Chapter I: Part 1

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

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_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.

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

Copyright 1921
By W. H. Fawcett

Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang employs no solicitors. Subscriptions
may be received only at authorized news stands or by direct
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Edited by a Spanish and World War Veteran and dedicated to the
fighting forces of the United States

_Drippings From the Fawcett_

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.

* * * * *

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.

“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.”

* * * * *

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.”

_Doug’s Peacock Walk_

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 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 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 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 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!”

* * * * *

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.”

* * * * *

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!”

* * * * *

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.

_Limber Kicks_

Bow Wow

This is so the entire world through,
You imagine a maiden loves yough—
Like the wind bends the bough,
You are bent by the rough,
Then left and forsaken—bough-wough.

* * * * *

Before marriage,
With wondrous care,
She seeks the mirror
And bangs her hair.

After marriage,
With angry glare,
She grabs her slipper
And bangs her heir.

* * * * *

Ask Bob He Knows

A miss is as good as a mile,
A kiss is as good as a smile,
But four painted kings
Are the beautiful things
That are good for the other man’s pile.

* * * * *

The ballet’s not the drawing card
That once it used to be.
Ah! when it dies, may some good bard
Indite its L. E. G.

* * * * *

“How do you like codfish balls?”
I said to sister Jenny.
“Well, really May, I couldn’t say,
I have never been to any.”

* * * * *

Poor Lot’s wife turned to salt, alas!
Her fate was most unkind.
No doubt she only wished to see
How hung her skirt behind.

* * * * *

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.”

* * * * *

The lightning flashed, the lightning crashed,
The skies were rent asunder,
With shriek and wail loud blew the gale,
And then it rained like thunder.

* * * * *

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.

_Naughty New York!_

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 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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.

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.”

* * * * *

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.”

_Questions and Answers_

=_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.

* * * * *

=_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:

Grape nut, Grape nut,
Malta vita force.
Keep your trap closed.
Well, of course.
We want oysters,
Rah! Rah! Rah!
Nabisco wafers
Bah!!

* * * * *

=_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.

* * * * *

=_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.

* * * * *

=_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.

* * * * *

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.”

When this bloody war is over
Oh, how happy we will be;
No more hiking, no more drilling,
No retreat or reville.
No more shining up brass buttons,
No more asking for a “leave,”
For we’ll tell the sergeant-major
To shove his passes in his sleeve.

* * * * *

_I know a young woman called Kitty._
_In the dance-hall she looks very pretty._
_But the next day at ten,_
_If you saw her then—_
_Oh, my gawd! What a pity!_

* * * * *

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.

_Whiz Bang Editorials_

“_The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet._”

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 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.

* * * * *

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 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 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.

Smokehouse Poetry

_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._

_“So hear ye the prayers from the prison,_
_Where fever and famine are rife;_
_Where never one soul has arisen,_
_Where many go down in the strife.”_

_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

Bad, hopelessly bad!
I yielded to love that sways mankind,
Not the mere measure of bodily pleasure,
But love that wakes in the soul and the mind,
Born of the spirit at God’s behest:
And I bartered all I had.

I, with the warmth of a child at my breast—
Am bad, hopelessly bad!

Yet the power that molded my little son,
Is the same that moved for the wedded one;
Creation’s woes were just the same;
Had he only borne a father’s name.
Did love, that old fashioned universe
Fashion alike my curse?

Listen, you who are true and good,
White and strong in your motherhood;
You with your wedding ring safe on your finger,
You who can linger, righteous and clean in love’s embrace:
Tell me the reason that I am base!
Are you so different after all?

I answered the same high golden call
I yielded to love that is proud of pain—
Love, that reckoned not for gain;
And nature has made my child so fair,
As the child on your very shoulder there.
The same great impulse, deep and glad,
That hurls the suns and drives the earth
Brought both our children to this earth.

Yet ... you are good and I am bad,
Vicious and evil and low, they say—
“A girl who has gone astray”;

Yet the milk of my life is warm and white
That runs to his hungry mouth at night;
My words are soft, my arms are sweet,
My hands are kind to his little feet.
Can I, who live for my baby’s smile,
Be vile, hopelessly vile?

O, great, broad, beautiful judgment day,
When dogmas of man are rent asunder,
And superstition is wiped away,
Will you plead for me, will you gently speak
For us who are voiceless and weak?
Plead for us, who must ever wonder?
Why we are hounded and held at bay—
We who can love, we who can pray: