It is a curious fact that comic journals in America have generally short lives. Every enterprise of the sort has come to an untimely end. They have uniformly laughed themselves to death in a few months after they were born. The London Punch, on the contrary, is a perennial fountain of wit and good humor. The good things go out, but the good things also come in. Its punch bowl is like one of those juggler's utensils which has an unlimited supply, and the more you empty it, the fuller it gets. The truth is, that Punch is witty, and his wit has a higher purpose than mere amusement. The Britons pay for their wit like men. It is a commodity not so common among them as among Americans, and brings a higher market value. It would be wrong to infer from the failure of American comic journals that there is in the people a deficiency of humor, or a want of appreciation of that pleasing quality. The very contrary is the fact. It is so common that every man furnishes his own supply, and does not need to buy it ready made. We doubt, for the same reason, whether a comic paper would succeed in Ireland. What budget of fun could any publisher get up which could possibly equal the unstudied scintillations of wit and humor which flash from every bog and hovel in the gem of the sea? Humor and eloquence are the spontaneous growth of the Irish organization; as universal, in fact, as potatoes. We have rarely seen an Irishman who did not possess, in some degree, one or the other of these faculties. Some of the comic papers published in our country have possessed real merit, but none of them have flourished. We see that a new enterprise is to be undertaken in a Northern city, under the auspices of well-known humorists, but we fear it will meet the fate of its predecessors.
