Whiz Bang’s greatest book—The Winter Annual Pedigreed Follies of 1921-22—hot off the press. Orders are now being mailed. There will be no delay as long as the supply lasts. If your news stand’s quota is sold out—
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REMEMBER, FOLK
Last year our Annual (which was only one-fourth as large as the 1921-22 book) was sold out on the Pacific Coast within three or four days, and not a copy could be bought anywhere in the United States within ten days.
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Captain Billy’s
Whiz Bang
America’s Magazine of
Wit, Humor and
Filosophy
JANUARY, 1922 Vol. III. No. 29
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
ONE DOLLAR FOR THE WINTER ANNUAL
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 1922
By W. H. Fawcett
Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang employs no solicitors. Subscriptions may be received only at authorized news stands or by direct mail to Robbinsdale. We join in no clubbing offers, nor do we give premiums. Two-fifty a year in advance.
Edited by a Spanish and World War Veteran and dedicated to the fighting forces of the United States
After an extended trip of two months, which led me throughout the North American continent, it was a rare treat to settle down again to routine duties on the Whiz Bang farm. The main street of our own little “Gopher Prairie” looked mighty good to a tired and worn out farmer. ’Twas indeed a pleasure to view the Howard lumber yard, with its red fence and shed, and to grasp the sturdy hand of our village postmaster and storekeeper, Bud Nasett. J. J. McCormick, who is depot agent and telegraph operator, not to mention baggage smasher for genial drummers, greeted me at the station.
“How are you, Bill, you old son-of-a-gun?” or words to this effect, was the whole-hearted way that Mac welcomed back a wayward and prodigal pilgrim.
Arm in arm we walked along Main Street to Gus Urban’s meat market to inquire as to the price of livestock. Mr. Urban, in his usual jovial embonpoint manner, informed us that cows brought five cents a pound, but that bull was priceless. I disagreed with Gus, insisting that my recent journeys in quest of the pedigreed[4] animal had left me “flat broke.”
Directly across the street, neatly encased in imitation granite blocks of concrete, is our only bank, the Security State of Robbinsdale—and it hasn’t gone “bump” for nigh onto four years. In the reorganization which followed the last crash, Joe Roche was selected as cashier and Joe has since successfully piloted this financial bulwark of our happy little village. Joe also manages the Robbinsdale baseball nine. After making a small “touch” at the bank it was home and the farm.
My welcome back was so pleasant that the words of that rural gem—“The Little Old Home Town”—went Whiz-Zing through my jaded mind.
Bobby Nelson, our neighbor’s boy, is the worst kid in the world for betting, and the unusual feature of it is he usually wins. Bobby’s father took the matter up with the school marm to see if she couldn’t break him of the gambling habit, promising her a reward if successful.
The other morning when Bobby came to school he wanted to bet teacher she had a wart on her right knee and the school marm, knowing better, and thinking she had an opportunity to win a bet from Bobby and by so doing, discourage his betting habit, accepted Bobby’s challenge. After school that evening teacher proved Bobby was wrong and won the two dollar bet.
She then called on old man Nelson.
“Mr. Nelson, I have broken Bobby of the betting habit. It was a little embarrassing, but this is how it was—Bobby bet me two dollars I had a wart on my right knee and in order to make him lose and cure him of the betting habit I accepted his challenge.”
“Lady! Lady! Why did you do it? Bobby bet me this morning ten dollars that he would see your knee before the day was out.”
In naughty old New York you need cold cash to have a hot time.
The other day I went to an Irish wedding and the people who attended were very ill mannered. Why, I never saw such impolite people. We were all seated around the dinner table and when they brought the turkey in to serve, everybody made a grab for it, but the two legs I got tasted very good.
Out in Idaho it is reported that the natives are making booze in this manner—women chew corn and then “gob” it into a hollowed-out section of a tree trunk. Water is added and the mess allowed to ferment, after which it is imbibed to intoxication. Some drink, we would pause to remark!
A friend of mine told me the other night he slept in a wagon standing in an alley, and when he woke up in the morning he had nothing but a dime in his pocket. He was thirsty and he also needed a shave, so he decided to toss the coin to see whether he would get a shave or a drink. He tossed up the dime, and when it came down he missed it and it rolled near a sewer grating, coming to a standstill just half over the edge of the grating.
“Gee,” he exclaimed, “that was a close shave. I guess I’ll get a drink.”
We asked Gus what he thought of Helen of Troy, but he said that he had stopped running around with those laundry girls.
Our Robbinsdale druggist insists that Minnesota Swedes are the most advanced settlers in this country.
“Formerly we thought the Swedes were crazy for drinking pure alcohol,” he said, “But present day events prove them to have been about twenty years in advance of the rest of us.”
A stranger got off the train at our neighboring town of Coon Creek and went up to the town druggist and asked for whisky.
“We’re only allowed to sell spirits for medicinal purposes,” said the druggist.
“That’s what I want it for,” the stranger insisted, “this town gives me a pain.”
On my way to the Pacific coast last month I traded a Whiz Bang to a kid at the depot in Fresno for a package of raisins which the boy was selling on the depot platform. On the way back I saw the same kid.
“Say, kid, those raisins were punk.”
“So was the book” he replied.
Now, Fellow Soaks, we’ll touch a few high spots in this grand and glorious continent as we ramble about with wry faces in pursuit of the elusive Scotch and Bubbon. San Diego and its fashionable suburb, Coronado, were tough spots for a thirsty Minnesota farmer. Nothing but a concoction commonly called “sympathy” gin to be had by a meek and lowly stranger. But, glory be to Mexico, Tiajuana with its old time western bar-rooms and music halls, is but an hour away.
We spent one grand and glorious afternoon and evening in this unique village. It reminded me of slumming expeditions of a quarter century ago. Visions of Omaha’s famous Arcade at Capitol Avenue and Ninth Street, and of Duluth’s “Minnesota Point” in its palmy days, not to mention the cribs of Dupont Street in Frisco, went flitting through my frappe’d brain.
In one solace of joy we sat at a table for Haig and Haig “service,” said service being delivered by jaded janes who divided their time between waiting on customers and jazz dancing to the tinny tunes of a tin pan orchestra. It was a wild place and a wild night. Later we dined at the Sunset Inn. The inn was flanked by rooms filled with scores of roulette wheels and faro tables. My sporting blood surged hither and thither but to no avail, for the Mexican government had placed a temporary ban on this style of gambling.
Alcatraz Island, that silent citadel that illumines the skyline of Frisco’s bay like a bleak battleship, is the temporary home of about five hundred United States soldiers who have become ensnarled in the tough and tedious red tape of Uncle Sam’s court martial system. Prisons and morgues are two places I abhor, but it fell my lot to visit both in one night in San Francisco.
It happened like this: While entertaining some new found Frisco friends in my room in the St. Francis Hotel, I was pleasantly surprised by the head director of the Jewish Welfare Board, Shea Swartz by name, who requested on behalf of the Board, that my pedigreed bunk be spread on the rocky soil of Alcatraz. The five hundred boys gathered in the barrack auditorium and gave the Whiz Bang a grand and glorious welcome. It was one of the bright lights of a very enjoyable tour of the coast.
Later in the evening, accompanied by George Duffy and G. W. DeLano of the district attorney’s office, we inspected the famous San Francisco morgue. It was a gruesome visit, I’ll admit, but some of the curse was removed by the marvelous furniture and apparatus used in the handling of the unfortunate.
From the morgue we glimpsed a view of the city jail, through the kind offices of Walter C.[10] Schiller, who is bond and warrant clerk in the Hall of Justice.
It was next to Chinatown where we were met by the sergeant in charge of the Chinatown vice squad. Two of his operatives conducted our party through a score or more of Chink gambling and hop joints that had recently been raided. We sincerely thank the squad, but regret not having seen one or two places that had not been raided.
It is the hour of dusk that Chinatown pads to and fro noiselessly. In the little tangle of crooked streets, blue lozenges of lights, sitting gods and queer smells that babble of Oriental talk is incessant at this hour. Women parade in gaudy headdress and beads of jade. The men wear their gaudiest silken robes. There are dried-up men whose faces are old with the age of eastern lore, young women who walk with mincing steps and Oriental grace, cherry-cheeked babies tottering uncertainly.
We passed up Honolulu until later in the year and made a transcontinental jump to New York to try and “Get Gertie’s Garter.” Don’t believe I’ll ever be contented “down on the farm” after all the wonderful people and wonderful sights of the past two months. But here goes for Lil’ Ol’ New Yawk, as seen through the eyes of a farmer.
In the old days we used to hear startling tales of the decadence of the Paris theatre. It is no longer necessary to cross the pond to have one’s aesthetic (?) senses stirred. The New York stage will do it for you this season. Right behind the Broadway footlights you can see everything done in the name of Art from witnessing a young lady actually climb in a bed already occupied by a male to observing a squad of girls play strip poker until—
But let us go back to the beginning. They say that it is a dull season in New York and that no one is spending money—at least for theatre tickets. Hence the frantic effort to whet the jaded appetites of the elusive theatre-goers.
Let us list some of the more sprightly attractions. Bear in mind that some of them have excellent qualities. There is, for instance, Somerset Maugham’s “The Circle,” telling of an old couple who have broken all the conventions and of a younger couple about to follow in their footsteps. It is told with lively cleverness. No, indeed, the young people do not find[12] a moral in the experiences of their elders. At the end they dash away to investigate the illicit love-in-a-cottage stuff themselves and Mr. Maugham points out that in life it doesn’t matter “what you do as much as what you are.” And also that “you can do anything in this world if you’re prepared to take the consequences and consequences depend on character.” All of which is excellent mental food for the 1921 flapper.
Then there is Cosmo Hamilton’s “The Silver Fox,” a little epic of a philandering wife with a penchant for young men and abbreviated socks. Clever, too, but decadent.
Also we might note “Ambush,” the opus of a young woman who likes pretty things and who is aided and abetted by her mother. Papa is a poor commuter who wakes up when daughter introduces a flip and married gentleman friend. When he protests, daughter slaps his face and snaps “Damn you!” Still, there is some excuse for “Ambush.” At least it is well written.
Here we turn to the plain every day efforts to be insolently sensational at any price.
“Getting Gertie’s Garter” (note the chaste title), was one of the earliest of the sexly stimulants. But garters have lost their vogue and, anyway, the short skirts have ruined their novelty. So the piece did not seriously upset New York.
Then there’s “Lilies of the Field,” for instance, a demi-mondaine treatise anent certain lilies who “toil not neither do they spin,” or however it was that the Good Book let down the gold diggers of the old days. This is especially recommended for the eighteen-year-old flapper.
With which we arrive at the real blush producers of the year. Consider “Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife.” Here a young woman, newly married, invites her old sweetheart to her boudoir at midnight, gets him squiffy and persuades him to undress and climb into bed. And undress he does, right down to his B. V. D.’s in front of the footlights, the appreciative heroine and the audience. Said heroine then clambers in—and friend husband appears. Yes, it’s all to teach hubby a lesson (one must make some concession to the police) and the B. V. D. person gets the air.
Broadway had been busily getting out its shekels to see Bluebeard and the B. V. D. youth when along came Avery Hopwood’s “The Demi-Virgin.” Now, Mr. Hopwood’s demi-virgin is not the demi-vierge of the French, from whom the noun comes. Since this is a family paper, we will explain demi-vierge as a young and ambitious lady who is broadminded up to a certain point. Mr. Hopwood’s heroine, however, is a movie queen who deserts her husband, another movie idol, on their wedding night.[14] Although the husband finally succeeds in capturing his demi-wife in her boudoir and thereupon starts out to—well—anyway the real incident of the piece is the aforementioned strip poker party, where a half dozen film fillies discard garment after garment in a game designed to be thrilling. It isn’t a mere strip poker party but a “strip cupid” affair, the first to arrive at the cupid state to be the winner—or loser. The game progresses until it is a mere matter of a card’s turn who is to be cupid when, of course, the thing is ended.
This, then, is the state of the New York stage at this moment. Meanwhile, film fans see life on the screen through the eyes of little Rollo while, just around the corner, six young women are in the act of taking off their pink envelope thing-ums while an appreciative audience applauds. Not, of course, that we’re for censorship anywhere. But the New York stage producer seems to be able to get away with anything.
It is making it awfully hard for the musical comedy producer. Years ago he reached a certain limit in bare revelations and now the drama comes along and wins away the tired business man. Of course, the musical comedy maker isn’t giving up without a fight. Now and then he has an inspiration, as when, in the new Greenwich Village Follies, he reveals a lady to personify Art dressed exclusively in[15] three golden leaves, each placed with fine discernment and discretion.
