This was already the commercial slogan of a great nation.
On Friday H. R., knowing that even perfectly beautiful girls cannot hold the attentive interest of New York unless infractions of the Seventh Commandment are provided in relays, gave out a statement for the newspapers. The newspapers not only printed it, but featured it.
Heretofore [said H. R.] when charitable folks have given money to organized charity they have never been able to feel certain that the money went to the right people. Organized charity has been compelled to be careful. While the merits of the case were under investigation it has frequently happened that the case has died of starvation. Now, genuine destitution needs not life-insurance examination, but common sense and ordinary Christianity on the jump. We have undertaken to feed the hungry who have no money to buy food with. If anybody out of the thousands who will be fed by us is proven to be an undeserving object of our charity I will give one hundred thousand dollars par value in gilt-edged securities to any organized charity approved by Mr. George G. Goodchild, president of the Ketcham National Bank, who, being my prospective father-in-law against his wishes, will be glad to have me lose the money.
Modern methods of efficiency have been applied to charity for the first time. Hence this meal, scientifically studied, artistically concocted, digestible, delicious, and filling. There will be no graft, no throwing away of the public's nobly given money, no dietetic fads, no scientific sawdust, no waste, no salaries, no fraudulent hungers, no inhumanity, no maudlin sentiment, nothing but common sense now first applied to charity by New York. The Mammoth Hunger Feast, marking an era in the life of the great metropolis, will begin at 8.30 p.m. in order to give time for all ticket-holders to dine at home. Well-fed New-Yorkers will therefore be able to see with their own eyes how starving people eat—people who have no money to buy food with. Before each ticket-holder takes the seat to which he is entitled he, or more probably she, will receive ten thousand dollars in cash, by simply using brains. Let us see if New-Yorkers are as clever as they are charitable. Also, I shall marry Grace Goodchild in June.
[Signed] H. R.
A great many people announce an epoch-making idea and expect the world to remember it ever thereafter. H. R. knew that, living in a republic, he must iterate, reiterate, repeat, and sign every time.
On Saturday morning the ninety-nine other perfectly beautiful girls were engaged. Grace Goodchild, when asked point-blank if she were engaged to H. R., now answered, "Do you see any engagement-ring?" Then she held up her slim and beautiful hands. No ring.
All told, 186,898 tickets had been sold. It was plain that repeating had been indulged in. The fair sellers could not be blamed.
"If susceptible men have bought more than one ticket," H. R. said to the reporters, "they need not think they will get more than ten thousand dollars. But the fact remains that we have more than enough money."
This entitled H. R. to the respect of the most conservative dailies. And, moreover, he paid full rates for a half-page in which he printed this advertisement: