Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, Vol. II. No. 24, September, 1921

[1]

Captain Billy’s
Whiz Bang

America’s Magazine of
Wit, Humor and
Filosophy

SEPTEMBER, 1921 Vol. II. No. 24

Published Monthly
W. H. Fawcett, Rural Route No. 2
at Robbinsdale, Minnesota

Entered as second-class matter May, 1, 1920, at the postoffice at Robbinsdale, Minnesota, under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Price 25 cents $2.50 per year

Contents of this magazine are copyrighted. Republication of any part permitted when properly credited to Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang.

[2]

“We have room for but one soul loyalty and that is loyalty to the American people.”—Theodore Roosevelt.

Copyright 1921
By W. H. Fawcett

Edited by a Spanish and World War Veteran and dedicated to the fighting forces of the United States

[3]

The modern city can be likened to that grim monster of old dreams to whom a tribute of maidens was offered. The main difference between them lies in the fact that his appetite for girl-flesh had its limitations, but the appetite of the city had none. From this vast charnel house of hopes, beliefs and ideals files upward a steady stream of damned souls that once belonged to women-children, pure in thought and deed. The crushing of one or a thousand of these “wee modest crimson-tipped flowers” beneath the ploughshares of city life and temptation excites only passing remark.

The girl of the city has much more actual animation than her sister of the country. This is due to the food that is eaten and the social conditions of excitement that surround her. The country girl lives upon plain food and has normal hours of rest and relaxation. She does not encounter the sights or sounds that would tend to divert her attention from high thoughts to matters forbidden.

Such sights and sounds are never absent from the city girl. She cannot go into the business part of the city and walk two blocks without being reminded of her sex. Men eye her with glances of suggestion and invitation.

[4]

You don’t have to go to West Point for strategy. A negro preacher in his pulpit one Sunday said he had a few remarks to make before the collection basket made its peregrination.

“Now, brethren and sisters,” he began, “there is just one brethren here that is untrue to his church, untrue to his Lord—and worst of all, untrue to his wife. Unless he puts a five dollar bill into the contribution box I will be compelled to call his name out.”

When the basket had returned and a recount had been made, the books showed forty-two five dollar bills and a two dollar bill with a note pinned to it saying, “I will hand you the other three in the morning. Please don’t give me away.”

“Only a Mother Could Love a Prohibitionist’s Face.” That is the inscription which appeared on one of the banners in the Anti-Dry parade which I had the pleasure of witnessing in New York City while en-route back from the big fight which ye editor attended.

Around Robbinsdale they get up early. Two farmers, jealous of their rising records, became boastful and one allowed as how he got up before three o’clock. The other rose at two the next morning and called at his neighbor’s house, hoping to find him in bed. The farmer’s wife came to the door.

“Where is your husband?” inquired the sleuth.

[5]

“Why, he was around here early this morning, but I don’t know where he is now.”

Gus, our hired man, insists that Deacon Kingdon is a good shot.

“He is so good with his gun that he hit the bull’s-eye the first time,” Gus exclaimed.

“Very good,” exclaimed Maggie, our cook.

“Yes, but he had to pay for the bull.”

Pinkham’s Home Broo

Pursue a wild bull frog thirteen miles, carefully gathering the hops. Then add:

Ten gallons pickle brine

Two quarts shellac

One bar home-made soap

One pint sweet spirits of nitre.

Boil mixture three weeks, then strain through an I. W. W. sock to prevent mixture from working. Bottle and add one jackass to each pint to give it the proper kick.

This Is For Railroaders

Casey, a section boss on the Great Northern railway, in making his report to the superintendent, used considerable profanity, so the superintendent said: “Casey, I have lady stenographers here and if you must use that profanity, after this you must write your own reports.” “A train from Duluth came lickety skoot and passed me hand car by. Some son of a gun left open a switch and it piled them ten cars high.”

[6]

Georges Carpenter lost a battle last July, but he won a greater prize than the golden purse and the coveted belt offered at Jersey City. The handsome Frenchman showed America the smile of Napoleon; the stoical smile of defeat.

As one of the multitude witnessing the brief clash of France and America at Boyle’s Thirty Acres, permit me to remark that Carpentier did not live up to his reputation as great pugilistic champion, but he more than met his reputation as a great red-blooded gentleman.

The American won, but the applause usually due the winner was lost in the outburst of surprise of the multitude. Carpentier, instead of hanging his head at the defeat of his hopes and aspirations for the title, hid his sorrow behind a great big boyish smile. He wore that smile through the blood-stained rounds, and it radiated as the gong clanged.

The soul of fighting France was behind that smile; the same as the smile of Napoleon as he handed over his army to Wellington at Waterloo, and the likeness of Joffre at the first battle of the Marne. It puzzled his primitive opponent. Dempsey was bewildered—his face revealed his knowledge that behind that smile was a superior intellectual being.

What good is alimony on a cold night?

Many who “kiss and make up” don’t like the taste of the “make-up.”

[7]

BY RICHMOND

What are the personal peculiarities of film people? In view of the fact that it is our bounden duty to torment, dilate and comment upon ye people of the screen, it behooves us to stop now and then to observe what they are and how they become that way, aside from being good looking, drawing big money and getting divorced.

Let’s get right down to business. Take Allan Dwan, a well known director. Dwan doesn’t hate himself any more than the law provides for. In fact, there is no reason Dwan should despise himself. He was a good electrical engineer; became interested in pictures and makes various flurries of coin according to the Angels who can be dug up to back his ventures.

Dwan formerly was a good athlete. He is powerfully constructed but noticeably short. About the studios it is well understood that one of the few faults Dwan finds with himself is that he isn’t just up to his own personal idea of tallness. If he has a tender spot, it hinges upon this item of feet up and down. Someone conceived the idea that in order to tab him “Napoleon.” But that line of bull[8] has been overdone and so another gag had to be hatched up. “The Big Little Man,” that is what those in close touch with Dwan call him when they desire to make a favorable impression. “The Big Little Man,” that’s a good title—better than some of the ones that appear on Dwan’s pictures and a lot of other pictures.

Thus we dispose of Mr. Dwan, a cocky, brainy, peppy little fellow whose only regret is that he should be a little longer. Next we will consider Mr. Fairbanks, Mary’s present husband, barring every state in the Union but Nevada—and Nevada isn’t quite certain that Mary is still married to Owen Moore. Doug likes to tread about with his gang of retainers at his heels. Fairbanks cottons to the custom, styles and bequeathments of the English sporting gentlemen who stalked abroad with a company of idol worshippers.

Doug is not always the most distinguished looking of his company. At any event, he frequently is not the most noticeable. It was Fairbanks that discovered the now famous Bull Montana, who doubles for monkeys when one is required in the cast and whose ability to take punishment one time resulted in nine fire hoses being turned on him at once as he was swept down the gutter.

When Doug Fairbanks and Bull Montana walk down the street together the Bull “takes it away from him,” as they say in the pictures when a subservient character grabs the best of the scene from the star. Bull has a face, at once fearsome and fascinating. He is so ugly that crowds follow him around. It is a frequent[9] spectacle in Los Angeles to see Fairbanks, Bull Montana, Spike Robinson, Crooked Nosed Murphy, Benny Zeidmann, the press agent de luxe, and Mark Larkin, Fairbanks’ special representative, beating it down the broad. Of course, Doug always struts in front, while the others in platoon formation tread proudly in the rear. The only place where Doug falls down is that some of his gang look funnier than Doug acts on the screen and the big star stands a chance of being overlooked in the “what the h—is coming here” attitude that rends the atmosphere as the Fairbanks battalion bears down upon the multitude. Yes, Doug likes to lead his gang into the big hotel corridors, where his cohorts then fade gracefully into the oblivion necessary to leave Doug alone in his solitude for the yokels to admire and wonder at. You gotta hand it to Doug for rushing in with his gang and then giving them the fade away sign at the psychological moment.

Lottie Pickford—we have thought out loud a time or two before in these columns about Lottie. Unlike the demure Mary, Lottie likes the jazz stuff, the bright lights and some good looking young dude hanging around her. We never saw Lottie chew tobacco, but she can stow away a lot of the “grape.”

If we had our decision to make as regards Lottie’s chief peculiarity we would say that her idea is to be thoroughly known as Mary’s sister by doing things that Mary doesn’t. Lottie isn’t the first contrary girl, though, who can[10] claim to be of famous family. There was Miss Roosevelt and later Mrs. Longworth. Didn’t the colonel himself call long and loudly for commodious families? And did you ever read that his daughter attained any particular fame aside from smoking cigarettes and not rearing children?

If you are a sort of a junior member of a family and fear that you will be overshadowed by some relative, cast for a famous mold, one way to attract attention is to copy the other one—backwards.

We come to Fatty—Roscoe Arbuckle. Roscoe’s peculiarity just now is to have people try and forget that his name is Fatty. Roscoe is getting dignified. He has half a dozen cars, just because people came to know him as “Fatty Arbuckle” and paid a lot of dough to see him. Just where Fatty expects to promote himself by being Roscoe passeth understanding. Surely he doesn’t think that he could act seriously without being thought funny. Perhaps Fatty is subtle. He may have tired of drawing laughs as a result of acting natural and figures he may get as many more by trying not to appear natural.

Now we are down to Mr. Griffith. Mr. Griffith, to our notion, is a great director. But Mr. Griffith is more or less deftly endeavoring to implant the idea in the public mind that he is a poet. That is Mr. Griffith’s peculiarity. He would not be seen much in public; rather he seeks to attract attention by remaining in seclusion. His well organized[11] staff and his actors and actresses, who like him much, never pass up an opportunity to breathe it about that “Mr. Griffith is a poet.”

We never read any of David’s verses, but if he is a poet, it devoutly is to be desired that there were more poets and fewer directors operating in pictures.

After all, these little peculiarities or hobbies of the picture people are not harmful to any one in particular. We all like to strut and fluff and show our fine feathers. It’s human nature.

We’ll Say So!

While Al. Jolson, the black-face comedian, was touring the Pacific Coast with his latest starring vehicle, “Sinbad,” he visited the California insane asylum, at Napa. Passing through one of the wards he noticed a rather neat chap and asked the attendant the nature of the fellow’s trouble.

The attendant told the comedian that it was a new case. Had only arrived the previous day.

Jolson approached the patient and inquired “If you had only one wish in the world, and it would be granted, what would you wish for?”

The patient looked at Jolson and said, “I’d wish that Volstead was born with a thirst!”

With a smile Jolson replied, “You might have been crazy when they brought you here yesterday, brother, but you’re talking good sense today!”

[12]

Our Traffic Cop

Thomas Patrick Gallagher, typical Irish traffic copper, was stationed on Madison street in Chicago at the point intersected by the River.

One bustling Saturday afternoon, Gallagher held up his hand to halt traffic for the draw bridge. In front of him was a new handsome limousine motor car.

While waiting for the bridge to close, a runabout flivver crashed into the rear end of the handsome car.

Gallagher was on the job promptly and hustled over to the driver of the flivver.

“Phwat in hal does yez mane by smashing into this handsome car? Haven’t you got any eyes?” he bellowed at the meek and humble driver, “Are you crazy? I’ve a good mind to take you down to the headquarters, you blithering idiot. What’s your name?” continued Gallagher, as he extracted a pencil and notebook from his pocket, “What is the number of your car?”

The answer came back in typical Gaelic, “Me name is Clancy.”

“Clancy,” replied Gallagher. “Clancy, what part of Ireland are you from, what county?”

“I am from County Mayo.”

“County Mayo,” continued the traffic officer, “County Mayo, say Clancy, stay here just a minute till I go ahead to that big car and see why in the devil he backed into you.”

[13]

Ikey’s Recklessness

Ikey, eleven years of age and of unmistakable Hebrew persuasion, was taken out of school and put to work in a nearby store, where he was rewarded with the princely honorarium of a dollar and a half per week. For the first three weeks, Ikey brought home the pay envelope on Saturday night and turned it over to his mother. On the fourth Saturday, however, he was five cents short.

“Ikey,” said his mother, “where is that other nickel?”

“I need that nickel, ma,” replied Ikey.

For the next three weeks this dialogue was repeated when the week’s pay was turned in. The following Saturday Rachel had further cause for suspicion, for there was only $1.40 in the pay envelope.

“Ikey,” she said, “what have you done with that dime?”

“Ma,” said Ikey, “I had to have that dime myself.”

“Now, Ikey, tell your mother the truth; are you going with a woman?”

Overwhelmingly

A member of Congress recently became a parent. On announcing the news the doctor exclaimed gleefully: “I congratulate you, sir; you are the father of triplets.”

The congressman was astonished.

“No, no, no,” he replied, with more than parliamentary emphasis, “there must be some mistake in the returns. I demand a recount!”

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Cassidy’s Routing

Employed in the Great Northern yards in Minneapolis is a switchman whom we will call Cassidy.

One day Cassidy entered the superintendent’s office without removing his cap or pipe.

“I want a pass to Duluth,” he said.

His evident show of disrespect peeved the superintendent. “Well, Mr. Cassidy, you haven’t approached me in quite the proper manner,” he answered gruffly. “Here you have your cap on your head and your clay pipe stuck in your mouth. Do you believe this is showing proper respect for your superior officer? If you desire a pass to Duluth, you must leave this office at once, walk around for an hour or two, and come back. As you step in my office, you will ask for the superintendent of the Great Northern; I will reply, ‘I am the superintendent of the Great Northern, what can I do for you?’”

Cassidy promptly departed. He had been gone about an hour, when he came back, pipe in his pocket and cap in his hand. He walked briskly into the superintendent’s office and inquired in a rather superior manner, “Are you the superintendent of the Great Northern?”

“I am, what can I do for you?” was the reply.

“You can go to hell, I’ve got a pass over the Northern Pacific.”

It is always good to be nice, but not always nice to be good.

[15]

Bow Wow

Ask Bob He Knows

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The Power of the “Press”

“Now, girls,” warned the Sunday School teacher, “I want to caution you against making friends with the new barber who has just opened a shop in the village. A friend of mine who knew him in the town where he was reared tells me he tries to make love to every girl he calls on.”

“The girls in this burg are sure friendly,” confided the new barber to one of his patrons two days later. “Last night I took a stroll around the town and every girl I met smiled at me.”

Wall, I Calc’late!

“Well, Si,” asked the justice of the peace of the lone constable, “what is this man charged with?”

“Bigotry,” answered Si. “He’s got three wives.”

“By gosh, Si,” exclaimed his honor, “where’s your education? That ain’t bigotry, that’s trigonometry!”

We’d Say So

When a young man with his arm around a girl lets a lighted cigarette fall inside his sport shirt and it feels like a drop of ice water, it is time either to propose or go home.

Female detectives should be good lookers.

[17]

It looks like a pretty dreadful affair all the way ’round to me; here’s Mrs. Lydig Hoyt says that skirts gotta come down because the girls are wearing them to the ankles in Paris; but here’s little Betty Compson, the movie princess, says they are not to come down—not even to the ankles.

“It’s the movie girls and not Parisian professional models nor New York society women who make the fashions for America,” says Betty. Which, when you come to think about it, is a terrible slam for Mrs. Hoyt—an intimation that she is not considered a regular movie queen, in spite of the fact that she shook the pink teas of the Four Hundred for a part in Norma Talmadge’s company, and is now about to burst into the world of art with a company of her own.

The truth is, New York society women have apparently gone dippy over getting into the movies.

The other day I was out at the Griffith studio at Marmaroneck watching a starving mob in rags crying for bread in the streets of ancient Paris. Among the actors there was one who stood out. She was a shriveled old woman with thin hands and haggard eyes. Her clothes were torn half off, showing her shrunken[18] breasts and bony shoulders. When “D. W.” gave the signal for the action to begin, she fairly made you feel the agony of her hunger.

When there came, at last, an interval in the work, she beckoned to a maid who stood near the set. “Go out to the yacht and get me my cigarette case,” she said.

It turned out that the old lady was a very rich woman with a garage filled with imported automobiles and a steam yacht. She just had the “itch” to act in the movies.

It’s a little secret that is giggled up and down Fifth avenue that one of the “extra girls” in the ball room scene in “Way Down East” was Evelyn Walsh, who is considered to be the richest unmarried woman in the world. Mrs. Morgan Belmont was also in the same picture.

Perhaps it was the movies that did it; but anyhow, times have changed in the old Four Hundred in New York. It is only the Texas oil millionairesses who continue to elevate the haughty nose in mid-air and give you a far-away stare.

Mrs. Belmont, when I saw her in a picture studio, was sitting on the edge of a piece of scenery, smoking a cigarette that she had borrowed from a stage hand. She was excitedly debating an exciting question. She was contending that Jack Dempsey could have licked Jack Johnson when the big dinge was at his very best.

It happened that I sat in a business conference with Anne Morgan the other day. She[19] was the most simple and democratic person present. She sat still and listened until every one else had expressed his opinion. Finally she threw away the butt of her cigarette and said abruptly, “Look here. We are all talking around in circles and getting nowhere.” Then she stated the case with the directness and clarity of a corporation lawyer. “You know,” she said in explanation, “My father was a banker.” I wonder if she thought she was telling anybody any news! J. Pierpont Morgan was the said father.

Mrs. Morgan Belmont isn’t likely to squeeze Mary Pickford out of her job. She was just in pictures on account of her name. In the case of Mrs. Lydig Hoyt, however, it is different. She is really a marvelously beautiful woman and may go far in the cinema.

Like most of the women in society, she is sick of gadding around tea parties. This stuff may be all right in F. Scott Fitzgerald flapper novels, but gets wearisome in real life.

Speaking of F. Scott Fitzgerald, I understand that Princeton University is so vexed with this youthful prodigy that he discreetly omits the usual dutiful visits to his alma mater. What’s ailing Princeton is Mr. Fitzgerald’s book, “This Side of Paradise,” in which he told some painful truths about college life. I couldn’t see anything so terrible about it; but Princeton was touchy.

In fact, I don’t see how anybody could “stay mad” at this child of genius. He is really a charming boy. He looks about seventeen,[20] with those he-vamp blue eyes. I understand that “This Side of Paradise” was practically his own life, except that he really married the young society flapper who “trun him down” in the book. She is a very beautiful girl and the boy genius is obviously crazy about her.

Another “best seller” who is looking at the tall buildings of New York is Harold Bell Wright, the sales of whose books have now amounted to something over 9,000,000 copies.

The first time I ever saw the illustrious Harold was in Chicago, where he had come to sell his first books. He was a green little country preacher from a “riding” circuit in the Ozark mountains in Arkansas. He was so green that a sure-thing man would have been ashamed to sell him gold bricks. He looked pained when you spoke of writing for money; he said he only wrote to give a message to the world. I saw him again at the Waldorf the other day. He has made a couple of million dollars; got a divorce and a Rolls-Royce and other modern equipment.

In spite of his enormous success as a best seller, I am told that Harold has a canker eating at his heart. He grieves because the literary critics will not take his work seriously, but “kid” him as a “he” Laura Jean Libbey.

The other day, New York was electrified by a story that Hearst had quarreled with Marion Davies and that that attractive young lady was to cease to be a film star in the Hearst studios. But if there was a row, Marion must[21] have won the bout. She is not only still the queen at the studio at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth street, but her brother-in-law has just been placed in supreme command. I am told that everything is getting on with peace and harmony—the kind of peace and harmony where nobody dares to be the first to leave a group and always walks out of the room sideways with his back to the wall.

And now that we are speaking about Hearst—Like all men of brilliant mind, he has his little eccentricities. His is that he never can find his automobile. He owns some twenty cars, but never can find one. He brings his car downtown; forgets it and walks away to the nearest taxicab. The chauffeur waits around until he knows that W. R. is lost again and goes home. Wherefore you invariably encounter Hearst riding around New York in sad and disreputable looking taxicabs. Occasionally, he asks his subordinates if “anybody knows where I left my automobile.” Hearst, however, is a man of penetrating intellect. Don’t let anybody tell you the old yarn about his success being due to his brilliant subordinates. He has a mind that cuts like a slashing knife.

To meet him personally, you would think him the newest and meekest reporter in the Hearst service. He comes into the offices of his hired men with a shy bashful air and usually says, “I hope I am not in the way.” But just let them try to disobey his orders and see how meek he is. Wow!

Our old friend, Wilbur F. Crafts, the reformer,[22] has spent a busy summer in New York. He has been horrified in turn over the Dempsey-Carpentier fight, over the frightful case of some girls who wore one-piece bathing suits at Atlantic City; over some good respectable families who wanted to walk down to the beach in their regular clothes, with their bathing suits underneath and slip off the top layer, thus foiling the bath house robbers. Wilbur also had a spasm of excitement because Tex Rickard had some children from Panama giving some exhibitions of swimming in his big pool in Madison Square Garden.

Some time ago, in a censorship hearing, I actually heard the Rev. Wilbur admit that he was wrong. He had presented a bill he wanted passed, creating a national censorship. One of his friends on the congressional committee raised his eyes humbly to the chandeliers and said he wanted to offer a criticism. Rev. Crafts said he always welcomes honest criticism; he tried to do his humble best, but if wrong, wanted to be corrected; hence he would yield to the congressional gentleman and accept his amendment. The amendment was to boost the salary of the job Rev. Crafts was after from $4,000 to $8,000 a year. He certainly yielded like a Christian martyr.

But about these girls and their one-piece suits that shocked Atlantic City almost beyond human endurance.

Near Atlantic City is a little strip of beach called Somer’s Point. When the police chased the Annette Kellermanns off the beach at[23] Atlantic City, the mayor of Somer’s Point said they could come to his beach, b’ gosh. And so they went—and so the road around Somer’s Point has been blocked all summer—and so Mayor Robert Crissey, who is seventy-two, but has young ideas, is famous. A discreet man is Mayor Crissey, nevertheless.

After the first Sunday of the girl show, he issued a statement in which he said he thought one-piece suits were all right. “And,” he added with a burst of real inspiration, “I am going to buy my wife one just like ’em.”

Some one has lifted up his voice and wept because, among the other famous New York gin palaces to go with incoming prohibition, is the far-famed one formerly run by Tom Sharkey, the old sailor heavy weight fighter.

Tom was a funny old fellow with not much more than a distant acquaintance with English grammar and such.

When he completed his fine saloon, one of his first visitors was his former manager, Tim McGrath. They looked over the place together. At length Tim said to him, “Tom, you have a fine place, but there is one thing more you should do to it.”

“And what’s that?” said Tom suspiciously.

“Right here above the entrance you should have a fine big chandelier.”

“Yeh, I know,” replied Tom, yawning, “But who would I get to play it?”

That “Garden-of-Eden” party with naked young ladies dancing, outside of Boston, which cost Adolph Zukor and Hi Abrams, the movie[24] magnates, $100,000 to quiet, and which may cost the Massachusetts district attorney his job, was the second time this year the aforesaid magnates have burst into fame.

They—at least one of them—is said to have been in the big stud poker party in which a slick gent with marked cards took in a circle of movie men for a cool $500,000. They had him arrested, but dropped the case because the department of public charities of New York set up a claim for five times the amount of the money lost as a penalty for playing poker—which is the New York law.

I can tell you a little secret about that game. That slicker would have been trimming them yet except for the quick wittedness of Norma Talmadge.

It was at their home—of herself and her husband, Mr. Schenk—that the game had been taking place once a week for months. Coming suddenly into the hall, Norma saw the slick guest slip a pack of cards into his overcoat pocket and take another pack. She told her husband and the slicker was caught red-handed.

Even New York, the town of spenders, gave a little gasp when the “Spanish Jade” stepped out of Greenwich Village and went shopping on the Avenue.

The lady’s real name is Elizabeth Darrow. She was the belle of the village, when a young naval officer named Frederick Linde Ryan blew in with his new uniform and innocent illusions. He was married to the “Spanish Jade” and they began housekeeping on Riverside Drive.

[25]

The boy, struggling along on his naval pay, tried patiently and loyally and uncomplainingly to pay; but his debts soon amounted to $20,000, with cigarettes at a dollar a pack and chocolates at $5.00 a pound. The other day the case was brought into court at the instance of one of the boy’s friends and the court ruled that the boy need not continue further to pay the bills.

As a sort of free circus the “Village” does well enough for a little while; but it would seem a dubious place to find a wife.

Thus It Was

He was young, good looking and had plenty of money. She was also young and good looking, but lacked the money. Consequently she anxiously awaited for manifestations of affection.

“What have you named your new island home?” she inquired one evening, following his description of the wonderful island he had purchased in a neighboring lake.

“Isle of View,” he answered, and has since been wondering what happened to the young lady to make her throw herself in his arms.

There was a cross-eyed judge in Chicago who had three cross-eyed prisoners brought before him. Turning to the first, he said, “What is your name?” and the second replied, “James Smith.” Turning to the second, he said, rather severely, “I wasn’t talking to you.” The third one said, “I didn’t say anything.”

[26]

Wife—Mistress—Lady

The following is translated from the German, and published in the Gazette of the Union, February, 1856:

Who marries from love takes a wife; who marries for the sake of convenience takes a mistress; who marries from consideration takes a lady. You are loved by your wife, regarded by your mistress, tolerated by your lady. You have a wife for yourself, a mistress for your house and its friends, a lady for the world. Your wife will agree with you, your mistress will accommodate you, your lady will manage you. Your wife will take care of your household, your mistress of your house, your lady of appearances. If you are sick your wife will nurse you, your mistress will visit you, and your lady inquire after your health. You take a walk with your wife, a ride with your mistress, and join parties with your lady. Your wife will share your grief, your mistress your money, your lady your debt. If you are dead, your wife will shed tears, your mistress lament, and your lady wear mourning. A year after death your wife marries again, in six months your mistress, and in six weeks, or sooner, when mourning is over, your lady.

Wifey’s Lament

Clarence—“Do you think it will rain?”

Doris—“What?”

Clarence—“Say yes.”

Doris—“I said yes the other day and got myself in grief.”

Clarence—“When?”

Doris—“The other day.”

[27]

Dear Cap—Are we not all descendants of the monkey?

No, we are not. My folks came from Wales.

Dear Skipper—Can you tell me why a black cow gives white milk that makes yellow butter?—Helen Bach.

For the same reason that blackberries are red when they are green.

Dear Captain Bill—What do you think of a man who throws a girl a kiss?—Ima Blower.

I think he’s the laziest man in the world.

Dear Farmer Bill—How do you keep milk from souring?—Reggie.

Leave it in the cow.

Dear Cap—Why is it that professors claim touch to be the most delicate of all the senses?—Hook M. Cowe.

Well, here’s why: when you sit on a pin you can’t see it, you can’t hear it, you can’t taste it—but it is there.

Dear Captain—What is a button?—Holly Woode.

A small event that always comes off.

[28]

Dear Capt. Billy—The waiters in our city of Brainerd have just organized a union and wish you would kindly suggest some sort of a yell to hand the cooks when they raise the dickens with us.—Tillie Olson.

My feeble effort:

Dear Capt. Billy—I am about to organize a nice little club for thirsty people. What motto should our organization adopt?—Sipper Jin.

How about this one: “If you don’t see what you want, ask for it.”

Dear Captain Billy—What were the two most popular ballads of the American doughboy in France?—Mona Long.

Before the armistice it was “I Want to Go Home.” Afterwards it was “If You Want to Go Home, Just Let Them Alone.”

Dear Captain Billy—My father is a motor-man, and my mother is a conductorette. What am I?—Enter Tainem.

A transfer.

Dear Cap’n—What is a Pomeranian Whiff Sniff?—Willack Fulish.

A Pomeranian Whiff Sniff is a species of small wooly dog with the curious habit of trying to climb telegraph poles, hind feet first.

[29]

Dear Captain—Being as you are an etiquette expert, I would like to ask if it is a gentleman’s duty to approach a young lady and tell her that her eyebrow is on crooked and that she has a speck of soot on her right ankle?—Inquisitive Andy.

A gentleman is not supposed to notice the details of a lady’s attire. He is supposed to be in a state of rapturous admiration of the tout ensemble.

Captain Billy—Is a sallow, pale skin always affected by weak people?—I. M. Payle.

Dear Payle—Not always! I know a chap that was very dark, but he found a pair of dice and right from then he began to fade, and fade and fade.

Dear Skipper Bill—Why is a ship always called “She”?—M. T. Beane.

Probably because the rigging costs more than the hull.

Dear Farmer Bill—What is the best way to make both ends meet?—Lady de Barbour.

Learn to be a contortionist.

Dear Captain Billy—What, in your opinion, does love most resemble?—Georgette.

A roast beef sandwich. Two thin slices of sentiment and the rest filled in with bull.

Dear Captain Billiam—What kind of hand does a card sharper win with?—Pokker Feene.

An I-deal hand.

[30]

Dear Cap—Why are eggs much smaller now than in the past?—Lee Way.

I suppose it’s because they’re taken out of the nest too soon.

Dear Capt. Billy—A story in a New York paper says a dancer has insured her legs for $125,000. What’s the idea?—Lew D. Fiske.

We don’t know definitely, Lew.

Dear Skipper Bill—What war material did Chili export to the Allies during the war?—Clara Voyant.

Beans.

Dear Bill—If you’re a good little astronomer I know you’ll tell me what star was recently measured, and found to be of enormous size?—May Triatit.

Fatty Arbuckle, I guess.

Dear Captain Willy—A waiter in the Waldorf Flaskoria spilled hot soup down my neck, and when I remonstrated with him, the horrid old thing only snapped his fingers at me. Have you any words to describe such creature?—Ferdie Nann.

I would say that he is too soupercillious.

Dear Farmer Bill—Why is it you farmers always dress your scarecrows in men’s clothing?—Sack Kitt.

Well, if we dressed them in women’s clothes there’d be sure to be some old birds hanging around.

[31]

A friend of the Whiz Bang who served with the British forces during the World War sends us the following, which he claims was a favorite song among the “Limies.”

Their Specialty

Written by a dealer in electric washing machines:

“Don’t kill your wife. Get one of our machines to do the dirty work.”

Friend tells us that the way Clinton’s in New Haven advertises the record is: “Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming with Male Chorus, $1.25.” This ad was evidently written by the gent who said: “I stand back of every bed I sell.”

With a girl of twenty, marriage is an adventure; at twenty-five, a career; at thirty, a goal; and at forty, a haven of rest.

[32]

In the old days, to the women fell the task of making gentlemen of the men, but not now-a-days, according to our friend, Bob Toole, who claims that the boys keep the girls in line during this grand and glorious age of jazz.

In dancing, conversing, playing, courting and “spooning,” the standards of young boys and girls were fixed in the good old colonial days, by the girls. Their natural feminine modesty erected sensible social barriers and the chivalry of men made them sacred and preserved them.

This order has been changed. Men now fix the standards. Naturally, they are not as high as they “used to be.” A man is not as particular in things moral and esthetic as the average girl. The modern man makes a jazz hound of his lady. The modern girl endures a lot of things she inherently dislikes. She puts up with annoying behavior just to be a good fellow. She really doesn’t like this cheek-to-cheek and wiggly dancing; but she stands for it, for she is too good a scout to be a kill-joy. And just because she is such a good fellow about it, the men—good-hearted fools!—become[33] less lax in their behavior until they unconsciously impose on good nature.

Fellows, we’re going back again to the standards set by the natural modesty and sweet reserve of the girls! And we’re going to like it, too!

With wine gone, a “powerful” incentive to excessive “good fellowship” has been removed. With equal suffrage a fact, girls will unconsciously resent extreme impositions on their fine comradeship. There is certain to be a good natured reaction on a part of the ladies. They are going to set new standards. Not by law; by sweet common sense. Femininity will never revert to prudery, but girls are going to amend sensibly that “go-as-far-as-you-like” policy of good fellowship so that men will realize girls are less common and more wonderful than ever before.

And, we repeat, we’ll like it.

Go to it, girls! Make us be good!

An Ohio editor allows that a man in Columbus got himself into a ton of trouble by marrying two women without the formality of divorce from the first. A Western observer points out that a good many men in that section had gotten that way by marrying just one. A Southern editor has retorted by alleging that quite a few of his friends found trouble enough by merely promising to marry without going any further. And an old doughboy friend of ours collected a goodly surplussage of grief when he was simply found in company with another man’s wife.

[34]

If two souls are happily mated, there is no reason why either should live in or refer to the past. Their Eden is in the present and the future of what may be and not what has been. The man or woman should be sacredly silent about the dead past, unless there is some person or something which sooner or later may rise to bring darkness or death. The Bible basis of marriage is a love which takes for better or worse the heart which it calls its own. People ought not to marry unless they are so devoted to each other that any later knowledge of what either may have been or done would make no difference.

Man’s inhumanity to woman is often earthly, selfish and devilish. Women are naturally and generally better than men. If they err, it is usually the man’s fault. The average young man is fortunate to secure any girl to live with him as his wife. Keep still and ask no questions is the wise way. There is no double moral standard for speech or silence for man or woman. At the marriage altar, heaven demands no more of the woman than of the man. That a woman should tell the past to a man who insists, though it is none of his business, or that she should persist in confessing to him when he does not care to hear it, is a piece of folly of which some women are guilty. Where ignorance is bliss “’tis folly to be wise.” After marriage it will do no good to tell what you said and did before. There are many homes now happy, as if made under the wings of the angels, whose members at one time left the[35] paradise of innocence and wandered beneath a roofless world.

Love is blind. A true and genuine lover does not want to hear a girl’s past; and if he did hear it from her own or another’s lips, it would make no difference to him. If any one is to tell let it be the man, for usually it is the woman and not he who runs the risk of a past. Let the man confess who places the material above the mental and moral and thinks of a wife as a cheap luxury, and of home as a dry-dock of repairs. No matter how greatly discrowned, a woman may be recrowned. With her, heaven is in the future and not in any past, she may serve, give, work and pray with the love that is the crown jewel in her diadem.

The sweetheart who is willing to be a wife is not man’s inferior or superior, but equal in personal equivalent. The mere accident or providence of sex does not entitle a man to any special privileged of conduct before or after he is husband. Man’s character is judged by his estimate of women. Such a poem as Hood’s “Bridge of Sighs” or Goldsmith’s “Folly” would be impossible if men remembered not to act the part of Faust to Margaret.

“Go in peace and sin no more,” was the command to the fallen woman. Confess to the one you have wronged, but don’t make a boastful show before others. There are converted sinners in the pulpit and prayer meeting who make a glory of their shame, unmindful of the advice, “See thou tell no man.” It is the unpardonable sin of society that it would cast and keep in deeper hell the woman with a past, though she[36] be willing to purify herself in the fire of remorse and baptize herself with tears of repentance.

Many a girl who once glittered in Folly’s and Fashion’s court has later met and learned a true love. She was silent and devoted and today shines a holy flame in the home as wife and mother. A woman may tell what she is and hopes to be—not what she has been. The man who is fool and fiend enough to insist that the Sphinx speak is unworthy of her. Let a man remember to forgive and forget a woman’s past, as he hopes to have a happy home here and hereafter.

Hello! or Ohell!

Did you ever stop to think that there isn’t much difference between hello and ohell—that ohell is just hello turned around? There’s nothing finer in the English language it seems to me than a good old American “Hello!” But give her the reverse English and you get a cussword—and when you say “hello” to some people that is what you get.

How About This?

The following want advertisement appeared in one of our well known newspapers the other day:

“Two sisters want washing. Will go anywhere.”

My girl shakes the shimmy so much, that she’s shaken herself out of shape.

[37]

Smokehouse Poetry for October will feature three poems: one, the plea of a prisoner; the second, a thrilling story of the squared ring by the author of “The Kid’s Last Fight,” and the third, a comic jazz verse after Langdon Smith’s “Evolution.”

“The Prisoner’s Prayer,” which is to be Number One on the poetry billboard for October, was written on the stone wall of the Federal penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington, in September, 1909. It was later memorized by another prisoner and just recently forwarded to the Whiz Bang upon his release.

In response to inquiries from many readers we have obtained another copy of “The Gila Monster Route” to replace the one which Maggie, the hired girl, lost during our last farm house cleaning bee. It will be published in the Winter Annual.

Betrayed

By Angela Morgan

The Unwritten Law

By Budd L. McKillips

[41]

Going Down

Hail to the Devil Dog

A Tip For Wifey

[42]

Have a Drink, Boys?

They were on a fast train through Arkansas (?).

Every few minutes the lady across the aisle held a bottle to her lips. The traveling man was thirsty.

“How do you do,” said he. “What have you in that bottle, home brew?”

“No,” she said, “I have consumption.”

Always

Face the Music

Even if it is your landlady’s daughter playing “The Maiden’s Prayer” on a square piano. Some day you might be back on your board bill.

In the Game of Love

The dramatic triangle is caused by people not being on the square.

[43]

Los Angeles lawyers are laughing up their sleeves over the story whispered in connection with the divorce suit of Agnes Schucker, known to the screen world as Agnes Ayres, the Lasky leading lady, recently elevated to stardom through the kindness of Wallie Reid. Because of the fact that few people in California ever knew Miss Ayers under the name of Schucker, the divorce suit of Agnes Schucker versus Captain Frank R. Schucker, now with the United States Army in France, attracted little if any attention. Thus it was, the gossips report, when pretty Agnes Schucker recently entered the court room of Judge Summerfield, attired in a plain brown dress and inconspicuous black hat, there were few in the spectators’ gallery and none recognized the demure plaintiff as the Lasky star.

Tearfully Agnes’ mother told on the witness stand how she had to care for her daughter, because of the alleged failure of Captain Schucker to support Agnes. The mother’s testimony aroused the sympathy of the court and the spectators, and there was a mention of a co-respondent “Lillian.”

Everything was going lovely for Agnes until a cinema person from Hollywood recognized her in the court room and unceremoniously[44] tipped off her identity to the judge. Hizzoner appeared peeved because Agnes put on a little cinema drama all her own in his court room, assisted by mamma’s weeps, and he threw the case out of court.

Agnes’ lawyers then reopened the case on the grounds of desertion and soon she is expecting to be traveling in single bliss. According to the gossips, Agnes came back into court in the second trial her own real movie self, and attired in a champagne colored gown trimmed in green, and wearing a lavender hat trimmed with ostrich plumes. Mother, so it is reported, explained later to the judge that she “misunderstood” the question and that she merely meant she and Agnes lived in the same house; not that she had to support her “victimized” daughter.

Incidentally, Agnes has Wallie Reid to thank for her rapid rise in filmdom, and Wallie, by the way, gives so many teas and dinners that it is said he has to have two homes in order to accommodate all the parties, the second one being somewhere in Laurel Canyon, and Agnes is rated among his favorite dinner guests.

We have heard a story concerning our good friend Samuel Merwin, and if it is true, we will have to give Samuel a gold medal. Sammie is out west writing for the movies, and recently attended an exclusive house party at Riverside. The story goes that on the homeward drive he was permitted to[45] escort a beautiful English girl. About two miles had been traveled, so ’tis said, when the chauffeur reported the usual “blow-outs” and “missings” and that Merwin and the girl had to wait long weary hours during the “fixing” process.

All of the young eligibles in California have been trying to land the lovely English girl, but not Merwin, according to our bevy of Whiz Bang Bunkers, because even the most loose-tongued gossips admit the probability that during the two hours of waiting, Merwin went to sleep and let the London beauty wait alone.

Ah, romance, to where hath thou departed?

It wasn’t many months ago when J. Parker Reid, the director, with his star, Louise Glaum, and other members of the company, took a little trip to Tia Juana and San Diego. Of course, they went over to the Coronada Hotel for dinner and there J. Parker Reid met a bevy of society folk.

Now, you haven’t any idea how the society folk at Coronada fuss over movie people. The Coronada crowd are an idle set with plenty of money, little to do and an ambition to be considered clever. By informally hob-nobbing with the writers and players of the movie colony from Hollywood, they gain a new mental punch and are able to assume some of the glamour, always emanating from the people who do interesting things.

Louise Glaum has been conscientious in her art, you know. She is one of the really hard[46] working, conscientious women of her profession, and we’ve heard she has some dependent relatives to support, and that she never had much schooling, but has studied very hard by herself, and that altogether her life hasn’t been an easy one.

Louise’s pictures stopped making money a year or two ago, then she became friendly with J. Parker and the tide in her fortunes seemed to change. Reid perhaps fell in love with her, at least temporarily, and she perhaps with him, and besides he raised capital to star her again. The pictures were a success financially, and all the world seemed rosy for the hard working actress.

But, that trip to Coronada. J. Parker Reid, it seems, was fussed over a wealthy Mrs. Piper. To her, a great motion picture director maybe was a new idol for adoration.

We wonder how it’s all coming out. J. Parker Reid some weeks ago made it clear to Louise that their affair was over. In June he married Mrs. Piper. Life’s a funny little game after all.

We are sorry to learn that some of the scandal mongers are whispering derogatory rumors anent Jack Mulhall, because of the suicide of Laura Mulhall in Hollywood while the decorations of the seventh wedding anniversary party were still on the walls of their pretty home. Those who are well acquainted with Jack declare he always was a “square shooter”; that he had a splendid disposition and as a husband was as nearly[47] right as he knew how. He and his wife were constantly together and as far as friends could see, she had been happy with him. The scandal peddlers fail to appreciate the damage which they are doing to the future career of Mulhall, not to mention the shadow placed over the three-year-old freckle-faced boy.

Our Local Color

Our good friend Gemmell, of the Minnesota and International Railroad, wasn’t the railroad president who thought a gondola was a bird. In fact, the blame is laid to Mr. Casey for suggesting that his company purchase one male and one female gondola, so as to stock the city park of Brainerd, Minn., with a flock or herd or covey of little gondolas.

Our friend Liebst reports that since his poem, the Hoboes Convention, appeared in the Whiz Bang, he has received several letters from railroad managers requesting permission to name a few box cars after him. Oh, Fame, where is thy sting?

Ham Tomlin says he thinks he is growing old. He used to be able to kiss his wife 20 times a day but now it take him all day to get up nerve enough to kiss her once.

