 |
VI
The mob delight in melodramatic and cruel spectacles, thus constantly fed and fostered by the judicial arm in the United States, is also at the bottom of another familiar American phenomenon, to wit, lynching. A good part of the enormous literature of lynching is devoted to a discussion of its causes, but most of that discussion is ignorant and some of it is deliberately mendacious. The majority of Southern commentators argue that the motive of the lynchers is a laudable yearning to "protect Southern womanhood," despite the plain fact that only a very small proportion of the blackamoors hanged and burned are even so much as accused of molesting Southern womanhood. On the other hand, some of the negro intellectuals of the North ascribe the recurrent butcheries to the Southern white man's economic jealousy of the Southern black, who is fast acquiring property and reaching out for the prerogatives that go therewith. Finally, certain white Northerners seek a cause in mere political animosity, arguing that the Southern white hates the negro because the latter is his theoretical equal at the polls, though actually not permitted to vote.
All of these notions seem to us to be fanciful. Lynching is popular in the South simply because the Southern populace, like any other populace, delights in thrilling shows, and because no other sort of show is provided by the backward culture of the region. The introduction of prize-fighting down there, or baseball on a large scale, or amusement places like Coney Island, or amateur athletic contests, or picnics like those held by the more truculent Irish fraternal organizations, or any other such wholesale devices for shocking and diverting the proletariat would undoubtedly cause a great decline in lynching. The art is practised, in the overwhelming main, in remote and God-forsaken regions, in which the only rival entertainment is offered by one-sided political campaigns, third-rate chautauquas and Methodist revivals. When it is imitated in the North, it is always in some drab factory or mining town. Genuine race riots, of course, sometimes occur in the larger cities, but these are always economic in origin, and have nothing to do with lynching, properly so-called. One could not imagine an actual lynching at, say, Atlantic City, with ten or fifteen bands playing, blind pigs in operation up every alley, a theatre in every block or two, and the boardwalk swarming with ladies of joy. Even a Mississippian, transported to such scenes, succumbs to the atmosphere of pleasure, and so has no seizures of moral rage against the poor darkey. Lynching, in brief, is a phenomenon of isolated and stupid communities, a mark of imperfect civilization; it follows the hookworm and malaria belt; it shows itself in inverse proportion to the number of shoot-the-chutes, symphony orchestras, roof gardens, theatres, horse races, yellow journals and automatic pianos. No one ever heard of a lynching in Paris, at Newport, or in London. But there are incessant lynchings in the remoter parts of Russia, in the backwoods of Serbia, Bulgaria and Herzegovina, in Mexico and Nicaragua, and in such barbarous American states as Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.
The notion that lynching in the South is countenanced by the gentry or that they take an actual hand in it is libelous and idiotic. The well-born and well-bred Southerner is no more a savage than any other man of condition. He may live among savages, but that no more makes him a savage than an English gentleman is made one by having a place in Wales, or a Russian by living on his estate in the Ukraine. What Northern observers mistake for the gentry of the South, when they report the participation of "leading citizens" in a lynching, is simply the office-holding and commercial bourgeoisie—the offspring of the poor white trash who skulked at home during the Civil War, robbing the widows and orphans of the soldiers at the front, and so laying the foundations of the present "industrial prosperity" of the section, i.e., its conversion from a region of large landed estates and urbane life into a region of stinking factories, filthy mining and oil towns, child-killing cotton mills, vociferous chambers of commerce and other such swineries. It is, of course, a fact that the average lynching party in Mississippi or Alabama is led by the mayor and that the town judge climbs down from his bench to give it his official support, but it is surely not a fact that these persons are of the line of such earlier public functionaries as Pickens, Troup and Pettus. On the contrary, they correspond to the lesser sort of Tammany office-holders and to the vermin who monopolize the public functions in such cities as Boston and Philadelphia. The gentry, with few exceptions, have been forced out of the public service everywhere south of the Potomac, if not out of politics. The Democratic victory in 1912 flooded all the governmental posts at Washington with Southerners, and they remain in power to this day, and some of them are among the chief officers of the nation. But in the whole vast corps there are, we believe, but ten who would be accepted as gentlemen by Southern standards, and only three of these are in posts of any importance. In the two houses of Congress there is but one.
It is thus absurd to drag the gentry of the South—the Bourbons of New England legend—into a discussion of the lynching problem. They represent, in fact, what remains of the only genuine aristocracy ever visible in the United States, and lynching, on the theoretical side, is far too moral a matter ever to engage an aristocracy. The true lynchers are the plain people, and at the bottom of the sport there is nothing more noble than the mob man's chronic and ineradicable poltroonery. Cruel by nature, delighting in sanguinary spectacles, and here brought to hatred of the negro by the latter's increasing industrial, (not political, capitalistic or social) rivalry, he naturally diverts himself in his moments of musing with visions of what he would do to this or that Moor if he had the courage. Unluckily, he hasn't, and so he is unable to execute his dream a cappella. If, inflamed by liquor, he attempts it, the Moor commonly gives him a beating, or even murders him. But what thus lies beyond his talents as an individual at once becomes feasible when he joins himself with other men in a like situation. This is the genesis of a mob of lynchers. It is composed primarily of a few men with definite grievances, sometimes against the negro lynched but often against quite different negroes. It is composed secondarily of a large number of fifth-rate men eager for a thrilling show, involving no personal danger. It is composed in the third place of a few rabble-rousers and politicians, all of them hot to exhibit themselves before the populace at a moment of public excitement and in an attitude of leadership. It is the second element that gives life to the general impulse. Without its ardent appetite for a rough and shocking spectacle there would be no lynching. Its influence is plainly shown by the frequent unintelligibility of the whole proceeding; all its indignation over the crime alleged to be punished is an afterthought; any crime will answer, once its blood is up. Thus the most characteristic lynchings in the South are not those in which a confessed criminal is done to death for a definite crime, but those in which, in sheer high spirits, some convenient African is taken at random and lynched, as the newspapers say, "on general principles." That sort of lynching is the most honest and normal, and we are also inclined to think that it is also the most enjoyable, for the other sort brings moral indignation with it, and moral indignation is disagreeable. No man can be both indignant and happy.
