The 1910 Grab Bag

SPOOK, IN HURRY, LOSES FALSE TEETH

Chicago—“Let me talk a minute. I have an important engagement on another planet, and must hasten,” demanded in sepulchral tones the spirit of Detective Philip Fitzsimmons’ departed grandfather at a spiritualistic séance at 3156 Indiana avenue a few nights ago.

Perhaps Fitzsimmons’ departed grandfather was unaware that since his departure the grandson had joined the Chicago police force. At all events, neither the “spirit” nor the “sitters” were prepared for what ensued.

Fitzsimmons, groping his way in the darkened room to the cabinet, seized a hand outstretched from it and dragged the spirit forth, struggling violently and emitting shrieks in a feminine voice, strangely in contrast with that which had announced the important engagement on another planet, until the spirit’s set of false teeth fell to the floor.

Simultaneously, five other detectives had turned on the lights and the illumination revealed a woman of muscular build struggling with Fitzsimmons, four other women vainly seeking egress at a door guarded by a detective, and other men and women one of the former more than 70 years old, cowering in their chairs.

Mrs. C. B. Green’s materialization of those in the beyond had been eminently successful from the standpoint of the detectives, resulting in the arrest of five persons besides Mrs. Green, who is 50 years old, and who had impersonated the detective’s grandfather.

At the Harrison street police station, one of the women indignantly denied that her name and initial were assumed as descriptive of the part she had been playing at the séance.

The raid followed the issuance of warrants against Green and his wife taken out by Detective Fitzsimmons as a result of the complaints from persons who alleged they had been defrauded by the Greens. The Virginia Enterprise—Friday, February 4, 1910

 

Are Told to Beware of the Doughnut

Chicago—The humble doughnut has been placed under the ban as an after-the-dance refreshment.

A committee of faculty and student social authorities at the University of Chicago spent three hours in discussing the merits of the “sinker” as a light refreshment for an informal charity ball, and then announced that the well-intentioned test for optimists had been cast from the menu.

For doughnuts, eaten close to the magic midnight hour, make you dream. Worse than this, you would speak more correctly should you say that doughnuts eaten at this period of the night give you the nightmares.

And to put an end to all doubts on the subject, the golden-crusted confection was tried last year, the charitably disposed students ate generously between dances of the tempting array of doughnuts offered for sale, and two days following doctors in the neighborhood of the Midwaw did a rush business.

And over the same route this revolutionizing committee sent the elder which, from time immemorial, has been the accompaniment of the charity dance. Soft cider, the committee argues, is all very well and a pleasant harmless and refreshing drink, but the troublesome question always bobs up, “Is it soft, or, horrible thought, has it passed that stage?” A nd if it is soft when the committee goes out of purchase it, will it still be in that harmless state during the progress of the dance? And Hyde Park is a prohibition district.

So pink lemonade and sherbet are to be the authorized liquid refreshments at University of Chicago dances henceforth, and in place of the doughnut, light and pretty cakes and cookies will be served, warranted to melt in the mouth and produce light and airy fancies in the slumbers that follow several hours’ devotion to Terpsichore.

The charity dance is given under the joint management of the students and wives of faculty members, Mrs. George E. Vincent being in general charge. The affair is given in Bartlett gymnasium, and is one of the events of the year at the university. The proceeds are given to the University Settlement, and several hundred dollars from tickets and refreshments usually are realized. The Virginia Enterprise— Friday, February 11, 1910

 

SH! GIRLS, GREEN PEAS MAKE YOU FLIRT

Time was when we didn’t feed Rex, Fido, Towser, or whatever that pet pup’s name was, raw meat, because we wanted him to become, when he grew up, a nice, cute, well-behaved, home-like canine person. Comes now the department of agriculture in Washington, with its leguminotherapy doctrine (whatever that is!), as a recipe for good human temperament— and for cutting down the “high cost of living.”

Vegetables are to be taken, according to the leguminotherapists in quantities and varieties that suit the person that eats them.

Boiled carrots are prescribed for bad tempers; green peas should be denied to girls with a tendency to flirt; overindulgence in potatoes is apt to produce apathy and laziness; spinach should be taken, particularly by the young because it produces energy and develops constancy, and French string beans are said to constitute an ideal diet for poets and artists.

White haricot beans should be eaten by intellectual workers, because they restore the nervous system and should, the science hold, be preferred as a strengthening food to any sort of meat and especially beef. Disraeli, Carlyle, Daudet and Ibsen fed on haricot beans.

Cauliflower and cabbages are very nourishing, but are not advocated, because they have the drawback of producing vulgarity of character and slowness of perception.

The leguminotherapists declare that these vegetables have all the good qualities that are embodied in either meat or eggs without having, however, their inconveniences. A proper and carefully measured vegetarian diet is the treatment suggested by utilizing vegetables for the physical and moral welfare of the human race.

The absence of meat, it is held, prevents persons from becoming vicious and bloodthirsty. The Virginia Enterprise— Friday, March 11, 1910

 

Columbus Policeman Duped by a “Rube”

Columbus, O.—If you were “one of the finest” on the Columbus police force, how would you like it if a constable from a little town near Urbana would come to Columbus, talk pleasantly to you about mutual friends, induce you to show him the interesting side of life in the capital, buy him everything he wanted to eat and drink and finally top it all off with an appetizing supper at a fine eating establishment and then, after you were out at least $10, snap a pair of handcuffs on you by a ruse, take you off your beat up to a vile little ill-smelling jail at Urbana, where you were locked up for five days on a charge of failure to provide for a wife you had almost forgotten? How would you like it?

All this happened to Patrolman Harry W. Heinz of the Columbus police department. And as a result Heinz is out of jail under bond and must answer to a charge before the courts at Urbana.

Heinz has been on the police force for some time. His wife lives with her relatives in North Lewisburg, near Urbana. He sent her money for her support at intervals, but some time ago she filed a warrant against him in Urbana, charging him with failure to provide.

He was covering his beat one night when a little bewhiskered individual stopped him and introduced himself as a constable from Lewisburg in Columbus “on business.” He said he had been told to get acquainted with Heinz, who seemed glad to meet him. A fter the evening’s entertainment, the handcuffs were snapped on the policeman’s wrists and he was forced to accompany the constable. The Virginia Enterprise— Friday, February 8, 1910

 

DRINKS & LOVE MIXED BY FRENCHMAN

Los Angeles, Cal.—Peter Sivers, a French sheep herder, living on Aliso street, accumulated a jag recently and became amorous to such an extent that his arrest and detention on an insanity charge were deemed necessary.

Sivers in turn made love to a horse, a wagon and a hitching post, and when locked up in the city jail bestowed the most distracting caresses and salutations of love upon the cold and unresponsive bars of his cell.

The sheep herder is the living example of the little mustached type who so often forms the chief fun maker in French film and moving picture shows.

He is short and slight, with a curling mustache and all the ravings and elaborate figures of speech used by his countrymen. Early one afternoon Sivers began to gather about him strange-looking bottles. He drank from each in turn, without fear or favor. Any other man would have thought a while before taking such chances, but with Sivers it was do or die, and he plunged in boldly. A fter all the bottles had been emptied and were lying upon the floor in disconsolate attitudes, the Frenchman arose and went forth in search of adventures. He thought he owned the earth. He tossed his hat in the air in an abandoned manner, and cried his delight. He approached a horse attached to a baker’s cart on Aliso street.

“Ah, ze gran’ horse, ze big one, I lof you, I lof you,” screamed the enraptured Peter, with frantic attempts to embrace the animal. The horse, being of common parentage and having no ambition to speak of, backed away from the approaches of the little man. Peter followed, hat in hand, making the most elaborate bows in the direction of the equine, and at the same time casting the most beseeching glances toward it.

The horse made a few attempts to climb a telegraph pole, and Peter transferred his affairs of love to a picture of a fat damsel, painted on the side panel of a wagon. He was trying to encircle the wagon with his arms in his effort to embrace this wooden affinity, when the driver came forth from a nearby store, pried Peter off with a toe of his shoe, and, using the same system of transmission, delivered him into the gutter.

Instantly forgetting the woe occasioned by this painful scene, Peter looked after the departing fat person on the wagon panel, and then turned his affections upon a nearby hitching post. He was embracing it with rapture, calling it by names of his former loves—“Ah, Jeannette, Beebe, Julie, Antoinette”—when a policeman came along and took him to the police station.

It was thought there that the man was insane. He embraced the bars of his cell in the fondest manner, and swore by all gods that he would be true to each in turn until death. A n examination was ordered, and Peter was found to be suffering severely from an attack of mixed drinks. He was led gently but firmly to the drunk tank to sleep it off. The Virginia Enterprise— Friday, February 8, 1910

 

Our racist forebears

Caught a Lion, Thought It Was a Giraffe  

St. Louis—“The bravest man I ever saw,” said Maj. James Jay Brady, retired circus representative, “was an old negro in the southern part of Illinois, and his boldness was due entirely to his ignorance.

“Our circus train had been in a collision, and a dozen or more animals escaped and were roaming through the neighboring woods. Several of our men were left in a near-by town, and a reward of five dollars was offered in the country paper for each animal captured and returned. With the advertisement was a caution concerning the ferocious royal Nubian lion, which was among the animals missing. The instructions were to kill him on sight and take no chances.

“We had been in the town several days and recovered most of the animals, when one morning an aged negro sauntered up to the hotel and inquired if the circus man who was giving five dollars for animals was around. On being answered in the affirmative, he said:

“ ‘Did you all had a guyraffe in youre succus?’

“ ‘We had a giraffe,’ I replied, ‘but he escaped.’

“ ‘Wall, I done cotch ‘im,’ said the darky. ‘Does I get them air five dollars?’

“ ‘You certainly do, if you can deliver the goods.’

“ ‘You all jes’ stay yere, ‘till I go over yander to my place, whar I’se got dat air guyraffe tied up, and I’ll fotch ‘em yere and get them five dollars.’

“ ‘Quite a crowd had gathered by the time the negro was on his return journey. Before we could see him rounding the turn in the road, we could hear his voice saying, “’G’long, dar, you guyraffe! I’se got five big bones comin’ on you! G’long, you guyraffe.’

“When he came in sight with one end of a rope in his hand and the animal (which he was alternately jerking and kicking) tied to the other end, you can imagine our astonishment when

we discovered in the negro’s ‘guyraffe’— The ferocious Nubian lion. The Virginia Enterprise— Friday, February 11, 1910

 

Our racist forebears

Pays Herself By Taking Pork Chops

Chicago—Lena Sevenson, a negro cook employed in the fashionable boarding house of Mrs. D. E. Bonner, 4339 Oakenwald avenue, must have read in the newspapers about hogs soaring in price above anything known in 40 years, for when she set about recompensing herself for wages she thought were owing her, she passed the family diamonds and plate and looted the ice box of pork chops.

The cook had a tilt with her mistress, and they separated at night without having come to an agreement.

But the cook had no idea of losing any of the fruits of her labors. She knew where were stored the valuables in the Bonner household and during the night following the quarrel over the wages, a dark and mysterious person stealthily approached the Bonner meat safe, and after working the combination, abstracted therefrom pork chops and eggs enough to pay for her wages and over.

She carried her palatable plunder to the Hyde Park police station, whence she telephoned her mistress early the next morning that she had in her desperation carried off Mrs. Bonner’s treasures, and would keep them for ransom till her wages were paid. Mrs. Bonner nearly fainted, and her boarders threw old fashioned stage fits when they heard what had happened. When Mrs. Bonner had recovered, she made breakfast from such odds and ends as the cook had set no value on, and then obtained a warrant for the offending cook.

The story of how the Stevenson woman laid violent hands on Mrs. Bonner’s pork chops was told in court before Municipal Judge Fry of the Woodlawn police station, and the court fined the cook one dollar. Mrs. Bonner, who is a wise woman, immediately paid the Stevenson woman her wages rather than risk a second midnight raid on the treasures of her kitchen. The Virginia Enterprise— Friday, March 18, 1910

 

WHISKY GIVES 100 SICK CHICKENS “JAG”  

Minneapolis—As a chicken doctor, Joseph J. Rhoades, special policeman, residing at 201 Church street, southeast, is something of a success. But all his 100 chickens had a headache one day recently, for in the early morning hours they all became gloriously drunk. The chickens were not to blame, for they were all fed whisky when unconscious.

Rhoades works nights. Just before he left home one evening, Mrs. Rhoades suggested that as the chicken house was cold she feared the chickens would freeze if it were not heated. So Rhoades built a charcoal fire and went away. He returned shortly after midnight and took a look at his coop.

One hundred chickens were stretched on their backs with their toes up. At first their owner thought them dead from the charcoal fumes, but he discovered that they were unconscious.

The first thing he did was to get them into the fresh air and call to Mrs. Rhoades to bring the whiskey bottle. Chicken after chicken got its allowance and soon they were all on their feet, staggering around the yard, cackling in uncertain fashion.

They were too intoxicated to stay on their roosting perches, so Mr. Rhoades kept watch, and as a chicken seemed to recover, he chased it into the henhouse to sleep the “jag” off. By daylight, they were all sound asleep. The Virginia Enterprise—Friday, March 18, 1910

 

DETROIT “COP” SNORES, LOSES HIS TEETH

Detroit, Mich.—A member of the Detroit police force woke suddenly from a restless slumber to find his false teeth gone—the upper set. The weird, strange, uncanny and ghostly part of the affair was that he had dreamed he had lost his teeth, and now it had come true.

“Funny thing,” he remarked, as he scratched his head. “Awful funny.” Then he scratched his head again.

“Did you bring ‘em with you?” queried the door man.

There seemed to be no doubt that he had them when he dropped asleep. Just as decidedly they were now gone. The policeman hurriedly searched all of his pockets, but in vain. Nary a molar nor bicuspid. Mystery most profound. Business of vexed astonishment.

“Maybe you swallowed ‘em, old man,” suggested another policeman hopefully. A look of scorn was the only reply he received.

“If this is a joke,” said the toothless one, “it’s gone too far, that’s all. A man don’t care to have his store teeth handed about as souvenirs. Whichever one of you fellows has got ‘em, say something, and I’ll give you the lower set. One’s no good without the other. Come on—“

Then he saw his overshoes near where he had been sleeping and inside were the teeth just where they had dropped as he opened his mouth to snore! The Virginia Enterprise—Friday, March 25, 1910