was the lady? "

"Why, Caroline, I met Mrs. Swope, our clergyman's wife, and – "

"No, you didn't; she's been with me all day! Oh, Edward! " And then she burst into tears.

*******

That night that poor, heart-broken husband swore by all the pedometers in heaven or earth that he'd never lie to his wife again. He even took a pew in the church next to his mother-
in-law, and every Sunday we can now see him with a pedometer in his pocket measuring his way to church.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

17.07.17 Front Page

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