But here, seeking to throw a feeble beam or two of light into the mental processes of the American proletarian, we find ourselves entering upon a discussion that grows narrow and perhaps also dull. Lynching, after all, is not an American institution, but a peculiarly Southern institution, and even in the South it will die out as other more seemly recreations are introduced. It would be quite easy, we believe, for any Southern community to get rid of it by establishing a good brass band and having concerts every evening. It would be even easier to get rid of it by borrowing a few professional scoundrels from the Department of Justice, having them raid the "study" of the local Methodist archdeacon, and forthwith trying him publicly—with a candidate for governor as prosecuting officer—for seduction under promise of salvation. The trouble down there is not a special viciousness. The Southern poor white, taking him by and large, is probably no worse and no better than the anthropoid proletarian of the North. What ails the whole region is Philistinism. It has lost its old aristocracy of the soil and has not yet developed an aristocracy of money. The result is that its cultural ideas are set by stupid and unimaginative men—Southern equivalents of the retired Iowa steer staffers and grain sharks who pollute Los Angeles, American equivalents of the rich English nonconformists. These men, though they have accumulated wealth, have not yet acquired the capacity to enjoy civilized recreations. Worse, most of them are still so barbarous that they regard such recreations as immoral. The dominating opinion of the South is thus against most of the devices that would diminish lynching by providing substitutes for it. In every Southern town some noisy clown of a Methodist or Presbyterian clergyman exercises a local tyranny. These men are firmly against all the divertissements of more cultured regions. They oppose prize-fighting, horse-racing, Sunday baseball and games of chance. They are bitter prohibitionists. By their incessant vice-crusades they reduce the romance of sex to furtiveness and piggishness. They know nothing of music or the drama, and view a public library merely as something to be rigorously censored. We are convinced that their ignorant moral enthusiasm is largely to blame for the prevalence of lynching. No doubt they themselves are sneakingly conscious of the fact, or at least aware of it subconsciously, for lynching is the only public amusement that they never denounce.
Their influence reveals strikingly the readiness of the inferior American to accept ready-made opinions. He seems to be pathetically eager to be told what to think, and he is apparently willing to accept any instructor who takes the trouble to tackle him. This, also, was brilliantly revealed during the late war. The powers which controlled the press during that fevered time swayed the populace as they pleased. So long as the course of Dr. Wilson was satisfactory to them he was depicted as a second Lincoln, and the plain people accepted the estimate without question. To help reinforce it the country was actually flooded with lithographs showing Lincoln and Wilson wreathed by the same branch of laurel, and copies of the print got into millions of humble homes. But immediately Dr. Wilson gave offence to his superiors, he began to be depicted as an idiot and a scoundrel, and this judgment promptly displaced the other one in the popular mind. The late Major General Roosevelt was often a victim of that sort of boob-bumping. A man of mercurial temperament, constantly shifting his position on all large public questions, he alternately gave great joy and great alarm to the little group of sagaciously wilful men which exercises genuine sovereignty over the country, and this alternation of emotions showed itself, by way of the newspapers and other such bawdy agencies, in the vacillation of public opinion. The fundamental platitudes of the nation were used both for him and against him, and always with immense effect. One year he was the last living defender of the liberties fought for by the Fathers; the next year he was an anarchist. Roosevelt himself was much annoyed by this unreliability of the mob. Now and then he sought to overcome it by direct appeals, but in the long run he was usually beaten. Toward the end of his life he resigned himself to a policy of great discretion, and so withheld his voice until he was sure what hymn was being lined out.
The newspapers and press associations, of course, do not impart the official doctrine of the moment in terms of forthright instructions; they get it over, as the phrase is, in the form of delicate suggestions, most of them under cover of the fundamental platitudes aforesaid. Their job is not to inspire and inform public discussion, but simply to colour it, and the task most frequently before them is that of giving a patriotic and virtuous appearance to whatever the proletariat is to believe. They do this, of course, to the tune of deafening protestations of their own honesty and altruism. But there is really no such thing as an honest newspaper in America; if it were set up tomorrow it would perish within a month. Every journal, however rich and powerful, is the trembling slave of higher powers, some financial, some religious and some political. It faces a multitude of censorships, all of them very potent. It is censored by the Postoffice, by the Jewish advertisers, by the Catholic Church, by the Methodists, by the Prohibitionists, by the banking oligarchy of its town, and often by even more astounding authorities, including the Sinn Fein. Now and then a newspaper makes a valiant gesture of revolt, but it is only a gesture. There is not a single daily in the United States that would dare to discuss the problem of Jewish immigration honestly. Nine tenths of them, under the lash of snobbish Jewish advertisers, are even afraid to call a Jew a Jew; their orders are to call him a Hebrew, which is regarded as sweeter. During the height of the Bolshevist scare not one American paper ventured to direct attention to the plain and obtrusive fact that the majority of Bolshevists in Russia and Germany and at least two-thirds of those taken in the United States were of the faith of Moses, Mendelssohn and Gimbel. But the Jews are perhaps not the worst. The Methodists, in all save a few big cities, exercise a control over the press that is far more rigid and baleful. In the Anti-Saloon League they have developed a machine for terrorizing office-holders and the newspapers that is remarkably effective, and they employed it during the long fight for Prohibition to throttle all opposition save the most formal.
In this last case, of course, the idealists who thus forced the speakeasy upon the country had an easy task, for all of the prevailing assumptions and prejudices of the mob were in their favour. No doubt it is true, as has been alleged, that a majority of the voters of the country were against Prohibition and would have defeated it at a plebiscite, but equally without doubt a majority of them were against the politicians so brutally clubbed by the Anti-Saloon League, and ready to believe anything evil of them, and eager to see them manhandled. Moreover, the League had another thing in its favour: it was operated by strictly moral men, oblivious to any notion of honour. Thus it advocated and procured the abolition of legalized liquor selling without the slightest compensation to the men who had invested their money in the business under cover of and even at the invitation of the law—a form of repudiation and confiscation unheard of in any other civilized country. Again, it got through the constitutional amendment by promising the liquor men to give them one year to dispose of their lawfully accumulated stocks—and then broke its promise under cover of alleged war necessity, despite the fact that the war was actually over. Both proceedings, so abhorrent to any man of honour, failed to arouse any indignation among the plain people. On the contrary the plain people viewed them as, in some vague way, smart and creditable, and as, in any case, thoroughly justified by the superior moral obligation that we have hitherto discussed.
Thus the Boobus americanus is lead and watched over by zealous men, all of them highly skilled at training him in the way that he should think and act. The Constitution of his country guarantees that he shall be a free man and assumes that he is intelligent, but the laws and customs that have grown up under that Constitution give the lie to both the guarantee and the assumption. It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law, in fact, that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts. If there were not regulations against the saloon (it seems to say) he would get drunk every day, dissipate his means, undermine his health and beggar his family. If there were not postal regulations as to his reading matter, he would divide his time between Bolshevist literature and pornographic literature and so become at once an anarchist and a guinea pig. If he were not forbidden under heavy penalties to cross a state line with a wench, he would be chronically unfaithful to his wife. Worse, if his daughter were not protected by statutes of the most draconian severity, she would succumb to the first Italian she encountered, yield up her person to him, enroll herself upon his staff and go upon the streets. So runs the course of legislation in this land of freemen. We could pile up example upon example, but will defer the business for the present. Perhaps it may be resumed in a work one of us is now engaged upon—a full length study of the popular mind under the republic. But that work will take years....
VII
No doubt we should apologize for writing, even so, so long a preface to so succinct a book. The one excuse we can think of is that, having read it, one need not read the book. That book, as we have said, may strike the superficial as jocular, but in actual fact it is a very serious and even profound composition, not addressed to the casual reader, but to the scholar. Its preparation involved a great diligence, and its study is not to be undertaken lightly. What the psychologist will find to admire in it, however, is not its learning and painstaking, its laborious erudition, but its compression. It establishes, we believe, a new and clearer method for a science long run to turgidity and flatulence. Perhaps it may be even said to set up an entirely new science, to wit, that of descriptive sociological psychology. We believe that this field will attract many men of inquiring mind hereafter and yield a valuable crop of important facts. The experimental method, intrinsically so sound and useful, has been much abused by orthodox psychologists; it inevitably leads them into a trackless maze of meaningless tables and diagrams; they keep their eyes so resolutely upon the intellectual process that they pay no heed to the primary intellectual materials. Nevertheless, it must be obvious that the conclusions that a man comes to, the emotions that he harbours and the crazes that sway him are of much less significance than the fundamental assumptions upon which they are all based.
There has been, indeed, some discussion of those fundamental assumptions of late. We have heard, for example, many acute discourses upon the effects produced upon the whole thinking of the German people, peasants and professors alike, by the underlying German assumption that the late Kaiser was anointed of God and hence above all ordinary human responsibility. We have heard talk, too, of the curious Irish axiom that there is a mysterious something in the nature of things, giving the Irish people an indefeasible right to govern Ireland as they please, regardless of the safety of their next-door neighbours. And we have heard many outlandish principles of the same sort from political theorists, e.g., regarding the inalienable right of democracy to prevail over all other forms of government and the inalienable right of all national groups, however small, to self-determination. Well, here is an attempt to assemble in convenient form, without comment or interpretation, some of the fundamental beliefs of the largest body of human beings now under one flag in Christendom. It is but a beginning. The field is barely platted. It must be explored to the last furlong and all its fantastic and fascinating treasures unearthed and examined before ever there can be any accurate understanding of the mind of the American people.
GEORGE JEAN NATHAN H.L. MENCKEN New York, 1920.
THE AMERICAN CREDO
Sec.1
That the philoprogenitive instinct in rabbits is so intense that the alliance of two normally assiduous rabbits is productive of 265 offspring in one year.
Sec.2
That there are hundreds of letters in the Dead Letter Office whose failure to arrive at their intended destinations was instrumental in separating as many lovers.
Sec.3
That the Italian who sells bananas on a push-cart always takes the bananas home at night and sleeps with them under his bed.
Sec.4
That a man's stability in the community and reliability in business may be measured by the number of children he has.
Sec.5
That in Japan an American can buy a beautiful geisha for two dollars and that, upon being bought, she will promptly fall madly in love with him and will run his house for him in a scrupulously clean manner.
Sec.6
That all sailors are gifted with an extraordinary propensity for amour, but that on their first night of shore leave they hang around the water-front saloons and are given knock-out drops.
Sec.7
That when a comedian, just before the rise of the curtain, is handed a telegram announcing the death of his mother or only child, he goes out on the stage and gives a more comic performance than ever.
Sec.8
That the lions in the cage which a lion-tamer enters are always sixty years old and have had all their teeth pulled.
Sec.9
That the Siamese Twins were joined together by gutta percha moulded and painted to look like a shoulder blade.
Sec.10
That if a woman about to become a mother plays the piano every day, her baby will be born a Victor Herbert.
Sec.11
That all excursion boats are so old that if they ran into a drifting beer-keg they would sink.
Sec.12
That a doctor knows so much about women that he can no longer fall in love with one of them.
Sec.13
That when one takes one's best girl to see the monkeys in the zoo, the monkeys invariably do something that is very embarrassing.
Sec.14
That firemen, awakened suddenly in the middle of the night, go to fires in their stocking feet.
Sec.15
That something mysterious goes on in the rooms back of chop suey restaurants.
Sec.16
That oil of pennyroyal will drive away mosquitoes.
Sec.17
That the old ladies on summer hotel verandas devote themselves entirely to the discussion of scandals.
Sec.18
That a bachelor, expecting a feminine visitor, by way of subtle preliminary strategy smells up his rooms with Japanese punk.
Sec.19
That all one has to do to gather a large crowd in New York is to stand on the curb a few moments and gaze intently at the sky.
Sec.20
That one can get an excellent bottle of wine in France for a franc.
21
That it is dangerous to drink out of a garden hose, since if one does one is likely to swallow a snake.
Sec.22
That all male negroes can sing.
Sec.23
That when a girl enters a hospital as a nurse, her primary object is always to catch one of the doctors.
Sec.24
That the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards.
Sec.25
That a young girl ought to devote herself sedulously to her piano lessons since, when she is married, her playing will be a great comfort to her husband.
Sec.26
That all theater box-office employes are very impolite and hate to sell a prospective patron a ticket.
Sec.27
That all great men have illegible signatures.
Sec.28
That all iron-moulders and steam-fitters, back in the days of freedom, used to get drunk every Saturday night.
Sec.29
That if a man takes a cold bath regularly every morning of his life he will never be ill.
Sec.30
That ginger snaps are made of the sweepings of the floor in the bakery.
Sec.31
That every circus clown's heart is breaking for one reason or another.
Sec.32
That a bull-fighter always has so many women in love with him that he doesn't know what to do.
Sec.33
That George M. Cohan spends all his time hanging around Broadway cafes and street-corners making flip remarks.
Sec.34
That one can never tell accurately what the public wants.
Sec.35
That every time one sat upon an old-fashioned horse-hair sofa one of the protruding sharp hairs would stab one through the union suit.
Sec.36
That when an ocean vessel collides with another vessel or hits an iceberg and starts to sink, the ship's band promptly rushes up to the top deck and begins playing "Nearer, My God, to Thee."
Sec.37
That in no town in America where it has played has "Uncle Tom's Cabin" ever failed to make money.
Sec.38
That the tenement districts are the unhealthy places they are because the dwellers hang their bed-clothing out on the fire-escapes.
Sec.39
That, in small town hotels, the tap marked "hot water" always gives forth cold water and that the tap marked "cold" always gives forth hot.
Sec.40
That every lieutenant in the American army who went to France had an affair with a French comtesse.
Sec.41
That when cousins marry, their children are born blind, deformed, or imbecile.
Sec.42
That a cat falling from the twentieth story of the Singer Building will land upon the pavement below on its feet, uninjured and as frisky as ever.
Sec.43
That the accumulation of great wealth always brings with it great unhappiness.
Sec.44
That it is unlucky to count the carriages in a funeral.
Sec.45
That the roulette wheel at Monte Carlo is controlled by a wire as thin as a hair which is controlled in turn by a button hidden beneath the rug near the operator's great toe.
Sec.46
That Polish women are so little human that one of them can have a baby at 8 A.M. and cook her husband's dinner at noon.
Sec.47
That Henry James never wrote a short sentence.
Sec.48
That it is bad luck to kill a spider.
Sec.49
That German peasants are possessed of a profound knowledge of music.
Sec.50
That every coloured cook has a lover who never works, and that she feeds him by stealing the best part of every dish she cooks.
Sec.51
That George Bernard Shaw doesn't really believe anything he writes.
Sec.52
That the music of Richard Wagner is all played fortissimo, and by cornets.
Sec.53
That the Masonic order goes back to the days of King Solomon.
Sec.54
That swearing is forbidden by the Bible.
Sec.55
That all newspaper reporters carry notebooks.
Sec.56
That whiskey is good for snake-bite.
Sec.57
That surgeons often kill patients for the sheer pleasure of it.
Sec.58
That ten drops of camphor in half a glass of water will prevent a cold.
Sec.59
That the first thing a country jake does when he comes to New York is to make a bee line for Grant's Tomb and the Aquarium.
Sec.60
That if one's nose tickles it is a sign that one is going to meet a stranger or kiss a fool.
Sec.61
That if one's right ear burns, it is a sign that some one is saying nice things about one.
Sec.62
That if one's left ear burns, it is a sign that some one is saying mean things about one.
Sec.63
That French women use great quantities of perfume in lieu of taking a bath.
Sec.64
That a six-footer is invariably a virtuoso of amour superior to a man of, say, five feet seven.
Sec.65
That a soubrette is always fifteen or twenty years older than she looks.
Sec.66
That what impels most men to have their finger-nails manicured is a vanity for having manicured finger-nails.
Sec.67
That water rots the hair and thus causes baldness.
Sec.68
That when one twin dies, the other twin becomes exceedingly melancholy and soon also dies.
Sec.69
That one may always successfully get a cinder out of the eye by not touching the eye, but by rolling it in an outward direction and simultaneously blowing the nose.
Sec.70
That if one wears light weight underwear winter and summer the year 'round, one will never catch a cold.
Sec.71
That a drunken man is invariably more bellicose than a sober man.
Sec.72
That all prize-fighters and baseball players have their hair cut round in the back.
Sec.73
That the work of a detective calls for exceptionally high sagacity and cunning.
Sec.74
That on the first day of the season in the pleasure parks many persons, owing to insufficiently tested apparatus, are regularly killed on the roller-coasters.
Sec.75
That a play, a novel, or a short story with a happy ending is necessarily a commercialized and inartistic piece of work.
Sec.76
That a person who follows up a cucumber salad with a dish of ice-cream will inevitably be the victim of cholera morbus.
Sec.77
That a Sunday School superintendent is always carrying on an intrigue with one of the girls in the choir.
Sec.78
That it is one of the marks of a gentleman that he never speaks evil of a woman.
Sec.79
That a member of the Masons cannot be hanged.
Sec.80
That a policeman can eat gratis as much fruit and as many peanuts off the street-corner stands as he wants.
Sec.81
That the real President of the United States is J. P. Morgan.
Sec.82
That onion breath may be promptly removed by drinking a little milk.
Sec.83
That onion breath may be promptly removed by eating a little parsley.
Sec.84
That Catholic priests conduct their private conversations in Latin.
Sec.85
That John Drew is a great society man.
Sec.86
That all Swedes are stupid fellows, and have very thick skulls.
Sec.87
That all the posthumously printed stories of David Graham Phillips and Jack London have been written by hacks hired by the magazine editors and publishers.
Sec.88
That a man like Charles Schwab, who has made a great success of the steel business, could in the same way easily have become a great composer like Bach or Mozart had he been minded thus to devote his talents.
Sec.89
That the man who doesn't hop promptly to his feet when the orchestra plays "The Star Spangled Banner" as an overture to Hurtig and Seamon's "Hurly-Burly Girlies" must have either rheumatism or pro-German sympathies.
Sec.90
That every workman in Henry Ford's factory owns a pretty house in the suburbs and has a rose-garden in the back-yard.
Sec.91
That all circus people are very pure and lead domestic lives.
Sec.92
That if a spark hits a celluloid collar, the collar will explode.
Sec.93
That when a bachelor who has hated children for twenty years gets married and discovers he is about to become a father, he is delighted.
Sec.94
That drinking three drinks of whiskey a day will prevent pneumonia.
Sec.95
That every negro who went to France with the army had a liaison with a white woman and won't look at a nigger wench any more.
Sec.96
That all Russians have unpronounceable names.
Sec.97
That awnings keep rooms cool.
Sec.98
That it is very difficult to decipher a railroad time-table.
Sec.99
That gamblers may always be identified by their habit of wearing large diamonds.
Sec.100
That when a man embarks in a canoe with a girl, the chances are two to one that the girl will move around when the boat is in mid-stream and upset it.
Sec.101
That German babies are brought up on beer in place of milk.
Sec.102
That a man with two shots of cocaine in him could lick Jack Dempsey.
Sec.103
That fully one half the repertoire of physical ailments is due to uric acid.
Sec.104
That a woman, when buying a cravat for a man, always picks out one of green and purple with red polka-dots.
Sec.105
That a negro's vote may always be readily bought for a dollar.
Sec.106
That cripples always have very sunny dispositions.
Sec.107
That if one drops a crust of bread into one's glass of champagne, one can drink indefinitely without getting drunk.
Sec.108
That a brass band always makes one feel like marching.
Sec.109
That, when shaving on a railway train, a man invariably cuts himself.
Sec.110
That the male Spaniard is generally a handsome, flashing-eyed fellow, possessed of fiery temper.
Sec.111
That after drinking a glass of absinthe one has peculiar hallucinations and nightmares.
Sec.112
That since the Indians were never bald, baldness comes from wearing tight hats.
Sec.113
That all wine-agents are very loose men.
Sec.114
That the editor of a woman's magazine is always a lizzie.
Sec.115
That what is contained in the pitcher on the speakers' platform is always ice-water.
Sec.116
That all Senators from Texas wear sombreros, chew tobacco, expectorate profusely, and frequently employ the word "maverick."
Sec.117
That the meters on taxicabs are covertly manipulated by the chauffeurs by means of wires hidden under the latters' seats.
Sec.118
That Lillian Russell is as beautiful today as she was thirty-five years ago.
Sec.119
That if a young woman can hold a lighted match in her fingers until it completely burns up, it is a sign that her young man really loves her.
Sec.120
That if a young woman accidentally puts on her lingerie wrong side out, it is a sign that she will be married before the end of the year.
Sec.121
That if a bride wears an old garter with her new finery, she will have a happy married life.
Sec.122
That a sudden chill is a sign that somebody is walking over one's grave.
Sec.123
That some ignoble Italian is at the bottom of every Dorothy Arnold fugax.
Sec.124
That a tarantula will not crawl over a piece of rope.
Sec.125
That millionaires always go to sleep at the opera.
Sec.126
That Paderewski can get all the pianos he wants for nothing.
Sec.127
That a bloodhound never makes a mistake.
Sec.128
That celery is good for the nerves.
Sec.129
That the jokes in Punch are never funny.
Sec.130
That the Mohammedans are heathens.
Sec.131
That a sudden shock may cause the hair to turn grey over night.
Sec.132
That the farmer is an honest man, and greatly imposed upon.
Sec.133
That all the antique furniture sold in America is made in Grand Rapids, Mich., and that the holes testifying to its age are made either with gimlets or by trained worms.
Sec.134
That if a dog is fond of a man it is an infallible sign that the man is a good sort, and one to be trusted.
Sec.135
That blondes are flightier than brunettes.
Sec.136
That a nurse, however ugly, always looks beautiful to the sick man.
Sec.137
That book-keepers are always round-shouldered.
Sec.138
That if one touches a hop-toad, one will get warts.
Sec.139
That a collar-button that drops to the floor when one is dressing invariably rolls into an obscure and inaccessible spot and eludes the explorations of its owner.
Sec.140
That an American ambassador has the French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese languages at his finger tips, and is chummy with royalty.
Sec.141
That the ready-made mail order blue serge suits for men are put together with mucilage, and turn green after they have been in the sunlight for a day or two.
Sec.142
That if one has only three matches left, the first two will invariably go out, but that the third and last will remain lighted.
Sec.143
That all Chinamen smoke opium.
Sec.144
That every country girl who falls has been seduced by a man from the city.
Sec.145
That an intelligent prize-fighter always triumphs over an ignorant prize-fighter, however superior the latter in agility and strength.
Sec.146
That a doctor's family never gets sick.
Sec.147
That nature designed a horse's tail primarily as a flicker-off of flies.
Sec.148
That nicotine keeps the teeth in a sound condition.
Sec.149
That when an Odd Fellow dies he is always given a magnificent funeral by his lodge, including a band and a parade.
Sec.150
That the man who is elected president of the Senior Class in a college is always the most popular man in his class.
Sec.151
That a minor actress in a theatrical company always considers the leading man a superb creature, and loves him at a distance.
Sec.152
That a Southern levee is a gay place.
Sec.153
That when a dog whines in the middle of the night, it is a sure sign that some one is going to die.
Sec.154
That the stenographer in a business house is always coveted by her employer, who invites her to luncheon frequently, gradually worms his way into her confidence, keeps her after office hours one day, accomplishes her ruin, and then sets her up in a magnificently furnished apartment in Riverside Drive and appeases her old mother by paying the latter's expenses for a summer holiday with her daughter at the seashore.
Sec.155
That the extinction of the Indian has been a deplorable thing.
Sec.156
That everybody has a stomach-ache after Thanksgiving dinner.
Sec.157
That, in summer, tan shoes are much cooler on the feet than black shoes.
Sec.158
That every man who calls himself Redmond is a Jew whose real name is Rosenberg.
Sec.159
That General Grant never directed a battle save with a cigar in his mouth.
Sec.160
That there is something slightly peculiar about a man who wears spats.
Sec.161
That the more modest a young girl is, the more innocent she is.
Sec.162
That what a woman admires above everything else in a man is an upright character.
Sec.163
That seafaring men drink nothing but rum.
Sec.164
That no family in the slums has less than six children.
Sec.165
That a piece of camphor worn on a string around the neck will ward off disease.
Sec.166
That a saloon with a sign reading "Family Entrance" on its side door invariably has a bawdy house upstairs.
Sec.167
That the wife of a rich man always wistfully looks back into the past and wishes she had married a poor man.
Sec.168
That all persons prominent in smart society are very dull.
Sec.169
That when ordering a drink of whiskey at a bar, a man always used to instruct the bartender as to the size of the drink he desired by saying "two fingers" or "three fingers."
Sec.170
That all the wine formerly served in Italian restaurants was made in the cellar, and was artificially coloured with some sort of dye that was very harmful to the stomach.
Sec.171
That bootblacks whistle because they are so happy.
Sec.172
That stokers on ocean liners are from long service so used to the heat of the furnaces that they don't notice it.
Sec.173
That what draws men to horse races is love of the sport.
Sec.174
That tarantulas often come from the tropics in bunches of bananas, and that when one of them stings a negro on the wharf he swells up, turns green and dies within three hours.
Sec.175
That a man will do anything for the woman he loves.
Sec.176
That the reason William Gillette, who has been acting for over forty years, always smokes cigars in the parts he plays is because he is very nervous when on the stage.
Sec.177
That the doughnut is an exceptionally indigestible article.
Sec.178
That one captive balloon in every two containing persons on pleasure bent breaks away from its moorings, and drifts out to sea.
Sec.179
That a workingman always eats what is in his dinnerpail with great relish.
Sec.180
That children were much better behaved twenty years ago than they are today.
Sec.181
That the cashier of a restaurant in adding up a customer's cheque always adds a dollar which is subsequently split between himself and the waiter.
Sec.182
That it is impossible to pronounce the word "statistics" without stuttering.
Sec.183
That the profession of white slaving, in 1900 controlled exclusively by Chinamen, has since passed entirely under the control of Italians.
Sec.184
That every person in the Riviera lives in a "villa."
Sec.185
That the chief form of headgear among the Swiss is the Alpine hat.
Sec.186
That each year a man volunteers to take his children to the circus merely as a subterfuge to go himself.
Sec.187
That all marriages with actresses turn out badly.
Sec.188
That San Francisco is a very gay place, and full of opium joints.
Sec.189
That an elevator operator never succeeds in stopping his car on a level with the floor.
Sec.190
That they don't make any pianos today as good as the old square ones.
Sec.191
That a man who habitually clears his throat before he speaks is generally a self-important hypocrite and a bluffer.
Sec.192
That Maurice Maeterlinck, the Belgian Dr. Frank Crane, leads a monastic life.
Sec.193
That whenever a vaudeville comedian quotes a familiar commercial slogan, such as "His Master's Voice," or "Eventually, why not now?", he is paid $50 a performance for doing so.
Sec.194
That all Asiatic idols have large precious rubies in their foreheads.
Sec.195
That when the foe beheld Joan of Arc leading the French army against them, a look of terror froze their features and that, casting their arms from them, they broke into a frenzied and precipitate flight.
Sec.196
That the late King Edward VII as Prince of Wales easily got every girl he wanted.
Sec.197
That the penitentiaries of the United States contain a great number of hapless prisoners possessed of a genuine gift for poetry.
Sec.198
That if a cat gets into a room where a baby is sleeping, the cat will suck the baby's breath and kill it.
Sec.199
That all men named Clarence, Claude or Percy are sissies.
Sec.200
That a street car conductor steals every fifth nickel.
Sec.201
That the security of a bank is to be estimated in proportion to the solidity of the bank building.
Sec.202
That seventy-five per cent of all taxicab drivers have at one time or another been in Sing Sing.
Sec.203
That one can buy a fine suit of clothes in London for twelve dollars.
Sec.204
That the chicken salad served in restaurants is always made of veal.
Sec.205
That a play without a bed in it never makes any money in Paris.
Sec.206
That Conan Doyle would have made a wonderful detective.
Sec.207
That an oyster-shucker every month or so discovers a pearl which he goes out and sells for five hundred dollars.
Sec.208
That a napkin is always wrapped around a champagne bottle for the purpose of hiding the label, and that the quality of the champagne may be judged by the amount of noise the cork makes when it is popped.
Sec.209
That because a married woman remains loyal to her husband she loves him.
Sec.210
That every time one blows oneself to a particularly expensive cigar and leans back to enjoy oneself with a good smoke after a hearty and satisfying dinner, the cigar proceeds to burn down the side.
Sec.211
That when a police captain goes on a holiday he always gets boilingly drunk.
Sec.212
That an Italian puts garlic in everything he eats, including coffee.
Sec.213
That if one hits a negro on the head with a cobblestone, the cobblestone will break.
Sec.214
That all nuns have entered convents because of unfortunate love affairs.
Sec.215
That, being surrounded by alcoholic beverages and believing the temptation would be irresistible once he began, a bartender in the old days never took a drink.
Sec.216
That all millionaires are born in small ramshackle houses situated near railroad tracks.
Sec.217
That farmers afford particularly easy prey for book-agents and are the largest purchasers of cheap sets of Guy de Maupassant, Rudyard Kipling and O. Henry.
Sec.218
That George Washington never told a lie.
Sec.219
That a dark cigar is always a strong one.
Sec.220
That the night air is poisonous.
Sec.221
That a hair from a horse's tail, if put into a bottle of water, will turn into a snake.
Sec.222
That champagne is the best of all wines.
Sec.223
That it snowed every Christmas down to fifteen years ago.
Sec.224
That if a young woman finds a piece of tea leaf floating around the top of her tea cup, it is a sign that she will be married before the end of the year.
Sec.225
That if, after one lusty blow, a girl's birthday cake reveals nine candles still burning, it is a sign that it will be nine years before she gets married.
Sec.226
That if, while promenading, a girl and her escort walk on either side of a water hydrant or other obstruction instead of both walking 'round it on the same side, they will have a misunderstanding before the month is over.
Sec.227
That it is unlikely that a man and woman who enter a hotel without baggage after 10 P.M. and register are man and wife.
Sec.228
That all country girls have clear, fresh, rosy complexions.
Sec.229
That chorus girls spend the time during the entr'-actes sitting around naked in their dressing-rooms telling naughty stories.
Sec.230
That many soldiers' lives have been saved in battle by bullets lodging in Bibles which they have carried in their breast pockets.
Sec.231
That each year the Fourth of July exodus to the bathing beaches on the part of persons from the city establishes a new record.
Sec.232
That women with red hair or wide nostrils are possessed of especially passionate natures.
Sec.233
That three-fourths of the inhabitants of Denver are lungers who have gone there for the mountain air.
Sec.234
That, when sojourning in Italy, one always feels very lazy.
Sec.235
That the people of Johnstown, Pa., still talk of nothing but the flood.
Sec.236
That there is no finer smell in the world than that of burning autumn leaves.
Sec.237
That Jules Verne anticipated all the great modern inventions.
Sec.238
That a man is always a much heartier eater than a woman.
Sec.239
That all the girls in Mr. Ziegfeld's "Follies" are extraordinarily seductive, and that at least 40 head of bank cashiers are annually guilty of tapping the till in order to buy them diamonds and Russian sables.
Sec.240
That a college sophomore is always a complete ignoramus.
Sec.241
That rubbers in wet weather are a preventive of colds.
Sec.242
That if one eats oysters in a month not containing an "r," one is certain to get ptomaine poisoning.
Sec.243
That a woman with a 7-1/2-C foot always tries to squeeze it into a 4-1/2-A shoe.
Sec.244
That no shop girl ever reads anything but Laura Jean Libbey and the cheap sex magazines.
Sec.245
That there is something peculiar about a man who wears a red tie.
Sec.246
That all Bolsheviki and Anarchists have whiskers.
Sec.247
That all the millionaires of Pittsburgh are very loud fellows, and raise merry hell with the chorus girls every time they go to New York.
Sec.248
That a man of fifty-five is always more experienced than a man of thirty-five.
Sec.249
That new Bermuda potatoes come from Bermuda.
Sec.250
That the boy who regularly stands at the foot of his class in school always turns out in later life to be very successful.
Sec.251
That the ornamental daggers fashioned out of one hundred dollars' worth of Chinese coins strung together, which one buys in Pekin or Hong Kong for three dollars and a quarter, are fashioned out of one hundred dollars' worth of Chinese coins.
Sec.252
That it is hard to find any one in Hoboken, N.J., who can speak English.
Sec.253
That the head-waiter in a fashionable restaurant has better manners than any other man in the place.
Sec.254
That a girl always likes best the man who is possessed of a cavalier politeness.
Sec.255
That the most comfortable room conceivable is one containing a great big open fireplace.
Sec.256
That brunettes are more likely to grow stout in later years than blondes.
Sec.257
That a sepia photograph of the Coliseum, framed, is a work of art.
Sec.258
That every time one crosses the English Channel one encounters rough weather and is very sea-sick.
Sec.259
That the Navajo blankets sold to trans-continental tourists by the Indians on the station platform at Albuquerque, New Mexico, are made by the Elite Novelty M'f'g. Co. of Passaic, N.J., and are bought by the Indians in lots of 1,000.
Sec.260
That appendicitis is an ailment invented by surgeons twelve years ago for money-making purposes and that, in the century before that time, no one was ever troubled with it.
Sec.261
That a theatrical matinee performance is always inferior to an evening performance, the star being always eager to hurry up the show in order to get a longer period for rest before the night performance.
Sec.262
That John D. Rockefeller would give his whole fortune for a digestion good enough to digest a cruller.
Sec.263
That a clergyman leads an easy and lazy life, and spends most of his time visiting women parishioners while their husbands are at work.
Sec.264
That it is almost sure death to eat cucumbers and drink milk at the same meal.
Sec.265
That all bank cashiers, soon or late, tap the till.
Sec.266
That the members of fashionable church choirs, during the sermon, engage in kissing and hugging behind the pipe-organ.
Sec.267
That women who are in society never pay any attention to their children, and wish that they would die.
Sec.268
That if one gets one's feet wet, one is sure to catch cold.
Sec.269
That all French women are very passionate, and will sacrifice everything to love.
Sec.270
That when a drunken man falls he never hurts himself.
Sec.271
That all Chinese laundrymen sprinkle their laundry by taking a mouthful of water and squirting it out at their wash in a fine spray; and that, whatever the cost of living to a white man, the Chinese laundryman always lives on eight cents a day.
Sec.272
That if one fixes a savage beast with one's eye, the beast will remain rooted to the spot and presently slink away.
Sec.273
That if one eats cucumbers and then goes in swimming, one will be seized with a cramp.
Sec.274
That hiccoughs may be stopped by counting slowly up to one hundred.
Sec.275
That newspaper reporters hear, every day, a great many thumping scandals that they fail to print, and that they refrain through considerations of honour.
Sec.276
That the young East Side fellow who plays violin solos at the moving-picture theatre around the corner is so talented that, if he had the money to go to Europe to study, he would be a rival to Kreisler within three years.
Sec.277
That Paderewski, during the piano-playing days, wore a wig, and was actually as bald as a coot.
Sec.278
That lightning never strikes twice in the same place.
Sec.279
That when a doctor finds there is nothing the matter with a man who has come to consult him, he never frankly tells the man there's nothing wrong with him, but always gives him bread pills.
Sec.280
That, in a family crisis, the son always sticks to the mother and the daughter to the father.
Sec.281
That beer is very fattening.
Sec.282
That no man of first-rate mental attainments ever goes in for dancing.
Sec.283
That a woman can't sharpen a lead pencil.
Sec.284
That on every trans-Atlantic steamer there are two smooth gamblers who, the moment the ship docks, sneak over the side with the large sum of money they have won from the passengers.
Sec.285
That if one gets out of bed on the left side in the morning, one has a mean disposition for the rest of the day.
Sec.286
That a woman who has led a loose life is so grateful for the respect shown her by the man who asks her to marry him that she makes the best kind of wife.
Sec.287
That fish is a brain food.
Sec.288
That street-corner beggars have a great deal of money hidden away at home under the kitchen floor.
Sec.289
That it is advisable for a young woman who takes gas when having a tooth pulled to be accompanied by some one, by way of precaution against the dentist.
Sec.290
That all girls educated in convents turn out in later life to be hell-raisers.
Sec.291
That a young girl may always safely be trusted with the kind of man who speaks of his mother.
Sec.292
That a nine-year-old boy who likes to play with toy steam engines is probably a born mechanical genius and should be educated to be an engineer.
Sec.293
That all celebrated professional humourists are in private life heavy and witless fellows.
Sec.294
That when one stands close to the edge of a dizzy altitude, one is seized peculiarly with an impulse to jump off.
Sec.295
That if one eats an apple every night before retiring, one will never be ill.
Sec.296
That all negroes born south of the Potomac can play the banjo and are excellent dancers.
Sec.297
That whenever a negro is educated he refuses to work and becomes a criminal.
Sec.298
That whenever an Italian begins to dress like an American and to drive a Dodge car, it is a sign he has taken to black-handing or has acquired an interest in the white-slave trust.
Sec.299
That, in the days when there were breweries, the men who drove beer-wagons drank 65 glasses of beer a head a day, and that it didn't hurt them because it came direct from the wood.
Sec.300
That, until the time of American intervention, the people of the Philippines were all cannibals, and displayed the heads of their fallen enemies on poles in front of their houses.
Sec.301
That whenever a crowd of boys goes camping in summer two or three of them are drowned, and the rest come home suffering from poison ivy.
Sec.302
That whenever a will case gets into the courts, the lawyers gobble all the money, and the heirs come out penniless.
Sec.303
That every female moving-picture star carries on an intrigue with her leading man, and will marry him as soon as he can get rid of his poor first wife, who took in washing in order to pay for his education in the art of acting.
Sec.304
That all theatrical managers are Jews, and that most of them can scarcely speak English.
Sec.305
That a great many of women's serious diseases are due to high French heels.
Sec.306
That if one does not scratch a mosquito bite, it will stop itching.
Sec.307
That when a girl gives a man a pen-knife for a present, their friendship will come to an unhappy end unless he exercises the precaution to ward off bad luck by giving her a penny.
Sec.308
That whenever one takes an umbrella with one, it doesn't rain.
Sec.309
That the cloth used in suits made in England is so good that it never wears out.
Sec.310
That cinnamon drops are coloured red with a dye-stuff manufactured out of the dried bodies of cochineal insects.
Sec.311
That the missionaries in China and Africa make fortunes robbing the natives they are sent out to convert.
Sec.312
That there is a revolution in Central America every morning before breakfast, and that the sole object of all the revolutionary chiefs is to seize the money in the public treasury and make off to Paris.
Sec.313
That whenever there is a funeral in an Irish family the mourners all get drunk and proceed to assault one another with clubs.
