and old-established New Year's Day was not in mid-winter, but a quarter of a year later, when buds and flowers are bursting into life. It is recorded by ancient writers that the "ritual laugh" was enforced by the Sardinians and others who habitually killed their old people (their parents) upon their victims. They smiled and laughed as part of the ceremony, the executioners also smiling. The old people were supposed to laugh with joy at the revivification which was in store for them in a future state. So, too, the Hindoo widows used to laugh when seated on the funeral pyre ready to be burnt. So, too, is explained (by Reinach) the laughter of Joan of Arc when she made her abjuration in front of the faggots which were to burn her to death. Her laugh was caused by the thought of her escape from persecution and of the joyful resurrection soon to come. It was not an indication that she was not serious, and that her abjuration of witchcraft was a farce, as her enemies asserted. More difficult to explain is the laughter excited by scenes or narrations which we call ludicrous, funny, grotesque, comic; and still more so the derisive and contemptuous laugh. Caricature or burlesque of well known men is a favourite method of producing laughter among savages as well as civilised peoples. Why do we laugh when a man on the stage searches everywhere for his hat, which is all the time on his head? Why do we laugh when a pompous gentleman slips on a piece of orange-peel and falls to the ground, or when one buffoon unexpectedly hits another on the head, and, before he has time to recover, with equal unexpectedness hooks his legs with a stick and brings him heavily to the ground? Why did we laugh at the adventures of Mr. Penley in "Charley's Aunt"? In all of these "ludicrous" affairs there is an element of surprise, a slight shock which puts us off our mental balance, and the subsequent laughter, when we realise either that no serious harm has been done or that the whole thing is make-believe, seems to partake of the character of the "laugh of escape." It is caused by a sense of relief when we recognise that the disaster is not real. We laugh at the "unreal" when we should be filled with horror and grief were we assured that there was real pain and cruelty going on in front of us. The laughter caused by grotesque mimicry or caricature of pompous or solemn individuals seems to arise from the same (more or less unconscious) working of the mind as that caused by some unexpected neglect of those social "taboos" or laws of behaviour which we call modesty, decency, and propriety. They either cause indignation and resentment in the onlooker at the neglect of respect for the taboo, or, on the contrary, the natural man, long oppressed by pomposity or by the fetters of propriety imposed by society, suddenly feels a joyous sense of escape from his bonds, and bursts into laughter--the laughter of a return to vitality and nature--which is