* * * * *
=Dear Editor=—Can you give me the technical name for snoring?—=Al
McGluek.=
Sheet music.
* * * * *
=Dear Billy=—Don’t you think the short skirts the girls are wearing make
us look lots shorter?—=Daisy Fields.=
Yes, Daisy, but they make us men look lots longer, so what’s the
difference?
* * * * *
=Dear Billy=—As you were in the United States army during the recent
war, I wish you would inform me as to the principal ailments the boys
got from abroad.—=Prophylactic Pete.=
I am unable to answer your question, Peter, but have referred it to
Private Iodine Ike of the Cotton Batting corps.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=—I am lame, halt, nearly blind and 85 years old.
What job do you think I should work at?—=R. J.=
Would suggest you apply for the position of gardener in a young woman’s
seminary.
* * * * *
=Dear Cap.=—I’ve just composed a song for my 1920-21 “Record Breakers”
show, entitled “The Stockyards Rag.” I’m enclosing a copy to get your
opinion of it.—=Jack Read=, the “Information Kid.”
Dear Jack: The words of your song are all right, but I don’t like the
“air.” It doesn’t smell just right.
* * * * *
=Dear Captain Billy=—What is your opinion of regulated public dance
halls and do you believe there is a cure for the alleged dance
evil?—=Ichabod Iliad.=
I say, on with the dance, let joy be unconfined, there is gladness
unabated since Maggie Murphy dined. Did you, my dear Ichabod, ever see a
teakettle bubble, dance, sing and boiler over? Well, that was the
effect. The pep, fire and energy underneath it was the cause. You can’t
put out the fire by removing the teakettle to a cooler spot. Therefore
you can’t cure evil thinking by doing away with dancing. Fire, pep,
energy is the natural results we get from the disgusting habit we have
of eating. Consequently if we remove the cause, which is eating, evil
thinking or dancing, which is the effect, will cure themselves.
* * * * *
=Dear Editor=—Please help me. I was out with a young lady for the first
time when she saw some jewelry. She said she wished to buy some but had
left her pocketbook at home. What should I have done?—=Troubled Tom.=
You should have lent the lady five cents to go home and get her
pocketbook. Always be a gentleman.
* * * * *
=Dear Billy=—Is it essential that a “movie vamp” have dark hair and
eyes?—=Blondie.=
No, Blondie, you still have a chance. A vamp doesn’t have to have dark
hair and eyes. I know of lots of blond ones, with big blue eyes, and
several red-headed ones.
* * * * *
=Dear Whiz Bang=—Is there any truth in the rumor that Douglas Fairbanks
is already considering getting a divorce from Mary Pickford?—=Ima
Darby.=
I don’t believe it’s true but only an idle rumor gathered from the story
that Doug was peeved because Mary talked in her sleep and cried out the
name of her first husband too often.
* * * * *
=Dear Editor Whiz Bang=—I am a civics instructor at a high school, am 45
years of age, but act like any spry young man. I am deeply infatuated
with the pretty young school secretary. I went with her a few months
this year and then for a spell lost my liking for her. Now for some
reason or other I am again in love with her, but am afraid to make any
advances to her because she has recently purchased a car and I am afraid
people will think that there is “method in my madness.” Remember that I
love her and then tell me what to do.—=Ad Noid.=
You’re not acting like “any spry young man” if you’re withholding your
declaration of love for fear of what people would think. Tell her and
don’t lose any time about it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Whiz Bang_
_Editorials_
_“The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet”_
The Whiz Bang desires to call the attention of its readers to the latest
book published by the Reverend “Golightly” Morrill, famous
author-traveler-preacher, who has been a regular correspondent to this
magazine. Mr. Morrill is one of America’s most forceful writers and his
varied experiences as a social worker and globetrotter fits him to deal
trenchantly on varied subjects. The editor is not personally acquainted
with Mr. Morrill but has been an interested reader of all his works for
the past 20 years. Read his ad on page 64 of this issue and add his
latest book to your library.
* * * * *
Tangier Island, in Chesapeake Bay, is where the natives still vote for
Andrew Jackson. The island is nothing if not religious in the narrowest
and most reactionary sense of the word. Only one church is on the
island, and those who run it think that hell’s hottest fires are burning
specially for all who do not agree with each and every religious dogma
they have. The minister is almost qualified to butt into the Trinity and
make it a Quartette. It is against the law to hold or attend any
religious service not under the auspices of the local church monopoly.
It is also required by law that you attend the church every Sunday, and
as if that is not enough, you are not allowed to be out of your house on
Sunday, not even on your own porch, except to go to and from church
services. It is frankly claimed by the powers that be, that without such
stern compulsion the natives would desecrate the Sabbath by congregating
at stores or elsewhere, and then, if the devil should happen to come to
claim his own, he might scoop up the whole island population as a
consequence.
Roland Parks, a young man 17 years old, a resident of Tangier Island,
was wicked and audacious enough to cut church service one Sunday and to
take the air on the porch of his house while the meeting was in
progress. Officer Connorton got on the job and ordered him to come to
church. Young Parks refused, Connorton tried to arrest him, Parks fled,
Connorton drew his revolver and shot Parks, dangerously wounding him.
The inhabitants of the island regret the shooting, but hold that it
would be better for such as Parks to be shot and killed rather than the
law, which they approve, should be violated.
Among the other Puritan blue laws of Tangier Island are those
prohibiting music anywhere during church service, even though the
instrument may be far away and no sound come through the walls; playing
ball at any time on Sunday, etc.
It may be a shock to learn that such archaic conditions exist anywhere
in the world, let alone in our own country. True enough, we are the most
backward people on earth to control landlords and profiteers. But it
seems that the same may be said of us in regard to religious tyrants and
persecutors.
Admitting, for the sake of argument, that things taboo on Tangier Island
displease God, why can’t his agents safely leave it to Him to enforce
His will and punish those who violate His law? God needs no human
avengers. It is an axiom that the only call for human legislation is
tangible wrong or harm to some member or members of society.
Just here we stopped to look over some exchanges, and find that the
ministers of Lynnbrook, near New York City, have forced the Sunday
closing of a local amusement park. This will not be allowed to open on
Sunday, not even at hours that do not conflict with any church services
of the day. Give these reverend gentlemen credit. They did not find
shooting necessary in the process. But give them debit for a senseless
piece of business. With Coney Island and Rockaway Beach near by, the
Lynnbrook people will simply take a short trolley ride and get what they
want much better. What was accomplished, what could have been
accomplished, to help keep the Sabbath day holy? A zero with the circle
erased. Any sensible man could have seen this in advance. But who has
less sense than a tyrannical religious fanatic? Only a man who expects
one such to have any sense at all.
* * * * *
Woman is creation’s best and last work and should be the most attractive
thing in the universe.
Clothes are the index of character. A woman is known by the dress she
wears. A standard of a country’s or century’s mind and morals is known
by its fashion-plate.
Some women are as long in dressing as Caesar was in marshalling his
army. They go to church to show their clothes, spend more money for
hacks than for Bibles, strut home like peacocks, forgetting that clothes
are but the reminders of lost innocency and that to be proud of rustling
silk is to be like the madman who laughs at the rattling of his fetters.
They only think of dress, and were you to steal their clothes you would
rob them of the only valuable thing they possessed.
Skirts have been bloated like a balloon and long as a crocodile’s tail,
but now they are meagre as a mummy and docked like a horse’s tail, for
Fashion is a foolish and freakish goddess.
A short skirt is said to be economical in material, sanitary because it
is not a street or sidewalk cleaner, and comfortable for locomotion—but
when art sacrifices utility in attempt to show the figure, as Venus
before Anchises or Medea before Jason, it is a matter not only of
comment but censure. Too often on leading thoroughfares we fine a
godless model of fashion which is an insult to sex and an outrage on
decency.
* * * * *
The first short skirt was made in the Garden of Eden of fig leaves
because there were no Parisian dressmakers present.
Skirt styles today are going back to the original fig-leaf fashion.
Mother Eve ate the apple, became “wise” and her first thought was of
dress, and that is all some of her daughters have thought of since.
American women are willing to wear any skirt that bears a Paris label,
but would they if they knew it was a French fashion to advertise
demimondaine charms?
If good women, who wear the suggestive short, close-fitting and
diaphanous skirt, knew what bad men said when they went by, they would
fall dead or call for a taxi and break the speed limit to get home and
hide in the cellar.
Men are a bad lot and women should help them to be better and not worse.
There are men in hospitals and hell who owe their damnation in time and
eternity to the skirts of some bad, beautiful woman.
Fashion is the world’s undertaker and often charges a woman a big bill
for a body with diseased functions, a mind with dwarfed faculties, and a
soul with a future damned.
Girls, whose altar is a looking-glass, and their Bible a fashion
magazine, might well pause to ask themselves how they will look in their
coffin-shroud when the prevaricating preacher tries to offer some word
of comfort to the mourners, and what they will say to the great Judge
when they stand “naked and ashamed,” because on earth they wore the
skirts of sin instead of the robe of Christ’s righteousness.
* * * * *
With the October issue, Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang will start its second
year. This little publication was created with the idea of giving the
former service men in the vicinity of Robbinsdale and the Twin Cities a
continuation of the pep and snap we got in the army. The first run of
the press was 2,000 copies. They went like hot-cakes and “seconds” were
necessary. For several successive months it was necessary to double our
monthly press order. We sincerely tender our heartfelt thanks for your
loyal support and shall endeavor more than ever to merit your patronage.
For the benefit of new readers, as well as the old, The Whiz Bang will
publish its first annual year book with the October issue. This “Year
Book” will contain in part the livest selections from all previous
issues. The back copies of The Whiz Bank have been “mopped up” so that
it is not possible to fill any orders for previous issues. The demand
for back copies brought forth the idea of an annual review. The editor
will aim to compile the choicest poems, jests, jingles and stories from
the previous 12 issues into this October Year Book.
* * * * *
One often hears wonder expressed that reputable persons find apparent
pleasure in visiting cafes, road houses, country clubs or other places
of amusement of questionable character. Yet the psychology of the matter
is not so far to seek. The “young person,” and many persons continue to
remain immature in mind long beyond the normal period of unripeness,
likes to feel that he is very wise in the ways of the world. A young man
likes to have his actions show that he is “a man of the world,” even
though he may not make the claim in words. The fact that he is nothing
of the kind urges him on to become better acquainted with “the primrose
paths.”
Hence it often results that an innocent young person will go with others
to a restaurant with a shady reputation, either in the spirit of bravado
or to discover what the secret is. Often enough the place, on the
outside of the life shown there, seems innocent enough and the visitors
wonder at the secrecy, innuendo and charm draped about the place.
The real “man of the world” knows the taste of the “dead sea fruit” well
enough.
* * * * *
=The Footpath of Peace=
To be glad of life, because it gives you a chance to love and to work
and to play and to look up at the stars, to be satisfied with your
possessions, but not contented with yourself until you have made the
best of them; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and
meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your
admirations rather than by your disgust. To covet nothing that is your
neighbor’s except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to
think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of
Christ; and to spend as much time as you can, with body and with spirit,
in God’s out-of-doors; these are little guide-posts on the footpath to
peace.—Henry Van Dyke.
* * * * *
=Why the Editor Left Town=
(From the Rochester, Minn., Bulletin.)
Miss Isabel Jones returned yesterday from Chicago, where she visited
her son, Dick, and attended the Republican convention. Miss Jones
also visited at the National Kindergarten College, which she
formerly attended.
* * * * *
=Free Verse=
When a girl walks
Down the street
With hardly enough
Clothes on to make
A tail for a kite
You can’t expect a fellow
To have prayer meeting
Thoughts.
* * * * *
Little Johnnie rushed home from school, through the house and into the
yard where he had a pen of pet rabbits. Picking one up he began to shake
it violently, repeating with each shake and in a rather rough tone: “Two
and two; two and two.”
Johnnie’s mother heard the noise. She ran to the window and yelled at
him to stop abusing the rabbit. “Stop that, Johnnie,” she admonished.
“You’ll kill poor bunny.”
“I don’t care if I do,” Johnnie replied. “Teacher told me a lie today.
She said rabbits multiplied faster than anything and this one can’t even
add.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
=_Smokehouse Poetry_=
_HAVE you ever sighed for the good old days before the Great Drought? I
have—many, many times. Oh! Gentle Readers, how my mouth has filled with
juicy cotton at the thought of a nice, large, cooling glass of lager.
You know, the kind we got before the war—the amber fluid that would
almost make you side-slip into a tail spin and flop on your fusilage. In
the September issue, I want you to read “Sherry,” and then eat an egg so
as to complete the illusion._
_Oh, ’tis so. Don’t I know?
You’re in for it, once you begin it.
As with wine, so with love, you’d better go slow,
For the devil himself is in it!_
_She’s a “darby” poem for the old-fashioned Bohemian._—THE EDITOR.
=The Worldly Way=
By Monroe H. Rosenfeld.
“Come back, my child,” said the father fond
To his boy who had gone astray
Out in the bitter world of sin—
Out in the sorrowed way;
“Thou hast erred, my child, yet what of that?
And Frailty’s name is mine,
Thy path of sin is naught to me,
For repentance is divine!”
And so it chanced that the lad returned
One night, when the low’ring day
Of Life had cast its dark’ning gloom
And lured him from his way;
And wine and song and kindly hands,
Like the dream of the prodigal son,
Were lent in humble, sweet embrace
To welcome the erring one!
––––––––
A maiden fair in tattered gown,
Aweary and sad at heart,
Passed out in the rabble of the street
With penance for a part.
Hers was the fate of Passion’s love,
And she a thing of scorn;
“Thou hast erred and sinned,” cried the bitter world,
“’Twere better to be unborn!”
“Thou art not my child!” the father said,
As he closed the mansion door—
“Passion and sin go hand in hand,
Seek thou another shore!”
And the girl went forth forever, aye,
A penitent child of shame—
One of the millions wandering on
For woe and Death to claim.
––––––––
Ah! this was many years ago,
When life was a youthful dream;
And yester eve I saw two graves
In a churchyard near a stream;
The glittering waters rippled soft
Their cadence for a song
Of the sinner and sinned who buried lay
Apart from the madding throng.
The same sweet carol of the birds
Overhead, that sang their strain;
The same sweet zephyrs lingering by
Made dirges for the twain.
One forgiven! The other spurned!
Both in the depths of clay.
Yet each again to rise, despite
The cross of the worldly way!
––––––––
“Here’s where I prove an artist
Without a brush,” he cried,
As he drew a lovely maiden
Up closer to his side.
* * * * *
=Hell=
Sometimes we say—
It’s colde’r’n Hell;
Sometimes we say—
It’s hotter’n Hell,
And when it rains,
’Tis Hell we cry;
It’s also Hell
When it is dry.
Married life’s Hell—
So they say;
You get home late—
There’s Hell to pay;
I suppose it is Hell
If babe cries all night,
And doctor bills—
They’re Hell all right.
But still there’s “Hell, yes”; “Hell, no,”
And “Oh, Hell,” too;
“The Hell you don’t”
And “The Hell you do.”
Now, how in the Hell
Can anyone tell,
What in the Hell
We mean by Hell.
—By Numatic, Akron, O.
* * * * *
=Learning.=
I used to be old-fashioned,
I never came to town,
But now, by gosh, I’m lickity-split,
I love the girls around.
I hug ’em, I kiss ’em,
I’m a regular up to date.
By gollys I’m getting wild,
But you city ginks just wait.
—Bill Bancroft.
* * * * *
=Maud Muller=
Maud Muller, on nice summer day,
Raked in meadows sveet vith hay.
Her eyes ban sharp lak gude sharp knife;
She ban nice girl, ay bet yure life.
Before she ban dar wery long,
She start to senging little song.
The Yudge come riding down big hill
In nice red yumping ottomobill.
Maude say, “Hello, Yudge,—how ban yu?”
The Yudge say, “Maudie, how y’ du?”
He say: “Skol yu tak little ride?
Ef yu skol lak to, yump inside.”
So Maude and Yudge ride ’bout sax miles,
And Yudge skol bask in Maude’s sveet smiles.
The Yudge say, “Skol yu be my pal?”
Den ottomobill bust all to hal.
Den Maude ban valking ’bout half vay
Back to meadows sveet vith hay.
“Ay luv yu still, dear,” said the Yudge;
But Maude she only say, “O fudge!”
Of all sad vords dat men skol talk,
The saddest ban, “Valk, yu sucker, valk!”
* * * * *
=Girls! Read This One=
A girl may laugh, a girl may sing;
A girl may knit and crochet,
But she can’t scratch a match
On the seat of her pants,
Because she’s not built that way.
* * * * *
=Girls=
With girls you should not get too free,
You’ll find my words are true;
Tell her she is a bird, and she
Will want to fly with you.
—Cincinnati Enquirer.
With girls you should not get too free,
You’ll find my words are right;
Tell her she is a bear, and she
Will want to hug you tight.
—Hastings (Neb.) Tribune.
With girls you should not get too free,
And this thought don’t forget;
Tell her she is a deer, and see
Her run you dear in debt.
—New York World.
With girls you should not get too free,
Just that in mind please bear;
Tell her she is a peach, and she
Will grab you for a pair.
—St. Paul Pioneer Press.
With girls you should not get too free,
Be careful, don’t get rash;
Tell her she is a lamb and she
Will fleece you of your cash.
* * * * *
=In a Friendly Sort o’ Way=
When a man ain’t got a cent, and he’s feeling kind o’ blue,
An’ the clouds hang dark an’ heavy, an’ won’t let the sunshine
through,
It’s a great thing, O, my brethren, for a feller just to lay
His hand upon your shoulder in a friendly sort o’ way!
It makes a man feel curious; it makes the teardrops start,
An’ you sort o’ feel a flutter in the region of the heart:
You can look up and meet his eyes: you don’t know what to say
When his hand is on your shoulder in a friendly sort o’ way.
Oh, the world’s a curious compound, with its honey and its gall,
With its care and bitter crosses, but a good worl’ after all;
An’ a good God must have made it—leastways, that is what I say,
When a hand is on my shoulder in a friendly sort o’ way.
—James Whitcomb Riley.
* * * * *
=The Troop Train=
Higgledy, piggledy, we tumble in,
Rats in a cage, fish in a tin,
In evil dreams I travel again
In a clanking, clattering French troop train,
“Chevaux” eight, “Homme’s” two score
Is the legend inscribed on the box-car door.
All things considered, I cannot but feel
That the horses get the best of the deal.
We stop with a jerk and start with a wrench,
And the driver gets cursed in both English and French.
We start, we stop, we start once more
And shunt back to where we were before;
When it’s time to sleep down you flop
With two men beneath you and three on top.
Higgledy, piggledy, here we lie,
Lice in a shirt, pigs in a sty.
H. J. Smith.
* * * * *
=When I’m Among a Blaze of Lights=
When I’m among a blaze of lights,
With tawdry music and cigars
And women dawdling through delights,
And officers at cocktail bars,—
Sometimes I think of garden night
And elm trees nodding at the stars.
I dream of a small firelit room
With yellow candles burning straight,
And glowing pictures in the gloom,
And kindly books that hold me late.
Of things like these I love to think
When I can never be alone:
Then some one says, “Another drink?”
And turns my living heart to stone.
—Sassoon.
* * * * *
When the whole blamed world
Seems gone to pot
And business on the bum,
A two-cent grin and a lifted chin
Helps some, my boy, helps some.
* * * * *
=The Modern Version=
“Smile, and the world smiles with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.”
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
Spend, and the world spends with you;
Save, and you save alone.
Tho’ fast be the race you’ve got to keep pace,
Till you’ve spent every nickel you own.
Jazz, and the bunch jazz with you;
Dance, and you’re by yourself;
The mob thinks it’s “jake” to shimmy and shake,
For the “old-fashioned stuff’s” on the shelf.
Have a “case,” and your friends will adore you;
Have a thirst, and they all pass you by;
For men want full measure of all your treasure,
But never come ’round when you’re dry.
V. V. M.
* * * * *
=The Longing Search=