Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, Vol. III. No. 31, March, 1922

They’re Going Fast!

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—

PIN A DOLLAR BILL

Or your check, money order or stamps
To the coupon on the back page.

And receive our 256-page bound volume of jokes, jests, jingles, stories, pot pourri, mail bag and Smokehouse poetry. The best collection ever put in print.

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.

So hurry up! First Come will be First Served!

Pin your dollar bill to the coupon and mail to the Whiz Bang Farm, Robbinsdale, Minn.

Don’t write for early back copies of our regular issue.

We haven’t any left.

Captain Billy’s
Whiz Bang

America’s Magazine of
Wit, Humor and
Filosophy

MARCH, 1922 Vol. III. No. 31

Published Monthly
W. H. Fawcett,
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.

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

Drippings From the Fawcett

Three weeks of Havana’s cliquot, bacardi, cervesa, horse races, jai alai, casino, and the rattly-bang-bang, of garbage cans, piercing shrieks of peddlers, not to mention rip-snorting roaring and exhausted automobiles, have had their exhilarating effects on the usual hum drum existence that has been my part of living on a quiet Minnesota farm. The contrast is pleasant although somewhat tiresome. There’s been too much excitement for the little old editor of this family journal of travel.

Sometime in the dim and distant past I was told that the most difficult feature in writing was to transcribe the first paragraph. My hardest job here is to stay away from the Scotch and soda long enough to even think what the first paragraph will look like. However, with the able assistance of my good old pals, the Haig brothers, I am at last seated by a rickety old dining room table in an apartment overlooking the Malecon, Morro Castle and the Gulf of Mexico.

Confucius once said: “It is not the wine that makes a man drunk—it is the man himself.” This filosophy applies to Cuba today. I have seen more “saloons” in Havana and fewer intoxicated persons than in any city in the United States, both before and since the adoption of the prohibition amendment.

The easy manner in which we Americans can get borie-eyed drunk on a few shots of moonshine reminds of the Wag Jag ditty about

DeGulick McBlue, psychological stew,

Could always get tight on one small shot or two—

Far from proving his worldliness, toughness and such.

It all went to show that he couldn’t stand much.

In Havana it is forbidden by law to kiss your wife on the gang-plank, in a taxi or other public place. The usual fine for violation is $25.

Spooning custom here is quite different, too. In Cuba every residential window is protected by iron bars similar to our jails. It is through these barriers that lovers must cuddle and coo—at least until he becomes so nervous and tired from continual standing that he pops the question. I know it would be rather tough on some of our Minnesota farmhands if the farmers should adopt a custom similar to Cuba.

* * *

The first thing I learned in Havana was that the Cubans do not like the Whiz Bang’s traveling correspondent, Rev. “Golightly” Morrill. Mr. Morrill’s name is anathema to the average native, due undoubtedly to the fact that our reverend friend rarely deals out his views of life with kid gloves. He sees the world from the standpoint of the betterment of humanity and in seeking to attain his end, strikes out in two-fisted manner.

In republishing a recent Morrill article from this magazine, a Havana publication takes this rap at our correspondent:

The Rev. “Golightly” Morrill is still tramping around the world seeking muck in which to wallow. After his experience in the West Indies and Central America it was not to be supposed that he would find anything very bad to write about, but it seems that he has discovered familiar iniquities on the beaches of California.

* * *

We chanced into a gringo barroom towards the close of one evening, lured by broken melodies of the brass rail gang. Through the bedlam we could catch swinging tunes of:

I’ll never get drunk any more, I’ll never get drunk any more,

I’ll never enter a barroom door, I’ll never get drunk any more.

I wish I had taken my mother’s advice, and married a nice little wife,

And settled down in the old home town, to lead an honest life.

My father gave me a fortune, I placed it all in my trunk,

But I lost it all a-gambling, one night while I was drunk.

I’ll never get drunk any more.

And this one:

Wifie says you’re crazy, you’re drunk, you’re blind and can’t see,

That’s nothing but a cabbage head the grocer gave to me.

Now ten thousand miles I’ve traveled, with ten thousand more to go,

But whiskers on a cabbage head I never saw before.

* * *

Ever since the death of our good neighbor, Cyrus Hopkins, his lonely widow has made a conscientious study of spiritualism. The other morning Mrs. Hopkins visited a Minneapolis medium in the hopes she might communicate with her late husband. The connection soon was made and the following conversation took place:

“Is this you, Cyrus?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Are you happy?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Happier than when you were with me?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Ain’t heaven just grand?”

“I don’t know, dear. I’m in hell.”

* * *

How, Kind and Forbearing Readers of this great encyclopedia of Psychic Research, better known as The Whiz Bang, pause a moment while Ye Ed relates how Sir Harry Lauder indirectly caused me much embarrassment.

While lunching at the Friars’ Club on my last visit to New York City, I was cordially invited to a big reception at the Hotel Commodore in honor of Sir Harry Lauder, famous Scottish comedian. The momentous night arrived and I donned by “Sunday-go-to-meeting” clothes for the great event. Please try to imagine my chagrin and sheepishness when friends who had called to escort me, very courteously and, I might add, diplomatically informed me that “it was to be a full dress affair.” How in heck could a horny-handed tiller of the soil be expected to possess a dress suit? After thanking my kind auditors in as gracious a manner as possible, I suggested that probably Sir Harry might consider overalls more appropriate for me. Anyway I did not attend the reception. Next day my Friar friends told me about it and I was happily regaled with Scottish humor. The chairman, they said, graciously introduced Lauder as his “closest friend.” Will these jokes on Sir Harry’s thrift never cease?

* * *

During recent pilgrimages that carried me east, west, north and south, I ran across many amusing, although sometimes embarrassing situations. Chief among them was the constantly manifested surprise of newly-found friends that there was actually such a personage, in flesh and blood, as Captain Bilious Billy.

Here is a fair list of the questions usually dished out by new acquaintances:

“Why, I supposed the Whiz Bang was only ‘kidding’ and that ‘Captain Billy’ was merely a book name.”

“And do you really drink that horrid moonshine?”

“Did you have a hired man named Gus?”

“Is Pedro your honest-to-goodness pedigreed bull?”

“Is there actually a town named Robbinsdale?”

“Did a honeymooning couple really leave their automobile seat with you when they went to the village constable to report the theft of their car?”

It was necessary to plead guilty to nearly all the allegations heaped on me. Of course, poor Pedro is no more, he having “kicked the bucket” last July, and Gus, too, has sorta back-slid. Gus always was an in-and-outer anyway.

* * *

Gus, my old time hired man, has busted into poetry again. The old boy must be getting a whiff of the pine forests about Breezy Point Lodge. Well, here you go, Gus,—we’ll publish this one:

I am only a poor old wanderer;

I have no place to call my home;

No one to pity me, no one to cheer me,

As friendless and sadly I roam.

It is tramp, tramp along though I’m weary;

To rest through the long, long day;

Through the rain and the snow I must tramp to and fro,

For it’s the poor tramp’s way.

How I long for a place by the fireside,

When the night it is cold, chill and damp;

Vacant places I see, but there’s no room for me,

For I’m only a poor old tramp.

* * *