Read Ebook: Captain Billy's Whiz Bang Vol. 2. No. 16 January 1921 America's Magazine of Wit Humor and Filosophy by Various Fawcett W H Wilford Hamilton Editor

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Ebook has 412 lines and 24448 words, and 9 pages

The papers stated that the mother was threatened with hysteria and bade her surprised child take his charge back to its father's home. For comedy and tragedy, go watch in the halls of childhood.

Eve tempted Adam with an apple. Were you ever tempted by an apple?

Our Language

Here are a few of the difficulties of the English language:

A flock of ships is called a fleet. A fleet of sheep is called a flock. A flock of girls is called a bevy. A bevy of wolves is called a pack. A pack of thieves is called a gang. A gang of angels is called a host. A host of porpoises is called a shoal. A shoal of buffaloes is called a herd. A herd of children is called a troop. A troop of partridges is called a covey. A covey of beauties is called a galaxy. A galaxy of ruffians is called a horde. A horde of rubbish is called a heap. A heap of oxen is called a drove. A drove of blackguards is called a mob. A mob of whales is called a school. A school of worshippers is called a congregation.

Bull Frog Bull

The Frog is a slick member of the reptile family deriving its name from the Latin words E Hopus Jumpus, meaning "Warts." It has four legs, but only finds use for two--the hind ones, which are built on altogether different lines than the front ones, being about five times as long, and fold under his body at a very convenient angle, affording ample seating capacity. The most common species of the Frog Family are the Toad Frog and the Bull Frog. The French people consider the Bull Frog quite a delicacy, and all snakes are very fond of Toad Frogs. Some scientists say the snake has far better taste than the Frenchman when it comes to choosing its food. The Frog can catch more flies than Tris Speaker, with far less effort, and is about the only thing left in this grand and glorious country with any hops in it.

You Can't Fool a Horse-Fly

Mike and Pat were telling stories. During the conversation a fly lit on Pat's nose.

"What kind of a fly is that, Moike?" asked Pat.

"Why, that's a horse-fly, Pat."

"Begorra, Moike, and what's a horse-fly?"

"Why, a horse-fly, Pat, is a fly that lights on a horse's neck."

"You don't mean to say O'im a horse's neck, do you, you dirty blaggard?"

"No, Pat, but you can't fool a fly."

Pastor People's Church, Minneapolis, Minn.

Though the River of Time may wash away most of my India memories, there is one thing that will remain as long as I live--my royal bath at Delhi, and the time, the place, and the girl.

Bathing has not only been a fad with me, but an article of faith. At home I take a cold plunge every morning, and on shipboard it is the thing I look forward to with pleasure. A country is known by the baths it gives, and in Constantinople, Moscow and Budapest I learned that every little movement had a meaning all its own. The bath, that like Moses' rod swallowed up all others, was the one at Delhi, where cleanliness is not always next to godliness.

India is a hot and sticky place for fleshy people, and like Falstaff I was larding the lean earth as I walked along. After hours of dusty driving and hard sight-seeing I asked my guide if I could have a bath, and he said, "Yes, Durbar bath." I had missed the royal pageant, but hoped to get the splash, so we drove off the crowded street to a building which invited us with shady walks and flowers. The native proprietor ushered me into a darkened room and handed me a napkin. I had been in India long enough to know what to do with that square of linen, so I used it for a loincloth.

When I stepped into the bath I was "horrified" to find a beautiful Mohammedan maiden standing there before me with nothing on plus a bracelet. In agitation I rang. The master came, and I told him I did not want that woman there with the bath. He seemed surprised, because she was part of it, shrugged his shoulders, ordered her out, and beckoned to two stalwart natives. They seized me, threw me down on the marble, put a wooden pillow under my head, and then splashed, massaged, pounded, twisted and kneaded me, worked my arms like a windmill, rolled me like a log, used me as a punching bag, went through a whole course of gymnasium exercises on me, then grinned and said, "Not finished." I felt I was, when back came the "sweet sixteen" smiling like Spring, and with less covering than September Morn. I sprang up, but she grabbed a towel and basin and laid me low, then soused me and began to put on the finishing touches. In broken English she tried to tell me all her physical, mental and moral charms, which I admitted because she was a woman, but I knew her Koran didn't square with my Old Testament, so thanking her, I fled, like Joseph from Potiphar's wife, to my room, where my guide "Kim" came to the rescue, helped me to dress and rushed me to the train or I might have been there yet.

The letter "I" in India stands for indecency and immorality in nearly everything I saw from Calcutta to Bombay. Benares is washed by the Ganges, the worshippers in the Ganges, and though every day is washday, still the city and people are dirty. They need a new Hercules to turn the Ganges through its Augean stables filled with holy fakirs, anointed priests, pestiferous pilgrims, obscene carvings and sacred bulls.

I entered the Cow Temple, stable of sitting and standing bulls. The bull is a beatified beast. Priests pet him, the godly natives garland his horns and kiss his tail, virgin votaries bathe their hands, beautify their faces and plaster their hair with the divine emanations which Minnesota farmers use for fertilizer. At weddings, for good luck, to keep evil spirits away, and purify the place, a cow is backed up to the bride's door to decorate the threshold with fresh dung--bossy's contribution to the joyous occasion. The "Bull Durham" of India is some of the same, dried and mixed, with a little tobacco and paper. I have often imagined that our yellow-fingered dudes imported it for cigaret purposes--at any rate it smells like it. Like another ill-fated Gulliver in the land of giants, I slipped around in the filth till I got a kodak shot at his royal Bullship.

Benares is called the "Holy City" on the principle, I suppose, that "in religion, what damned error, but some sober brow will bless it and approve it with a text." As well call ice hot, vinegar sweet, vice virtue or hell heaven. One morning we pious pilgrims left the ladies, who were not permitted to accompany us, and climbed to the secluded spot where stands the Nepalese temple ornamented with gymnastic and obscene carvings that would make the red pictures of Pompeii blush with shame. These filthy figures of men and women, carved to please and pacify the gods, are not mentioned in the guide-books or referred to above a whisper in polite society. If this sex perversion marks the high tide of Buddhist faith, I am ashamed, though I have photos of the carvings which I keep in my strong-box packed in chloride of lime. Kali Hinduism may be bloody, but Buddhism here is beastly.

Almost as bad are the stone images and inscriptions in the caves of Elephanta out from Bombay. The temple columns, aisles and figures are hewn from the living rock. I looked at the three-faced Siva, and noticed the stylish headdress; saw another figure with cap ornament of human skulls; Virag, half-male and female, and the Siva shrine with the "lingam" altar before which millions of barren wives and hopeless girls had prostrated and prostituted themselves in Sivaite festivals. The temple keeper beckoned me to one side and gave me a private lecture on these "lingam," phallus or Priapus symbols of sex organ worship which I had found in other lands. While he proceeded, my blush illuminated the dark cave, and as I left the "altar" a lady of our party approached and asked me what I had been looking at and what the guide said. I replied, "Forget it!" She wouldn't, I couldn't, and since she was past middle age and married, I looked her square in the eye and reeled it off as if it were an Edison record. "Thank you," she said. "It is always well to know about religion from a priest." I told her I was no priest and this was no religion. There was a pool of clear water here and the frogs, big as turtles, were standing on their hind legs, with folded arms and eyes wide open with amazement, as if they were more shocked at what I had said than at the suggestive statues and symbols round about. If I had been alone I would have divested myself of all baggage but my trunks and plunged in to keep them company.

The blas? or bored can always find something new at a Hindu wedding or Nautch dance. I saw Nautch girls--dressed in scarlet skirts trimmed with gold, caris or scarfs of brightest colors, trousers tight-fitting and gilt-embroidered, bracelets or anklets of gold, and silver bells--dancing for hours, illustrating pictures of thought, passion and emotion, to love-throbs, tune and time. Once I heard a story of the origin of the Nautch dance: A Rajah's daughter was stolen and raped; the ravisher was caught by the father, strung up, slashed like ribbons on a Maypole, then whirled around, and anyone on whom the blood spattered was privileged to assault any woman he met.

India has no old maids or bachelors. Cradles are robbed of their babies for marriage, and some suitors are promised before born if sexed right. The proverb reads, "Every girl at 14 must be either a wife or a widow." Many men in India are slaves--all women are. Woman is not to be trusted, and is held the cause of man's sin whether she be sage or fool. She is object and subject as a child to her father, as wife to her husband, and as widow to her son's or husband's relatives. To obey her hubby is supposed to be the only God she needs or wants. To obey and worship him is to worship the gods . Caste injures them more than men, and she is old before 25 and looks it. Child-marriage is the style and prevails in places, though the British government made a law that a girl might be married yet not live with her husband till she was 12 years old. Imagine a 10 year old girl marrying a 30 year old man. Any negligent father, who does not find a husband before his daughter is 12, is held to be a public monster and criminal. Of course, boys and girls mature earlier in the tropics and have families when people North haven't gone so far as to be even sweethearts.

In the comparative study of other religions I could always find some sweetness and light, but Hinduism is darkness and dirt. Its votaries are vile, their gods are deified beasts, and their devotees are beastly depraved. Caste, child-marriage, obscene worship, Nautch girls, ignorance, superstition, poverty and plague prove Hinduism to be a hell on earth and a disease that dwarfs and damns man's body, mind and soul.

My moss-covered suggestion: "Pete and Repeat, Kate and Duplicate, and Max and Climax."

Let your conscience be your guide.

Yes, it's excellent exercise.

He probably means that your darling baby gets a bust in the mouth every hour or so.

Yes, I should say so. You finish the answer.

Yes, with the exception that he married a widow.

Venus would be fine. She would be perfectly safe, as both her arms are missing and she couldn't throw things.

Man, Pinkie, is the Lord of Creation, and Woman is the lady of Recreation.

Go to a justice of the peace.

Yes, if taken in sufficient quantities, strychnine will stop anything.

Yes, Ida, and I'm married, too. The engagement, you realize, takes place before the marriage.

Lemon peals.

A solution of malt and hops containing about 5 per cent of water.

Wa'al, I reckon it'll go about 350 gallons to the acre, by gum.

She sure is a whopper for a farmer to answer. In fact, I found it necessary to call in the professional advice of old Doc Yak, who gives this reply: The bacterial proteins are staphylococcus aureus, micrococcus tetragenus, diphtheroid, streptococcus viridans, non-haemolyticus and pneumococcus.

An oyster, Mr. Snortz, is a peculiar fish better known as a bivalve and looks like a nut.

Hard? I should say it does, Molly. I drank three glasses one night last week while in Minneapolis and before long I thought I was crushed rock. Friends tell me I laid down on Nicollet Avenue and tried to pull the asphalt over me.

Quite right, we would say--providing, of course, that it's Captain Billy's.

Scratch yourself.

The First Hundred Years

Discouraged prohibition enforcers should remember that the first hundred years are the wettest.

When my shoes wear out I'll be on my feet again.

His Test of Faith

A couple, on their wedding trip, met a gypsy whose prophecies so greatly amused them that they gave her an extra dollar for good luck. In appreciation of the gift, the grateful gypsy presented her benefactors with a little white, glass phial containing a clear liquid. She admonished them to hold this phial as a sacred treasure, because the liquid would retain its crystalline clearness only so long as the loving couple were faithful to each other. But, warned the gypsy, unfaithfulness on the part of either will cause this liquid to turn a grayish hue.

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