Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, Vol. 2, No. 22, July, 1921 — Whiz Bang Editorials

“_The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet_” Press dispatches recently carried an item to the effect that although slightly mentally affected, the mother of Charlie Chaplin, upon her son’s earnest persuasion, had been allowed to enter this country from England.

Mrs. Chaplin, upon reaching New York, stood a chance, it was stated, of having to return had it not been for quick and effective energies of her sons and their friends in political power.

Those who know Chaplin well declare that the intense melancholy for which he is noted is due more than anything else to the affection and concern for his mother.

Such things as domestic troubles, it is said, bear little weight with the man who daily makes millions laugh.

’Tis the mother.

What have we here!

Consider this monumental fun-maker of the screen.

Death is bad enough but when the mind of one very dear becomes clouded, then indeed does tragedy and sadness smite with a heavy hand.

We read of the circus clown whose wife and children burned to death, and yet, to keep a date with the world of fun lovers, he went ahead that night and clowned as never he had clowned before.

Have we in Chaplin a great tragedy also?

It will be recalled that when he was a small boy in London he and his mother and brother lived in a workhouse in order that the streets might not be their home.

Now his mother is coming home to him, to live amid all the luxury that great wealth may bring; wealth that came after a sad little fellow with merry feet, living in a workhouse with his mother, learned to be the greatest of all fun-makers.

Life’s a funny proposition, folks, isn’t it?

* * * * * Half a century ago the nude in art was strange enough in America to uplift Puritanic hands in holy horror.

Today, among all cultivated people, the female nude is most matter-of-fact.

Our notions of art the country over have been steadily clarifying, until at last the great distinction has been recognized and conceded even by pious folk that, while the human male figure is impossible, the female form is purely beautiful.

Those rabid for realism and resolutely uncompromising, will have the assurance to claim innocuousness for the undraped male; but the opinion today among those who are not extremists is still definitely against the frank exposition of the male form in plastic or painting.

At worst the mind receives merely a filip of interest; and complete nudity, to the male fancy, repeated again and again in art, speedily sates curiosity, and with that, incipient desire.

As for the minds of women, no one would insult them with the suspicion that they find anything provocative in the portrayal of figures of their own sex.

In every landscape the eye notices at once and unavoidably the hills; it finds the plains and valleys only by an effort of the will.

This fact has ever been admitted by the modern stage, which is, so far as the ethics of objective morality go, more conservative than modern art in its advanced attitude.

* * * * * Be a Booster If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill, Be a scrub in the valley, but be The best little scrub by the side of the hill, Be a bush if you can’t be a tree;

If you can’t be the sun be a star, But the best little booster wherever you are.

* * * * * Teach me that 60 minutes make an hour, 16 ounces one pound and 100 cents one dollar.

Help me so to live that I can lie down at night with a clear conscience, without a gun under my pillow and unhaunted by the faces of those to whom I have brought pain.

Grant that I may earn my meal-ticket on the square, and that in earning it I may do unto others as I would have them do unto me.

Deafen me to the jingle of tainted money and to the rustle of unholy skirts.

Blind me to the faults of the other fellow but reveal to me my own.

Guide me so that each night when I look across the dinner table at my wife who has been a blessing to me, I will have nothing to conceal.

Keep me young enough to laugh with little children, and sympathetic enough to be considerate of old age.

And when comes the day of darkened shades and the smell of flowers, the tread of soft footsteps and the crunching of wheels in the yard—make the ceremony short and the epitaph simply ‘=Here Lies a Man.

=’ * * * * * He that does not know, And knows he does not know;

Can be taught.

TEACH HIM!

He that does not know, But thinks he knows;

Is a dangerous man.

BEWARE OF HIM!

He that does know.

And knows he knows;

Is a wise man— FOLLOW HIM!

* * * * * It’s a stiff neck that has no turning when a short skirt goes by.

* * * * * I hope that when I die they’ll pour me back in the bottle.

So do other soaks.

* * * * * London Stuff He had been married about a year and had taken to spending his evenings out West with the boys.

One night his conscience worried him, and he thought he would phone his wife to have dinner with him.

“Hello, kiddo,” he began.

“Slip on some old clothes and run down and meet me on the quiet.

We’ll have a good dinner and then smear a little red paint around.

How about it?

” “I’ll be delighted to join you,” was the reply.

“But why not come up to the house, Jack, and get me?

There’s nobody home.

” Today the young husband spends every evening at home.

His name is Philip.

* * * * * Oh!

Gawsch!

A stripping bee took place at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bohumil Albrecht Thursday evening.

Those present Were the Mesdames Katherine Mach, John Marek, John Jelimek, Kenzel Pokorny, Mr. and Mrs. John Novotny, Mr. and Mrs. John Hanna and Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Wessely, Sr. —(From Kewauness (Wis.

) Press.

) * * * * * The High Cost of Company Sign in European hotel, Manitowoc, Wis.

: “If you have company over night an extra charge of 50c will be made.

” * * * * * A fatted calf maketh a full stocking.

* * * * * Then His Nerve Failed One of the loveliest of girls went into a gents’ furnishing store to buy a necktie.

She hesitated a moment, and then asked in a nice, straightforward way: “I want to put it on, please.

Would you tie it for me?

” The clerk felt a little nervous, especially as the other fellows were watching him, but she had already pulled off the necktie that she wore.

He said, “Certainly,” and, putting the new one around her neck as she ducked her head.

She wore a dainty white silk shirt.

When the tie was tied, the ends seemed a bit long, and he suggested: “Do you wear the ends tucked in?

” “Yes,” she returned with unembarrassed absentmindedness.

At this point his courage failed him.

* * * * * She Knew the Truth “Both of dese here gents,” said the witness, Mandy Thomas, rather impressed with the importance of being in court, “was standing at the corner conversin’ with each other pretty hot an’ pointed like.

” “Relate the conversation,” said the prosecutor.

“Ah don’t jest remember, sah,” said Mandy, “’cept dat dey was callin’ each other what dey is.

” * * * * * Women used to carry money in their stocking, but it’s not safe to put money in public places now.

* * * * * A rash marriage is only skin deep.