The next step on the New York stage will probably come when the musical comedy producer raises—or lowers—his limit. Despite our youth, we can recall—vividly—when he made the step from tights and stockings to bare legs, the only thing left is for him to ape the Parisian producer and have costumes stop their upward trend at the waist. We shall see, we shall see!
Speaking about high-brow poetry, we have from the Saturday Evening Post (page 26, October 15th), real classy lyrics on how to eat or drink something. The poem isn’t quite clear as to whether Mr. Bloodgood was eating a rotten apple or merely taking a shot of moonshine, but anyway, it’s high-brow stuff—
The prisoner threw the magazines across his cell in disgust and swore eloquently. “Nothin’ but continued stories,” he raged, “an’ I’m to be hanged next Tuesday.”
Three southern gents of color were engaged in an argument.
First Darkey—“My wife is some cook!”
Second Darkey—“My wife is not much of a cook, but she is some wash-woman.”
Third Darkey—“My wife is not much of a wash-woman and no cook, but she shuh can kiss!”
First Darkey—“She can, she can!”
Third Darkey—“Wat’s dat?”
First Darkey—“Can she? Can she?”
“That helps a good deal,” remarked the poker player as he drew the fourth ace.
Sportsman (to friend at track meet)—“So you like to watch the runners, old man?”
Sport—“Yes, I surely do. That plump girl over there has two in one stocking.”
“What’s all that growling I hear?”
“Oh, that’s the ‘Hot Dog’ I just ate.”
They just caught Roy Gardner!
Where was he standing?
On Hightower watching Fatty Arbuckle before he visited Richmond, Virginia.
The man getting his hair cut noticed that the barber’s dog, which was lying on the floor beside the chair, had his eyes fixed on his master at work. “Nice dog that,” said the customer.
“He is, sir.”
“He seems very fond of watching you cut hair.”
“It ain’t that, sir,” explained the barber. “You see, sometimes I make a mistake and snip off a little bit of a customer’s ear.”
It was washing day and John had been kept from school to look after the baby. Mother sent him into the garden to play, but it was not long before cries disturbed her. “John, what is the matter with baby now?” she inquired from her wash-tub.
“I don’t know what to do with him, mother,” replied John. “He’s dug a hole and wants to bring it into the house.”
Here’s a good story on a Minneapolis chiropractor. He started his treatment on the new patient by rubbing his back. Then he turned the patient over and applied the treatment in front. The patient stood the tickling as long as he could, then with a look of content in his eyes he sez, “Kiss me, Doc.”
A nice young man called on a nice young lady and spent the evening recently. When he arrived there was not a cloud in the sky, so he carried no umbrella and wore no goloshes nor mackintosh. At 10:00 o’clock when he arose to go, it was raining pitchforks and grindstones.
“My, my, my!” said the nice young lady, “if you go out in this storm you will catch your death of cold.”
“I’m afraid I might,” was the trembling answer.
“Well, I’ll tell you what—stay all night; you can have Tom’s room, as he is visiting uncle and aunt up in the country. Yes, occupy Tom’s room. Excuse me a minute, and I’ll just run up and see if it’s in order.”
The young lady fled gracefully upstairs to see if any tidying was necessary. In five minutes she came down to announce that the room was in readiness, but no Charles was in sight. In a very few minutes, however, he appeared, dripping wet and out of breath from running and with a bundle in a newspaper under his arm.
The nice young lady greeted him with: “Why, Charles, where have you been?”
“Been home after my night shirt,” was his reply, as he hung his hat up to drip.
That train smokes a lot.
Yes, and choos, too.
Dear Capt. Billy—What is the Goozes Pimple Glide dance?—Washer Iggle.
This is done in the following manner: While stepping on the ballroom floor with your partner keep time with the music by stroking her bare arm with the front and back (alternately) of your hand.
Dear Capt. Billy—What is meant by “A man ahead of the time?”—V. Havan Oisteh.
The fellow who carries his watch in his hip pocket.
Dear Capt. Billy—While crossing from Key West to Havana on one of the gin rickey boats I noticed a streak of oil on the water. Could you tell me what that was from?—S. Lopp Boal.
Oh, that’s where the road went across the ice last winter.
Dear Captain—We are going to give a cleaning-shower for a bride-to-be. Can you suggest an appropriate gift?—Mid Riff.
A bath mitt.
Dear Cap’n—I am giving a home-brew party to some jolly boys and girls. What is the proper hour to have the musicians play “Home Sweet Home?”—Roll Myowne.
Just before half pash stew.
Dear Captain—I am alone a great deal at night and am afraid. Can you suggest some kind of protection?—Belle R. Peeling.
Take the bark of a dogwood tree and leave it outside your bedroom door.
Dear Cap.—Can you suggest some inexpensive amusement that I might indulge in when my husband is away?—Dottie.
Take a bath and then spend half an hour or so playfully trying to locate the soap.
Dear Cap’n Billy—I have just purchased several new gowns and no one seems to notice them. What can I do?—Ophelia Bumpus.
Try standing on a street corner with a tin cup in your hand and wear a sign “I am dumb.”
Dear Cap. Billy—How can I cure my husband’s hiccups?—Ada Banana.
Don’t try. It is a mark of distinction.
Dear Captain—When my husband takes me to a dance he prefers to jazz with all the girls except me. What can I do?—Gladys Swetz.
Make him wear shoulder braces.
Dear Capt. Billy—In all your travels, where did you receive the most hospitality?—Al Hambra.
It was when in California. A gentleman called me into his room, handed me a goblet in one hand and a demijohn in the other and turned his back.
Dear Capt. Billy—My dearest boy friend jilted me and now refuses to marry me. Please give me your best dope.—Sally Patica.
Dear Sally—Always hate him and bring your children up the same way.
Dear Captain Billy—I am fondly in love with a young girl in our town, but also have strong sympathies for a dashing grass widow of thirty. My age, too, is thirty, and I would like your advice as to whom I should consider seriously.—Gloomy Gus.
Always deal with an old established firm, young man.
Pat and Mike hesitated at the gate of the home they intended to rob, because of a barking dog.
“Go head, Mike,” said Pat, “You know a barking dog never bites.”
“Maybe so,” replied Mike, “you know that and I know it, but the dang dog doesn’t know it.”
Pounding on the door of the attractive mulatto girl, the soldier bid fair to rouse the entire neighborhood, till a head was thrust out of an upstairs window and a voice cautiously asked:
“Hush up dar, yo’ soldier! What yo’ want?”
“Wanta come in,” hiccupped the warrior, who had evidently left the shrine of Bacchus to worship at that of Venus.
