Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by G. G. EVANS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. STEREOTYPED BY JESPER HARDING & SON PHILADELPHIA. LENOX LIBRARY NEW YORK PREFACE. IN making the following collection, the compiler has followed the same rule which he prescribed for himself in the "Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun," viz: that each piece in the volume should be really funnysomething that would inevitably raise a good, hearty laugh. To this one consideration, everything else has been sacrificed. No attempt is made to represent the entire humorous literature of the English language, as that undertaking, intelligently carried out, would fill several large volumes, the English and American literature being particularly rich in this department. The design of this work has been simply to produce a volume replete with wit and humor, wherever it could be found, and not to display the compiler's great resources of learning and research. |