Lewis Copeland (1)

The Introduction by Frank Allen suggests that the origin of jokes lies in antediluvian obscurity. "The cave-man no doubt asked of his neighbor: Who was that lady I seen you with last night?"

And "What may be a chestnut to some is a pippin to others."

This is a collection of amusing "stories"--jokes, retorts, epitaphs, epigrams, verses, toasts, "little willies", boners, limericks, comic verse, nonsense poems, parodies, college rhymes, Negro dialect, Western dialect, Irish and other verse, all Indexed by Types and Subjects - Amiguity, Anomalies, Boasts, Bridge, Bulls, Chicanery, etc.

And yes, this wealth of "period pieces" is racist, sexist, and often not amusing. It is revealing.

"The minister was addressing a Sunday School class. He had taken for his theme the familiar one of the children who mocked Elisha on his journey to Bethel--how youngsters taunted the poor old prophet and how they were punished when two she-bears came out of the wild and ate forty-and-two of them.
"And now children," said the pastor, wishing to discover whether his talk had produced any moral effect, "what does this story show?"
"Please sir," came from a little girl well down in the front, "it shows how many children two she-bears can hold". [215]… (més)