“H’m! Does yo’ b’long to de United States Marines?”
“Nope; but wanta come in.”
“Does yo’ b’long to de Third Massachusetts?”
“Nope.”
“To the Second Noo Hampshires?”
“Nope.”
“To the Fourf Noo York?”
“Nope; but wanta come in, all the same.”
“Well, yo’ can just go away fum dar, yo’ triflin soldier; I’se a very partickler woman, I is.”
The selection of the Cast for “Why Change Your Beeveedees?” the snappy cinema spectacle which the management of the Snore-On Theatre has been persuaded to show commencing today, was a task calling forth all the brains of that superior author-scenarist-director-producer, Whatin L. Isit. The difficulty lay in getting a star acceptable alike to the garment workers, buttonhole makers, laundry operators and health authorities.
M. T. Dome, who plays the leading male role in Wanta Daddy’s latest paramour picture, “The Questionable Residence,” adapted from Gimm E. Vice’s play by Seena Lott, is the newest addition to Hollywood’s film colony. Dome came all the way from New York to California just to play the part of Powerful Percy the Panderer’s Pal in the picture. He was last seen on the screen as Glorious Love’s leading man in “The Passionate Plumber.”
Brother Toole of the Kablegram writes: “I had all kinds of trouble at the Blank Hotel last night. It was the first time I ever stopped there. When I returned from the theatre, I found that the clerk had put two women in my room. I went downstairs and raised all kinds of trouble about it. I couldn’t do a thing with the manager at first—but finally he put one of the women out.”
By Walter Wolf
Rough-neck Western Yankee—Watcher principal trees here in England?
English Cockney—Hoak, helm and hash.
They had met at a dance, he and she. He had wooed and won her while dancing to jazz harmony, that’s why they were all “jazzed” up now. She got to shaking her shoulders, so he “shook” her for good and got a divorce. Now they’re apart and do their dancing with different partners. She gets stepped on and he steps on others. Some day when “Home Sweet Home” is played they will wander home together again and call it “The Last Waltz.”
“My wife,” said the henpecked one, “is a woman of few words—but she uses them over and over again.”
By Whursmuhwhiski.
I stopped in a Music Store the other day, and while looking around, I saw a stack of sheet music called “Toyland Sketches.” The first one I noticed was called “The Arrival of the Teddy Bears.” Needless to say, I didn’t look any further.
Would “When Mother Plays a Rag On the Sewing Machine,” necessarily be a sister song to “When Father Plays a Chord On the Wood-pile?”
Tenant (to janitor)—What was all that cursing and swearing going on Sunday morning?
Janitor—Oh, that was Mrs. McFadden. She was going to church and she couldn’t find her prayer book.
How did Sal treat you?
Sal who?
Sal Hepatica.
Oh, she worked me to a frazzle.
“Oh, Ralph, I haven’t a thing to wear.”
“’S’all right. I’ve a Sedan.”
Ikey—Papa I’m in lof. Ain’t it a fine feelings?
Papa—Dat’s nice, Ikey; who is de goil?
Ikey—Ah papa, she’s a peaches and cream. She’s good looking, she’s a good housekeeper, her papa’s got lots of money and—
Papa—Vat’s her name, Ikey?
Ikey—Alma Rosenbloom, ain’t she a daisy?
Papa—You mean de clothing man’s daughtair?
Ikey—Dat’s de goil, papa. How do you like it?
Papa—Ikey, I’m very sorry but it cannot vas.
Ikey—It cannot vas, papa, for why?
Papa—You see, Ikey, ven I vas a young man I was married before and Alma Rosenbloom iss your sistair.
After a lapse of time Ikey comes in again, all smiles and joyfully greets his father with the announcement—
Papa, I’m in lof again.
Papa (anxiously)—Who iss de goil dis time?
Ikey—Ah she’s a fine buxoms, she’s a good musician, she can cook, she’s good looking, her papa’s got lots of money, and—
Papa—Ikey, tell your papa, who is de goil?
Ikey—It’s Rosa Lipshuts.
Papa—You mean de pawnbroker’s daughtair?
Ikey—Dat’s de baby, ain’t she a fine catches?
Papa (shaking his head in the negative)—Ikey, I’m very sorry but it cannot vas.
Ikey—It cannot vas, papa, for why it cannot vas?
Papa—You see, Ikey, ven I vas a young man I vas married twice and Rosa Lipshuts iss your sistair also.
At this Ikey could no longer contain himself and gave vent to his feelings in an outburst of boo-hooing. To hide his disappointment he sought refuge in his room where his mother, attracted by his sobs, came to console him.
Mama—Ikey, for vhy are you crying?
Ikey—Oh, mama it’s too terrible, it’s too terrible.
Mama—Tell your mama, Ikey, for vhy do you cry?
Ikey did.
Mama (patting her boy on the head)—Dat’s all right, Ikey. You go an marry de goil. She’s a good goil, she’s got lots of money, and—
Ikey (between sobs)—But, mama, it cannot vas.
Mama—Yes, it can vas, Ikey. You see ven a young goil I vas married before also and your papa is not your fathair.
THE BATTLE OF GARTER RUN.
The architect was standing before one of his newly completed creations. Its mistress, plentifully sprinkled with diamonds at eleven in the morning, turned to him and said:
“It’s grand, and I’ve just decided not to employ a landscape gardener. I know just what I want myself. Banked up right against the porch there I want a real thick border—now what is that name? You know; those bright red flowers that look so dressy—yes; now I have it—saliva.”
The architect was staggered for a moment, but soon recovered and came back enthusiastically.
“The very thing,” he agreed. “And right in front a nice row of spitunians.”
Dark—Going to the dance tonight, Sam?
Darker—Naw, I ain’t got any razor.
Clancy chuckled.
“What’s the joke?” asked Mooney.
“Sure,” replied Clancy, “Casey bet me ten dollars he could shoot a peanut off my head with a shot gun and oi took him up because oi knew he’d miss it.”
He wouldn’t supporter, so she stole his suspenders.
Little Shannon Day, a Ziegfeld Folly girl, is out west playing in a Lasky picture. Monte Katterjohn, Lasky scenario writer has been seen with Miss Shannon very frequently during the past two years, both in New York and in Hollywood. He went so far as to take her to a formal Authors League Dinner last year and the speeches and the minutes of the meeting and the pleas for unpaid dues were such a tax on Shannon’s mind that she was caught dropping off to sleep many times before the tiresome evening was over. “I can’t see nothing to authors” quotes Shannon as she smoothes a new dress which Mamma Dolly of the famous Dolly Sisters team made for her just before she left New York.
While Geraldine Farrar stayed in Southern California last month, fulfilling her concert engagements she kept herself much secluded in her bungalow at the Hotel Maryland in Pasadena. Her parents were with her. Many of her former friends in the film colony attempted to see her in vain and it is surmised that Miss Farrar wished to keep to[30] herself until the matter of her pending divorce from Lou Tellegen has either been granted or repatched.
The weekly calendar of a well known church in Los Angeles printed the following questions soon after the Arbuckle affair spread itself forth in the newspapers:
“What would you do if you were in Mr. Arbuckle’s predicament?”
“Is this a day of judgment for the movies?”
“Was Miss Virginia Rappe of aristocratic blood?”
“How much do we know of Henry Lehrman, the lover of Miss Rappe?”
Another wedding in the Pickford family is predicted. It is whispered that Lottie Pickford is soon to marry Alan Forrest, popular and handsome young leading man of the films. Lottie Pickford was formerly Mrs. Rupp, wife of a Los Angeles broker, whom she divorced about two years ago.
He (driving up to the curb)—Hello, little girl, wanta go for a ride?
Sweet Thing—Nothing doing, I’m walking home from one now.
She—“I wish God had made me a boy.”
He—“He did. I’m he.”
A stranger, walking along the road, passed an old darkey. He began talking with him and found out that he had known George Washington.
“I suppose you remember when Washington crossed the Delaware?” he asked.
“’Deed, boss, I steered dat boat,” was the reply.
“And do you remember when he took a hack at that cherry tree?”
“’Deed I do,” the darkey replied, “’case I drove that hack myself.”
Ah’s so tough ah scratches de enamel off de tub when ah takes a bafth.
Thousands of lonely women are staring at faded photographs when they might be kissing the faces of children.
“The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet.”
Jazz life seems to agree with Americans. We not only live faster than our great- grandparents, but, on the average, we also live eight years longer. So says the Census Bureau.
Some day the centenarian will be the rule, not the exception. That will come as a result of health education, not from eating monkey glands.
A popular song had this refrain: “He may be old, but he’s got young ideas.” That appealed to popular fancy because it caught the subconscious mind, which probably knew what the census now reports:
That marriages of persons beyond fifty years of age are steadily increasing in numbers, already being frequent. Out of 100 American men and women, 80 are married before they reach 45, while 10 take the leap afterward and 10 remain single.
Divorces among those who have passed 45 are also becoming more common. This, however, is not making us a cynical people, for the[33] census finds that the majority of divorced people try marriage at least a second time, many making three or four ventures.
Figures—which never lie, though liars often figure—show that the span of life is lengthening during the Jazz Age.
The strain at times gets on our nerves. Frequently one of the contestants howls and goes to pieces. But, on the average, the real effects of the Jazz Age will not show up until our descendants of one hundred years or more hence.
In Dr. W. A. Evans’ column in the Minneapolis Journal, “A. G. M.” writes, under the heading of the Artistic Sex:
“I have a son, seventeen years old, who is and has been for ten years, obsessed with a strange desire. He wants and feels that he ought to be a girl. Ever since he was seven years old, and probably before, although I had never noticed it, he has thought of himself as a girl, acted like one, desired to be regarded as a girl, and has, whenever he could worn girls’ clothing.
“His mother and I had a terrific struggle to allow his hair to be cut like a boys’, when he was six or seven years old. He withstood us until he was nearly ten, when, for the sake of peace, he consented to have it bobbed. Up to that time he had worn it in a great mass of curls, away down over his shoulders, regardless of the ridicule of his playmates. He wore his hair bobbed until two years ago, when he finally had it cut after a fashion similar to other boys. This is just one incident, but it may serve to show you something of his frame of mind.
“He attended a gymnasium class until he was fourteen, and he invariably wore bloomers and a bow of ribbon in his hair.
“In fact, he is far more at home in girls’ clothing than he is in boys’, for he has always insisted on wearing dresses and gowns when in the house. His bedroom is a real girl’s boudoir, with dressing table, powder puff, etc. He has as few boys’ clothes as he can get along with for going out. Playing with dolls was his favorite amusement until he was about thirteen. He is about five feet eleven and one-half inches tall, good looking and possessed of a remarkably good mind. He never has given any signs of mental deficiency, unless you term what I have above described as mental deficiency, or rather insanity. I would be grateful if you would tell me your opinion.”
(Dr. Evans’ answer): This is a case of third or intermediate sexism. You will find a fair amount of literature on the subject. Such subjects are not in any sense feeble-minded. In fact, many of them are exceptionally bright. As a rule the stage, music or painting offers the best fields for men and women of this group.
Wonder what our friends of the theatre think of Dr. Evans’ advice? Probably they would feel the same way as the Army officials felt towards certain chiefs of police who paroled the bums and the crooks on condition they join the Army.
Dear folk: We have some dandy stuff in store for you. Among the masters who are writing for Whiz Bang the coming year are J. Eugene Chrisman, author of “Poppies, Hell,” with his “Chi Slim,” “Keyhole Stuff” and others; H. A. D’Arcy, author of “The Face Upon the Floor” with his “Trapper’s Story,” “Charlie Wong” and others; Frank B. Lindeman, the prospector-poet with his ode “To a Mountain Rat” and others; and last but not least, some almost forgotten masterpieces of James Whitcomb Riley, whose “Passing of the Old Smokehouse,” was one of the many hits of our Winter Annual, Pedigreed Follies of 1921-22.
By Gifford and Whitney.
By Budd L. McKillips
By Edward E. Paramore, Jr.
As originally published in Vanity Fair.
A mud-spattered dough-boy slouched into the ‘Y’ hut where an entertainment was in progress and slumped into a front seat.
Firm, kindly, and efficient, a Y. M. C. A. man approached him, saying: “Sorry, buddy, but the entire front section is reserved for officers.”
Wearily the youth rose.
“All right,” he drawled, “but the one I just got back from wasn’t.”
On our recent visit in Los Angeles we became contaminated with Ham Beall’s filosophy. (Note to the boys: This was written just before Ham went on the wagon.)
BY REV. “GOLIGHTLY” MORRILL
Pastor, People’s Church, Minneapolis, Minn.
