Jokes

In the 1880s, the North Wales Express, an English language newspaper for North Wales, UK, had a regular column called Varieties, full of excruciating puns and jokes that haven't generally translated well for the present day. It is interesting to note their joke at the expense of Food for Thinking Christians in the issue for November 25, 1881, page 6. For this to make any real sense to readers they would need to have heard of the publication's extensive distribution in the UK.

Let me add to Jerome's post. This is from a vol 2 chapter entitled Food for Thinking Christians:

            The controversy in Newark was picked up by other papers and reports of it, sometimes garbled, made their way into print far outside Newark. The Cleveland, Ohio, Leader carried a report as did The Chicago Tribune in its August 18, 1881, issue. Puck, an American humor magazine, quipped: “Some tramps who got hold of one of the four hundred thousand copies of Food for Thinking Christians, were disgusted on opening the book to find no cold meat in it.”[1] Puck’s squib was spread through the press as well.[2] Another attempt at humor appeared in The Cheyenne Transporter, a semi-monthly published in Darlington, Oklahoma, “in the interest of Indian Civilization and Progress.” The September 10, 1881, issue reported: “A little girl accompanied her father to church in Bangor last Sunday. She is a bright child, but was unable to understand the tract presented to her when leaving the Church, entitled, ‘Food for Thinking Christians, Why Evil was Transmitted [sic] and Kindred Topics.’ The child was tired when she returned to her home and told her mother to take that ‘food’ (the tract) and give her some ‘milk.’”[3]

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[1]               See the August 31, 1881, issue, page 432

[2]               An example of this appears in The Chester, Pennsylvania, Daily Times, September 10, 1881. It was also reprinted in Puck’s Library No. X: Tramp, Tramp, Tramp! Being Puck’s Best Things about the Great American Traveler, Keppler & Schwarzmann, New York, 1888, page 19.

[3]               She Preferred Milk, The Cheyenne Transporter, September 10, 1881.