Don’t get jealous, boys, but I’ve just finished drinking some stuff that was strong enough to make a rabbit slap a bulldog in the face.

It’s a lean Jane that has no curves.

[48]

Velvet Joe Says—

Don’t fuss with hubby about droppin’ tobacco ashes on the carpet. Them ashes keep the moths out an’ the hubby in.

Greatness does not depend on size. Napoleon if he were living today would never get a job as a cop.

And Very Nice, Too!

A feller was engaged to a girl who was a twin. When asked how he told them apart, he said: “Well, they’re both nice girls.”

Our friend Deegan insists an Irishman dies only when an angel is needed in heaven.

How can a man get a headache without brains?

A Family Dialogue

He—I’m not coming home tonight, dearie.

She—May I depend on that? (Oh, boy!)

[49]

Let’s Call It the Cockeyed Blues

My girl’s eyes are so beautiful they can’t keep from looking at each other.

Remember, boys, the turtle may be slow, but he’s always there for the soup.

We could love a girl as “pretty as a picture” provided she had a good frame.

Honest, This Is True

Our idea of the height of vanity is to stand in front of a looking glass when you’re asleep.

Pathetic, Ye Gods, Too Pathetic

An Irishman and a Scotchman were standing at a bar—and the Irishman had no money.

Glorious Daze

Two drunks on a train.

No. 1—“Whas sha time?”

No. 2 (pulling card case out of pocket)—“Thurshday.”

No. 1—“Thash our stashon. Letsh get off.”

Try This One

The wedding cake was heavy, but the candles made it light.

If your girl shakes you, don’t get rattled.

[50]

Something to Worry About!

A New Brunswick priest covered his eyes in shame as some girls passed him at a bathing beach.

We Dodged Two Yesterday

The starving pole cat leaned against the post without a cent.

When I go to bed at night I snore so loud I cannot sleep. In fact, I am often compelled to go into the next room so that I may not hear myself snore.

Very Versatile

We heard the story the other day about a sailor at a ship’s concert who was unable to sing as scheduled on the program, and who offered in lieu thereof to show the audience the pictures tattoed on his chest.

[51]

Paris Made

A New Fad

(A street sign in St. Paul)

“GET YOUR SHOES SHINED INSIDE.”

X-Y-Z Tragedy

“Combination shot,” murmured the pool shark, as he leaned too far over the billiard table.

A Brief History

Whiz Bang history of the world war:

I want to go home!

When do we eat?

Who won the war? The Y.M.C.A.

Don’t stand there, soldier. This is for officers only.

If I hit, I don’t want any change.

Was that pay day or mess call?

Villa vouz promenade, M’lle?

The battle of Vim Rouge.

Mademoiselle fidelle, finee leguerre.

Hello, Statue of Liberty!

An Autumn Song Success

IF I HAVEN’T THE RENT THIS MONTH, DON’T YOU THINK THE LANDLORD OUGHT TO HELP ME OUT?

Our Sentimental Melody

We have received several requests for copies of our original song success published several months ago entitled, “You are a million miles from nowhere when you hold her dainty hand.”

[52]

What a Pity

Mike O’Reilly, of Butte, gazed mournfully at the corpse of his late friend, who had but recently become an atheist, muttering to himself, “You sure look fine, a clean shave, a new suit of clothes and a pair of white gloves on you. All dressed up—and no place to go.”

Zoology

Our London Report

To a young man who stood smoking a cigar the other day there approached the elderly and impertinent reformer of meek and mild reputation.

“How many cigars do you smoke a day?” asked the meddler.

“Three,” answered the youth, as patiently as he could.

“How much do you pay for them?”

“A shilling each,” confessed the young man.

“Don’t you know, sir,” continued the sage, “that if you saved that money, by the time you are as old as I am you could own that big building over the way?”

“Do you own it?” inquired the smoker.

“No.”

“Well, I do,” replied the young man.

[53]

BY REV. GOLIGHTLY MORRILL

Pastor People’s Church, Minneapolis, Minn.

To the religious rambler, Japan is divided into two parts—that which is inhabited by the Geisha girls, and that “cohabited” by the Yoshiwara.

I thought more of the Geisha dancers than the dance, and that wasn’t much. The word “Geisha” means accomplished one, and there are schools for their education in music and the arts. People visit the girls more for pleasure than for profit, and since they are one of the institutions of Japan, I went one night to a tea-house to see them. Making myself as comfortable as possible on the floor, a screen door was slipped aside, and in came a pretty Geisha girl who touched her head to the floor three times, sat down and looked at each one of our party. Immediately there fluttered in three more, and they made the room look like an Oriental bird cage. They sang for us in a tone that suggested an ungreased axle or a nail drawn across a piece of glass, played on the samisen and koto, which nothing but the genius of a Wagner could appreciate went through a fancy fan drill and proved themselves good entertainers, but felt embarrassed because we were not familiar and indecent. They acted[54] serious and spoke to one another, and I asked what was the trouble. It seems they didn’t know what to make of us, as the average tourist was usually boisterous, drunk and rough.

The Yoshiwara is the red-lantern district of Japan. One night we formed a stag party to visit the Tokio Yoshiwara, but we couldn’t shake the “dears” who were as anxious to go as we were and insisted on accompanying us. Our rickshaws rolled through squares and streets and miles of mud and misery, until we came to what was in itself a “city of dreadful night,” but all ablaze with electric lights. Here were squares of theatre-looking buildings in which women, dressed in bright and fancy garb, sat by little stoves, and sullen, smiling or smoking pipes, looked out at the spectators. The government regulates this “social” as a “necessary evil,” and houses, supervises and guards the girls. In Japan it is regarded as noble and filial for a daughter to sell herself to support the father and family who may have failed financially. The same thing is done in Europe and America for wealth and social position, but differently estimated and under another name.

Here they squatted in butterfly regalia, with silk kimona, obi, glossy black hair stuck full of combs and gold pins, eyes painted and faces powdered, thrumming a little guitar, squeaking out a love-song, and making goo-goo eyes in a way that would make one smile if he could forget the hell-horror of the place. Some of the inmates do not leave until death; others return to society, which welcomes and does not[55] disown; one may return to her home, loved and respected, but with none of the fine clothes and jewels given by her admirers during her absence. However, the place often becomes a matrimonial bureau, and the girl is met, courted and selected by some Jap as his wife. In addition to segregation, there is such a supervision that the inmates can’t leave for even an hour without the consent of the police.

Hotel life is interesting. If you are curious, you have only to wet your thumb and thrust it through the wall paper of your bed chamber to get as many views as Peeping Tom had of Lady Godiva. This hole privilege is, however, only claimed by the traveler who has no respect for the holy of holies at inn or temple.

Japan is the land of the Rising Sun—and daughter, who with the whole family will take their bath and leave the same water for you to swim in unless you set your alarm clock for a very early hour, or sit up all night to get there first. Imagine a public bath, if you can, for many homes have no bathroom, where the water by 10:00 A.M. is like a roily creek after a rain; by 3:00 P.M., yellow as the Missouri, and by bedtime like the mud geysers of the Yellowstone.

The public bath was the one thing we wanted to see and kept asking about. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and after visiting 2,738 of the 3,000 temples in Kobe, I wanted to get “next” to a public bath. At last I discovered one and sent the guide ahead to reconnoiter.[56] He said, “Come.” I passed the word along and the ladies came, but wished they hadn’t. We entered and I became a “looker-on” at Venus in the bath, and not one but many, who made the painted females in the Uffizi look like chromos or Mrs. Jarley’s wax works. They eyed us with an indifference that made us blush and look through our fingers for shame. With the ease that only a model for the altogether possesses, they posed before the mirrors, arranging their black hair, or poised like maids of the mist by the steam tank. Their type of beauty is different. Jap beauty is in angles, the American in curves. Nature made one with a ruler, the other with a compass. As a rule, the baths for men and women are divided by a wooden partition at the end of which sits the proprietor or his wife on the lookout. Formerly there was no privacy and the fastidious foreigners insisted that the sexes should be separated. This was accomplished by placing a bamboo rod between them, but even that is discarded now in some sections. Everybody gets into the swim, thus beautifully illustrating the proverb, “Evil to him that evil thinks.” O tempora! O mores!

One of the strongest impressions made upon me in my journey through Japan was at Mogi, a malodorous little fishing village, out from Nagasaki, with so large a smell that a blind man could easily find it by following his nose. Coleridge, the poet, whose business it was to rely on imagination rather than on fact, counted sixty well-defined and several stinks at Cologne. He would have been overpowered[57] here and called for the help of a professor of higher mathematics to enumerate the volume and variety of odors we encountered from Nagasaki to this town.

A well made road lassoes the intervening foot-hills which are covered with cultivated fields; the peasants were all busy, the children were happy and more so when we threw them peanuts instead of “pansies” for thoughts. Men, women and oxen were carrying various loads, but the common one was a bamboo bucket affair balanced on both ends of a bamboo pole. These buckets were not filled with milk, or cheese, or vegetables, but with a substance which they had assiduously collected in accordance with the Scripture, “Gather up the fragments that nothing be lost.” I can never forget the ascent or the descent to Mogi. From rocky road, through pretty forest, by picturesque ravine, we reached the fishermen’s huts with their nets by the shore and beach where bathing mermaids can only be caught and carried home in a camera.

The Last Chortle

A magician having nearly finished his act without exciting any applause, gave his best stunts, expecting to get a rise out of the audience, but without result. He then advised that he had saved his very best trick for the last and asked all who wanted to see the devil to raise their hands. Receiving a hearty response, he told them to go to hell, leaving the stage in much haste.

[58]

Back to Childhood Days

I visited an insane hospital at Oshkosh, Wis., and the keeper took me through. Up on the second floor we passed down a long hall. At the end there was a heavily padded and ironed cell. The keeper said to me, “The man in this cell is the most violent and strongest man we have here.” I looked at him. He was of Herculean build.

As we turned away, there was an awful crash and the front of the cell was thrown out in the hall. I ran down the hall and the big fellow right after me. I jumped out of a window at the end of the hall and he jumped right after me. I ran around the hospital and he after me. The attendant stuck his head out of a window and said to me “Why don’t you run?” I said, “Do you think I am trying to throw this race?”

I ran across a field and he was right after me. I could hear his footsteps behind me. I ran into a plowed field and that slowed me up. He was gaining on me. Finally he got near to me and he reached out and slapped me on the back and said, “Tag, you’re it.”

How’s This One?

Jiggs fell into a big vat of turpentine over at the paint factory.

Did it hurt him?

Don’t know, they haven’t caught him yet.

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.

[59]

Petie L. Arsony—The reason why they feed convicts coarse food is to keep their blood pure, so that they won’t “break out.”

Johnnie L.—A divorce suit should always be cleaned before being pressed.

Sweet Sixteen—You’re wrong. Woman is known not by the company she keeps, but by the company she does not keep. You did right in not keeping Johnnie’s company.

B. Good Tome—No, B, all chickens do not use fowl language, but I have met several who could swear quite fluently.

The Vanguard

Ghouls, Take Note

(From San Francisco Chronicle.)

Wanted—Second hand Coffin or couch casket. Box 4050 Chronicle.

[60]

Drexerd Pulls This One

He—Let’s go to the dance tonight.

She—Why do you like to dance so much?

He—Oh, for many reasons—I can put my arm around you, draw you up close, feel your soft cheek against mine, and—

She—That will do! Let’s stay at home and make believe we went to the dance.

Jes’ a Jester Jest

Some people say: “Get thee behind me, Satan and push me along.”

What Ho?

First Lunch Hound—“Well, old strawberry, howsa boy? I just had a plate of oxtail soup and feel bully.”

Second Counter Fiend—“Nothing to it, old watermelon. I just had a plate of hash and feel like everything.”

Our Harnessed Bulls

First Cop—Say, did you get that fellow’s number?

Second Cop—No, he was going too fast.

Say, but wasn’t that a fine looking dame in the back seat?

Yep, wasn’t she though!

[61]

Between two women of equal beauty, always pick the one who closes her eyes when she kisses you. She’s not so likely to think you want to marry her.

The proof that men do not understand women is that they love them. The proof that women do understand men is that they marry them.

The first kiss is always stolen by the man. And the last one is always begged by the woman.

The length of a woman’s kiss nearly always depends upon the breadth of her imagination.

To remain a woman’s ideal a man must die a bachelor.

A woman’s idea of Hell—“Nobody loves me and my clothes don’t fit.”

If there were only three women left in the world, two of them would immediately convene a court-martial to try the other one.

Men frequently marry to keep other men from getting the woman they desire. They are not always successful.

The final definition of love is something that gives pain without hurting.

Self-respect means a comfortable sense that you have not been found out.

[62]

When a man commits a sin, he says, “How shall I conceal this?” When a woman commits a sin she says, “How can I let my friends know of this without bragging?”

The theory that really to know two women one must introduce them is ridiculous. It often results in a divorce.

A woman’s head is not always turned by flattery; sometimes its peroxide.

When a woman starts an idle rumor, it at once ceases to be idle.

One beauty of being single is that it’s a dreadfully thrilling experience until one’s wife finds it out.

It must be dreadful to meet at dinner the man who ran away with one’s wife. It places one under such an obligation!

If there were only one bachelor in the world, every married woman would still think she made a mistake when she married her husband.

Experience in man is something which is brought with the tears of plain women and the kisses of pretty ones.

Love without respect is an angel with but one wing.

To make marriage perfect, the husband should be deaf and the wife blind.

Life is a river. Men are the boats. Women are the sandbars.

Fashion note: Cellar steps are worn very much this year.

[63]

Our Army Daze

About 2:00 o’clock one morning while making the rounds as Officer of the Day, I was halted by a sentry on post. After giving the pass word and being duly recognized, I asked for his special orders. You may imagine my surprise as he stood at port arms and said:

Blankety Blank Verse

By William Sanford

Even a fish won’t get caught—if it keeps its mouth shut.

Everywhere!

Whiz Bang is on sale at all leading hotels, news stands, 25 cents single copies; on trains 30 cents, or may be ordered direct from the publisher at 25 cents single copies; two-fifty a year.