Allah be praised! Here I am in Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander the Great. Yet Alex. could never conquer this part of the world today—the smells would put him to rout. This polyglot port is in “Lower” Egypt, and its dives are among the lowest found anywhere. The Rue des Soeurs is a street where crooked people go straight to perdition. Gambling hells are overflowing. Sailors and soldiers from the four corners of the globe crowd the cafes, where guitars twang, pianos jangle, drunks bawl, booze flows, choruses cheer and women leer. Fleshy Fatimas, overpainted and underclothed prowl about the street seeking whom they may devour. From lighted windows come droning nasal songs—
All aboard for Cairo, city of the Caliphs, and I felt like taking a board and spanking the exposed anatomy of the Arab youths who posed along the railroad tracks to shock and mock the passengers.
Leaving the black sheep tourists at “Shepherds” Hotel, I visited the mosques which are as numerous in Cairo as mosquitoes in New Jersey. There may be a thousand; I visited five hundred, more or less. Sometimes I took off my slippers at the outer door, and at others I wore a kind of moccasin over my tourist shoes and shuffled and slid over the old floors, wondering how in the name of everything sacred I could profane anything with a good “sole” like mine. In my fling about the city I visited the Whirling Dervishes who whirled and dervished for me to my heart’s content with a poetry of motion a Sitka Indian could never attain. My head grows dizzy and my stomach faint when I think of them and their musical accompaniment of tambourines and flutes which were a cross between an ungreased saw and the breathing of an overdriven horse. I left before these human tops stopped spinning, and I carried away the memory of their tomato-can hats, bell-shaped robes, half-closed eyes, drooping heads and extended arms. I still see the uplifted right palm catching a blessing from Allah, the left hand turned down to bestow it.
Cairo’s amusements are varied: you may attend the opera house and listen to Italian music or see a French farce; take a turn at the hippodrome and have a circus; or stop at an open air play on the Esbekeeyah; or, if religiously inclined, take in the convent with its dancing dervishes and barbarous music; watch snake-charmers, glass-eaters, sword-swallowers, long-haired fakirs, chibook-smokers and munchers of scorpions; sip cafe noir (that looks and tastes like sweetened Nile mud) in a little shop where the waiters and loungers are as thick as the drink; or see Arabs gamble with dice and cards, much as they do in America; go to a kind of vaudeville, where a stringed band of lady-performers try to beguile travelers, with American airs and Persian dances, into buying drinks for them at the rate of one or two dollars a bottle, and poor stuff at that; or meander through the Fish Market at midnight where streets are filled with citizens and sight-seers, sidewalks with roystering soldiers, bazaars with shrewd traders, dens with drunken natives, and miles of houses with women outcasts from all quarters of the globe, leering, lurking and lustful, caged like wild beasts behind iron-barred gratings which are necessary to keep them from murderous assault on the morals, money and lives of the passersby. I was held up in an alleyway by a beautiful Ghawazee girl who said, with outstretched hand, “Me backsheesh to give God.” She would[45] need a bank-roll to get full pardon for her multitudinous mistakes. The resorts where naked women invite you to see the “Danse du Ventre,” a Terpsichorean exercise not noted for its modesty, and the mahsheshehs, or hang-outs where hasheesh smokers stimulate themselves into idiotic talk and laughter and stupefy their brains into a narcotic nepenthe of poverty, hunger and dirt, may seem quite unethical to the Occidental tenderfoot, but they are Christian places of entertainment compared with those infamous joints in the Fish Market where men, dressed up like women, carry on. These bordels had their prototype of old in the Egyptian temples of Isis.
I entered a Cafe Chantant where, before an entranced audience, two daughters of the desert, with incandescent kohl-stained eyes and sin-stained souls, were going through the sinuous undulations of the “hooche-cooche.” They moved their necks to and fro like cobras before a snake-charmer, and the motion of hip, breast and abdomen thrilled the spectators. These Egyptian dancers show a laxity of muscles and morals, and dance in a way that makes it unnecessary to attend a gymnasium. The dishes served were delicate, but the songs were indelicate, to say the least. There was a very pathetic one which I translate:
The Oriental orchestra was made up of a darabooka drum, made of a wooden cylinder over which is stretched a parchment; the tar, a sort of tambourine; the kemengeh, a viol of two strings with a cocoanut sounding-body; the kanoon, a stringed instrument held on the knees and played with the fingers; the ’ood, a guitar with seven double strings; and the nay, a reed flute blown at the end. The music produced is most unspeakably unspiritual and nasally noisome. It outranks the obligato serenade of a love-sick tom-cat. The melody is old as the Libyan hills. Is this what Mark Antony heard when he fell for Cleopatra? If so, what a fall there was, my countrymen!
Here I bade adieu to the country which has all that was, is and ever will be. Good-bye, Egypt! Land of faro-banks and Pharaoh mummies—of backsheesh, bad smells, sphinx and blase globe-trotters! Paradise of palm trees, pyramids and postcard-venders! Desert domain of donkeys, dirt and dervishes—of tombs, temples, turbaned thieves and veiled vampires! Home of camel, crocodile, can-can and Cleopatra! Farewell, till we meet again!
Even cultivated girls sometimes grow wild.
Be sure you are right and then keep still about it.
I don’t like girls that bob their hair, use rouge or powder, wear short skirts or roll their socks.
I haven’t got a girl, either.
Every right-minded woman is cheered by the thought of having pretty undies on—even if nobody sees them.
In the battle-scarred words of the cave-man: “I want my wine weak and my women strong.”
To eat your meals in front of a looking glass and think you are having twice as much.
If a corset cover covers a corset, what does a corset cover?
“Our buckles won’t hurt you.”
Our Robbinsdale bootlegger refused to sell me absinthe because he said it is against the law.
Hello, there, old fellow, where’d you get the new hat?
Oh, my wife didn’t expect me home until twelve last night and I got in a little earlier.
In the immortal telegram of Ikey Goldstein: “Twins arrived; mine died.”
Hall Caine’s description of women:
“Women are like sheep’s broth. If there’s a head and a heart in them they’re good, and if there isn’t you might as well be supping hot water.”
Says the pail to the milk, “You look awfully pale.”
Says the milk to the pail, “If you’d gone through what I have, you’d be pale, too!”
Our idea of nothing is a bung hole without a barrel.
These shoes are too tight. Be jabbers, oi’ll have to wear them a couple of times before oi can get thim on.
Let us now sing the old familiar ballad, “When a goat is right behind you it’s no time to lace your shoe.”
A handkerchief and a sock, by chance met in a tub at the laundry.
“How did you get in here?” asked the sock.
“Oh, I was blown in,” replied the handkerchief.
“I was scent,” said the sock.
“I’ve got to hand it to you,” quavered the citizen as he passed over his pocketbook to the hold-up man.
Columbus was walking down the main street of Spain one day when he saw Queen Elizabeth riding along in her new Henry super four.
He called to her, saying, “Howd’y Bella.” She said, “Hello, Colum, hop in.” They were on pretty intimate terms, at the time, and there was quite a bit of scandal going around concerning them.
After a little Columbus said, “Say, Bella, I believe if I had a couple of schooners I could sail over and discover America.” She answered, “All right, Colum.”
Soon after, Columbus sailed away and sailed for years and years. One day one of his men hurried below and in an excited voice said, “Columbus, I see land.”
On landing, they found the Indians all lined up and down the shore waiting for them. Columbus stepped ahead and said, “Hello, is this the United States?” “Yes,” said the chief, “we got your cablegram and have been waiting here to be discovered.” Whereupon Columbus erected a post and put up a brass tablet giving date of discovery, etc.
After that, he moved to Ohio, and anyone passing can see Columbus in Ohio.
She—Did you get a commission in the army?
Private—No, I just got a straight salary.
Clara Smith Hamon, now Mrs. John Gorman, is no longer in possession of her $2,500 automobile. The car was recently attached for payments overdue. Her picture “Fate” was given its final death blow as a money producer when the Arbuckle affair roused the censorship broil anew.
Because his old friend Claire Windsor met Charlie Chaplin at the depot in Los Angeles on his recent return from Europe, the newspapers hinted a new romance. However, Whiz Bang’s astute investigators did not go to the depot, but upon taking a chance peek into Charlie’s drawing room, discovered among a very few close friends, little May Collins and her mama.
Evidently the little Collins-Chaplin romance is still on. Pretty foxie, Charlie!
Married men out west are having an awful time. You know the cleverest hold-up men and crooks in the U. S. A. beat it for California every fall to keep abreast to the tourist wealth which goes west as well.[52] These desperadoes often take an auto of an evening, drive into the suburban towns or near the lonely stretches of Pacific beach, and hold up loving couples who are spooning in autos along the roadside. Now, you see if you happen to be married and are out with the pretty steno or an extra girl, and you are held up, relieved of diamonds, watches and money, you can’t very well report it to the police, can you? Reporters have an annoying way of getting news from police chiefs and, regardless of your rage against thugs and hold-up men, you surmise it would be better to swallow your loss.
Domestic note—Alice Brady, who in private life is Mrs. Thomas Crane, has retired from stage and screen, it is said, in anticipation of an interesting family event.
From “location” to a “one night stand” in the county jail was the recent plight of Texas Guinan, film beauty and former musical comedy favorite. Approximately fifteen hours the movie star basked in the bastile, and all on account of an unpaid old grocery bill.
The turnkeys are glad she is out. They are willing she reign on Broadways if she will keep herself out of prison row. The tank heroes shaved themselves as never before, donned Sunday neckties and bartered keepsakes for standing room back of the great steel doorway where[53] they might perchance catch a glimpse of Texas. However, they were disappointed, for Texas was temperamental and made no appearance in the downstairs “prison drawing room.” Nosegays and noes arrived, but Texas announced from her “dressing room” that she never “received” before noon. According to rumors, Mrs. Peete and Madalynne Obenchain displayed real professional jealousy.
By James Whitcomb Riley.
The oil field filosopher reports the following:
My father got rich selling tickets at the moving picture show. When a man came up to buy a ticket he would throw down a two dollar bill or a five. Father would blow his breath in his face and say, “How many?” The man would say, “Oh, never mind, keep the change.”
Just because you’re a ham, you needn’t think you’re Swift. That’s all the jokes I know, but there Armour.
Steamer Captain—Save yourself! The vessel is going down. Here, sir (to indifferent passenger), what are you passing that hat for in a situation like this?
Passenger—I’m just providing a sinking fund for our widows and orphans, captain.
“I’ve got the fastest typist in the city.”
“Well, that’s the only complaint I have against mine.”
Some marriages make one wonder why a man should want to keep a cow when free milk is running down the gutter. A ladle costs less than a cradle.
“Good mornin’ this evenin’, how do you do tomorrow?”
“Got any good drinking water?”
“Would you mind giving a poor man a drink of liquor?”
“I’m so hungry, I ain’t got nowhere to stay all night?”
“Dat may all be,” reckons Raspin’ Rastus, when told that the Good Book says the lion and lamb lie down together, “But ah cain’t fin’ no place where it says dat lamb eber got up.”
“Act as if the destiny of the universe depended on your acts.”
My girl is so pretty that whenever she boards a street car, the advertising is a total loss.
During the Middle Ages rich men condemned to death would hire substitutes to die in their places. Many poor people made a living in such manner.
Say, dear, how’d you like to open my pay envelope?
A mission worker on the lower East Side, New York, was telling the story of Adam and Eve to a group of tough kids. When he was through, one boy asked Hard-boiled Muggsy what it was all about.
“I’ll tell yer,” said Muggsy, “there was a guy and a ‘broad’ in a garden. They ‘snitched’ an apple; a snake ‘peached’ on ’em, and God said tuhel with ’em.”
(From Zanesville Times-Recorder)
Miss Mayite Collins has sued John L. Nelson at Columbus for $5,000.00 damages as the result of an accident on the bathing-beach toboggan at Buckeye Lake last July. Miss Collins says she picked up a splinter while sliding down the toboggan, severely wounding her dignity.
(From Omaha Bee)
More ladies wanted for decorating pillows at home. Experience unnecessary.
(From the London Post)
T. B. (Maiden Lane)—Very many thanks—and more power to your elbow. Best wishes to Madame and “her wicked sister.”
(From the Nashville Tennessean.)
Account husband traveling and being uneasy at nights will rent one or two rooms to congenial gentlemen at moderate rate in modern brick home; easy walking distance. Apply in person, 1506 McGavock.
(From the Jersey Journal.)
WANTED—Stout model and perfect medium figure for corset promenade for three evenings. Apply at once, 162 Monticello Ave.
A fool friend can wield a hammer as effectively as a bitter enemy.
An old colored mammy whose husband had just successfully sued for divorce came slowly down the court-house steps, talking to herself: “Dar ain’t no justice in dis heah wo’ld. Dat useless ol’ husband of mine he got his divorce, he got de house, got de money, got mah free chil’en and dey ain’t none of ’em his’n.”
