tale, a man who wore the thief's collar as a punishment was questioned by an acquaintance concerning the cause of his plight.

   "Why, it was just nothing at all," the convict explained easily. "I was strolling along the edge of the canal, when I happened to catch sight of a bit of old rope. Of course, I knew that old piece of rope was of no use to anyone, and so I just picked it up, and took it home with me."

   "But I don't understand," the acquaintance exclaimed. "Why should they punish you so severely for a little thing like that? I don't understand it."

   "I don't understand it, either," the convict declared, "unless, maybe, it was because there was an ox at the other end of the rope."

   The universality of humor is excellently illustrated in Greek literature, where is to be found many a joke at which we are laughing to-day, as others have laughed through the centuries. Half a thousand years before the Christian era, a platonic philosopher at Alexandria, by name Hierocles, grouped twenty-one jests in a volume under the title, "Asteia." Some of them are still current with us as typical Irish bulls. Among these were accounts of the "Safety-first" enthusiast who determined never to enter the water until he had learned to swim; of the horse-owner, training his nag to live without eating, who was successful in reducing the feed to a straw a day, and was about to cut this off when the animal spoiled the test by dying untimely; of the fellow who posed

   before a looking glass with his eyes closed, to learn how he looked when asleep; of the inquisitive person who held a crow captive in order to test for himself whether it would live two centuries; of the man who demanded to know from an acquaintance met in the street whether it was he or his twin brother who had just been buried. Another Greek jest that has enjoyed a vogue throughout the world at large, and will doubtless survive even prohibition, was the utterance of Diogenes, when he was asked as to what sort of wine he preferred. His reply was: "That of other people."

   Again, we may find numerous duplicates of contemporary stories of our own in the collection over which generations of Turks have laughed, the tales of Nasir Eddin. In reference to these, it may be noted that Turkish wit and humor are usually distinguished by a moralizing quality. When a man came to Nasir Eddin for the loan of a rope, the request was refused with the excuse that Nasir's only piece had been used to tie up flour. "But it is impossible to tie 

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