[223] Mr. Ling Roth has pointed out to me that the laughter of the Australian at the absurdity of the idea of a dead man going about without legs, etc., occurs in a race usually placed among the lowest in the scale. Yet this apparent exception does not, I think, affect the validity of the generalisation in the text. The intellect displayed in this ridicule is not of a high order; and, further, we are distinctly told that the scoffer in the case was an “intelligent” native, that is to say, one of more than the average intelligence of his tribe. [224] Mr. Ling Roth writes me that he agrees with Miss Kingsley as to the difference between the laughter of savages and of children. I should be quite ready to accept this view so far as it concerns the special forms and directions of the mirth. The differences of capacity, experience and habit involved in the difference between the child and adult will, of course, introduce many dissimilarities into their manifestations of the mirthful temper. I hold, however, that as regards the fundamental psychical processes involved, the similarity is real and great. [225] Macdonald, _op. cit._, i., p. 266. [226] Burton, _op. cit._, ii., pp. 338–9. [227] See p. 42. [228] Wright, _History of Caricature and Grotesque_, p. 181. [229] M. Jos. Bédier in his interesting study, _L’Esprit des Fabliaux_, though he argues that the fabliaux in general had no social aim (“portée sociale”), has to admit that in the case of the treatment of the priests these “contes à rire en vers” betray a genuine hatred, a hatred which (he adds) runs through other forms of literature of the Middle Ages. [230] Bédier points out in the work quoted that the writers of the fabliaux, which issue from the burgher class, and are written for this class, take sides with the weak villains rather than with the strong knightly class (see p. 291 ff.). _Cf._, however, Wright, _op. cit._, p. 114. [231] See Maspero, _Les Contes populaires de l’Égypte_, Introduction (“Conte des deux frères”). [232] Percy Gardner, _Greek Antiquities_, p. 353. [233] Tyrrell, _Latin Poetry_, p. 220. [234] Bédier, _op. cit._, p. 279 ff. [235] H. Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, “Ceremonial Institutions,” pp. 205, 206. [236] Maspero, _Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria_, chap. i. [237] Wilkinson, _Manners and Customs of Ancient Egyptians_, iii., pp. 447, 429. [238] Simcox, _Hist. of Latin Liter._, i., p. 46. [239] Given in Hazlitt’s _New London Jest Book_, pp. 31, 32. [240] Wright, _op. cit._, p. 133. A good story of a retaliative practical joke, carried out by a bachelor on a tavern keeper who had spilt some wine on serving him, is given by Bédier, _op. cit._, iii., p. 272 ff. [241] H. Spencer, _op. cit._, p. 208. [242] Curtius remarks of the Greek comic poets: “It was primarily against the novel fashion of the day that they aimed their blows” (_Hist. of Greece_, ii., p. 539). [243] See Ward, _Engl. Dram. Poets_, ii., p. 401.