Perhaps Luther was right when he said that God is a piece of white paper upon which every man draws a picture of his own face.
Lotta—“What gave George that awful cold?”
Bull—“I don’t know, but I saw him out on the lawn with a mighty thin girl last night.”
(From Our Navy)
“The rifle is the marine’s best friend,” he said. “He must never neglect it. He must treat it as he treats his wife and wipe it over with an oily rag twice a day.”
A dainty little blonde miss of twenty-two stepped into a phone booth. She drew forth from a small trunk (called a vanity case) a nickel. She placed the nickel in the slot with the softest, white and well kept hands that anyone has seen. She took up the receiver and with a soft sweet voice of a great singer spoke the number to the operator. She waited and waited and waited and waited, first on one foot and then on the other. She had waited an awful long time. All of a sudden she banged the receiver down and hissed between her lovely, pearly teeth, a well sounded “Damn it.”
The fellow who asks a girl for a kiss doesn’t stand half a chance with the live wire who kisses a girl first and then asks her how she likes it.
Wife (to attractive husband)—“Have you kissed the new cook yet, William?”
Husband—“Why—er—no.”
Wife—“Well, stupid, what are you waiting for? You know what a hard time we had to get her.”
People who live in rag houses shouldn’t throw bones.
Hear John West got two years for stealing a horse?
Yes, serves him right. Why didn’t he buy it and not pay?
Preacher—Don’t you know it’s wrong to put worms on that hook and insert it in a fish?
Johnnie—These aren’t worms, but that’s what the other suckers thought.
The strength of a kiss is generally measured by its length.—Byron.
“Why is it,” asks the exchange man of The Arkansas Gazette, “that a man rarely grows too old or too religious to get a thrill out of telling what a devil he was in his youth?”
Man proposes, woman supposes, marriage composes and divorce exposes.
BY THE GEORGIA CRACKER
As the music began, the lights grew soft and dim. I watched the couples as they passed like phantoms in the darkness.
Then I saw her, dancing with some wretched novice who could scarcely keep on his feet. How lovely and how wretched she looked.
“Kathleen!” I exclaimed, half aloud, and advanced.
“May I break?” I asked, and took her into my arms.
Her dancing—how can I describe it? She moved like some sprite—sure-footed languorous, as light as a summer cloud.
Drawing her to me, I suited my steps to the slow, yearning melody of the waltz. As we glided in the semi-darkness, oblivious of the passing couples she pressed her glowing cheek to mine and breathed quickly.
“Oh”—
“Sweetheart, why cannot I hold you like this forever? I feel that you are a part of my very soul!”
“Hold me—oh, hold me tight!”
“I have lived always for this moment. Dearest, you are the only girl in the whole world—you are the whole world”—
And there, our eyes closed in ecstasy, I kissed her.
“I love you! The universe was made for the rapture of this moment. The stars have shone in vain for ages that they might light your eyes now! All time has been but a prelude to this second! Say you love me! Just say it!”
“Oh, Jimmy, you know I do!”
“Why, Kathleen, this isn’t Jimmy!” I cried.
“And this isn’t Kathleen,” replied the stranger.
Jack Tar—Tell her that it was a balloon.
Ima Frade—If you are gun-shy, go with a soldier, then you’ll soon get used to having arms around you.
Fumey Gait—A bully game of cards would be Pedro.
Gracie—The mere fact that the tears run down the back of a cross-eyed person does not indicate they have bacteria.
Dora Knobs—A cigarette and a bottle of beer are sure to make a delightful breakfast for a lady of careless morals after a night of arduous cavorting.
Tooth Ache Kid—When suffering from a violent toothache in the hollow of a tooth, fill the cavity with whisky and hold there thirty seconds with your head cocked to one side. Swallow whisky and refill cavity. Repeat this treatment a few hundred times and if it doesn’t give relief, try wood alcohol instead.
Brother Eagle—When suffering from exhaustion, the patient should be put in a cool shady wine room. A Scotch and soda in a tall thin glass with plenty of ice may be given at intervals, and should a tickling ensue give patient pink sporting page and turn on phonograph. Continue this treatment until patient kicks phonograph into the alley. This is what is known as the negative test and is proof of patient’s recovery.
Ab. Doman—Yes, married men make the best husbands.
Kauph E. Keuler—If you can’t drink coffee out of a saucer without scalding your nose, use a bowl.
Herr Nett—When you make a present to a woman, always leave the cost tag on it; it will save her a trip downtown.
All Readers—I would like to know whether a zebra is a white animal with black stripes or a black animal with white stripes.—Captain Billy.
Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow your bootlegger may get caught.
Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang is the first magazine to have a “city” named after it.
The thriving little oil town of Oklahoma has been christened Whiz Bang City. The picture shown on this page is by courtesy of Vince Dillon, photographer of Fairfax, Okla. Upon close examination, “kind readers” note that all of the buildings are new and that a truck standing in front of the garage bears the sign Nitroglycerine. However, there is no connection between nitroglycerine and the Whiz Bang. It is true that we have an explosion, but ours is harmless, and used to blow out the spleen of the American human instead of Mother Earth.
Well, anyway, folk, here’s wishing many happy days to Whiz Bang City and its live citizens.
In addition to republication of gems of earlier issues of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, the first complete Winter Annual of this great family journal contains a large variety of brand new jokes, jests, jingles, pot pourri stories and smokehouse poetry. This book, Pedigreed Follies of 1921-22, contains four times as much reading matter as the regular issue of the Whiz Bang and sells for one dollar per copy. It is a book which will be cherished by the readers for years to come, and holds the greatest collection of red-blooded poetry yet put in print. Included in the list are:
Johnnie and Frankie, The Face on the Barroom Floor, The Shooting of Dan McGrew, The Harpy, Lasca (in full), The Girl in the Blue Velvet Band, Langdon Smith’s “Evolution,” Advice to Men, Advice to Women, Our Own Fairy Queen, Stunning Percy LaDue, Parody on Kipling’s Ladies, Toledo Slim.
Orders are now being received and will be mailed in the order in which they are received. Tear off the attached blank and mail to us today with your check, money order or stamps.
Whiz Bang,
Robbinsdale, Minnesota
Gentlemen:
Enclosed is dollar bill, check, money order or stamps for $1.00 for which please send me the Winter Annual of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, “Pedigreed Follies of 1921-22.”
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.
One dollar for the WINTER ANNUAL.
