Please post the details; if you can find them.
The old 1917 joke...
DG
There was this guy who got sent to prison. Wandering around the yard on his
first day, he noticed that a man would shout out a number-"a hundred and
twelve" or "thirteen" or "seventy-eight"-and everybody within earshot would
laugh and laugh. Perplexed, the new prisoner asked one of his colleagues
what everybody was laughing about. "Jokes," the old prisoner said. "Remember
the prison-issue joke book you got when you got here-along with the
prison-issue khakis and prison-issue toothbrush?"
"Yes," said the new man.
"Well, we've all read through the joke book so many times that we know all
the jokes by number. So instead of telling each other the jokes, we just
call out the number to the joke we want to tell. Saves a lot of time."
Eager to fit in, the new inmate stood up on a bench in the prison yard and
yelled, "Forty-six!" Everybody stopped and stared. Nobody laughed. Near the
corner of the bench the man heard one prisoner say to another, "Some guys
don't know how to tell a joke."
Sorry.
DG