Everybody knows that on the stage humor takes better than anything else. There may be a great tragedy well presented on the boards of a city theatre, or a brilliant spectacle, or a so-called emotional drama which appeals to everything improper in human nature, but the theatre which is presenting a good comedy can always depend upon holding its own. No dead-head seats are to be had at such theatres. The manager can always depend upon getting money for all the room at his disposal. The fun may be very rough, sometimes it is decidedly vulgar, but people ask as few questions and make as few protests against fun, no matter what its kind, as drunkards do against the quality of their whiskey. American appreciation of humor may be found also in the number and wide circulation of periodicals devoted entirely to fun. There used to be a theory that there was no room for a humorous paper in the United States because the ordinary dailies and weeklies indulged in so much fun themselves. But after the enormous success of _Puck_, _Judge_, _Life_, and some other periodicals, it is useless to argue any longer on the subject. After a political or social question has been apparently worn threadbare in editorials and essays, out comes one of these papers with a pithy saying or a good cartoon that carries more influence than all the serious talk combined. It matters little upon which side of the question, even in politics, these professional humorists are found. Their hits when well made are cheerfully acknowledged even by their own enemies. During the palmy days of the New York ring, Mr. Nast, the cartoonist of _Harper’s Weekly_, was offered an annual allowance several times larger than his salary if he would give up work entirely and go abroad. Humor and high character are often allied; one of the strongest illustrations of the fact is that Mr. Nast without any hesitation refused this valuable offer. Some of the abuses of local government in New York have been more effectually fought by Mr. Keppler and his associate artists in _Puck_ than by all the work of editors, lawyers and judges. _Puck’s_ influence in politics became so great that before the last Presidential campaign began it became absolutely necessary for the party which it was fighting to start a humorous pictorial journal of their own, and it was quite safe to suppose that it was influential in the political results that followed.