Sec.314
That all immigrants come to America in search of liberty, and that when they attempt to exercise it they should be immediately sent back.
Sec.315
That whenever a rich American girl marries a foreign nobleman, he at once gets hold of all her money, then beats her and then runs away with an actress.
Sec.316
That if one begins eating peanuts one cannot stop.
Sec.317
That a bachelor never has any one to sew the buttons on his clothes.
Sec.318
That whenever a dog wags his tail it is a sign that he is particularly happy.
Sec.319
That an Italian street labourer can do a hard day's work on one large plate of spaghetti a day.
Sec.320
That if one breaks a mirror one will have bad luck for seven years.
Sec.321
That two men seldom agree that the same girl is good-looking.
Sec.322
That in the infinitesimal space of time between the springing of the trap-door and his dropping through it, a hanged man sees his entire life pass in panorama before him.
Sec.323
That when Washington crossed the Delaware, he stood up in the bow of the boat holding aloft a large American flag.
Sec.324
That whereas a man always hopes his first child will be a boy, his wife always hopes that it will be a girl.
Sec.325
That the first time a boy smokes a cigar he always becomes deathly sick.
Sec.326
That a woman always makes a practice of being deliberately late in keeping an appointment with a man.
Sec.327
That if, encountering a savage beast in the jungle, one falls upon the ground, lies still and pretends that one is dead, the savage beast will promptly make off and not hurt one.
Sec.328
That if one sits in front of the Cafe de la Paix, in Paris, one will soon or late see everybody in the world that one knows.
Sec.329
That it is always twice as hard to get rid of a summer cold as to get rid of a winter cold.
Sec.330
That a soft speaking voice is the invariable mark of a well-bred man.
Sec.331
That the persons who most vociferously applaud the playing of "Dixie" in restaurants are all Northerners who have never been further South than Allentown, Pa.
Sec.332
That the larger the dog, the safer he is for children.
Sec.333
That Catholic priests never solicit money from their parishioners, but merely assess them so much a head, and make them pay up instantly.
Sec.334
That nine times in ten when one is in pain, and a doctor assures one that he is squirting morphine into one's arm, what he is really squirting in is only warm water.
Sec.335
That a German civilian, before the war, had to get off the sidewalk whenever an army lieutenant approached him on the street, and that, if he failed to do so instantly, the lieutenant was free to run him through with his sword.
Sec.336
That while it may be possible, in every individual case of spiritualist communication with the dead, to prove fraud by the medium, the accumulated effect of such communications is to demonstrate the immortality of the soul.
Sec.337
That an Italian who earns and saves $1,000 in America can take the money home, invest it in an estate, and live like a rich man thereafter.
Sec.338
That all Mormons, despite the laws against it, still practise polygamy, and that they have agents all over the world recruiting cuties for their harems.
Sec.339
That when a man goes to a photographer's to have his picture taken, the knowledge that he is having his picture taken always makes him very self-conscious, thus causing him to assume an expression which results in the photograph being an inaccurate likeness.
Sec.340
That if the lower line on the palm of one's hand is a long one, it is a sign that one is going to live to a ripe old age.
Sec.341
That Italian counts, before the war, always used to make their expenses when they came to America by acting as wine agents.
Sec.342
That a Russian peasant, in the days of the czar, drank two quarts of vodka a day.
Sec.343
That a German farmer can raise more produce on one acre of land than an American can raise on a hundred.
Sec.344
That a boil on the neck purifies the blood and is worth $1,000.
Sec.345
That whenever a Frenchman comes home unexpectedly, some friend of the family makes a quick sneak out of the back door.
Sec.346
That every negro servant girl spends at least half of her wages on preparations for taking the kink out of her hair.
Sec.347
That the licorice candy sold in cheap candy stores is made of old rubber boots.
Sec.348
That if a boy is given all he wants to drink at home he will not drink when he is away from home.
Sec.349
That the second-class passengers on a trans-Atlantic steamship always have more fun than the first-class passengers.
Sec.350
That a drunken man always pronounces every "s" as "sh."
Sec.351
That champagne will prevent seasickness.
Sec.352
That thin wrists and slender ankles are unmistakable signs of aristocratic breeding.
Sec.353
That when one asks a girl to go canoeing she always brings along a bright red or yellow sofa cushion.
Sec.354
That when a woman buys cigars for a man she always judges the quality of the cigars by the magnificence of the cigar-bands.
Sec.355
That candle light makes a woman forty-five years old look fifteen years younger.
Sec.356
That the winters in the United States are a good deal less cold than they used to be, and that the change has been caused by the Gulf Stream.
Sec.357
That the Thursday matinees given by Chauncey Olcott are attended only by Irish servant girls.
Sec.358
That the reason the British authorities didn't lock up Bernard Shaw during the war was because they were afraid of his mind.
Sec.359
That Professor Garner is able to carry on long and intimate conversations with monkeys in their own language.
Sec.360
That oysters are a great aphrodisiac.
Sec.361
That if one sleeps with one's head on a high pillow one will be round-shouldered.
Sec.362
That coal miners get so dirty that they have to wash so often that they are the cleanest working-men in the world.
Sec.363
That the average French housewife can make such a soup out of the contents of a garbage-can that the eater will think he is at the Ritz.
Sec.364
That such authors as Dr. Frank Crane and Herbert Kaufman do not really believe what they write, but print it simply for the money that is in it.
Sec.365
That the average newspaper cartoonist makes $100,000 a year.
Sec.366
That when a play is given in an insane asylum the inmates always laugh at the tragic moments and cry at the humorous moments.
Sec.367
That if a girl takes the last cake off a plate she will die an old maid.
Sec.368
That men high in public affairs always read detective stories for diversion.
Sec.369
That the wireless news bulletins posted daily on ocean liners are made up on board.
Sec.370
That the Swiss, when they sing, always yodel.
Sec.371
That all German housewives are very frugal.
Sec.372
That if one holds a buttercup under a person's chin and a yellow light is reflected upon that person's chin, it is a sign that he likes butter.
Sec.373
That all penny-in-the-slot weighing machines make a fat woman lighter and a thin woman heavier.
Sec.374
That in the period just before a woman's baby is born the woman's face takes on a peculiar spiritual and holy look.
Sec.375
That when a Chinese laundryman hands one a slip for one's laundry, the Chinese letters which he writes on the slip have nothing to do with the laundry but are in reality a derogatory description of the owner.
Sec.376
That an old woman with rheumatism in her leg can infallibly predict when it is going to rain.
Sec.377
That Philadelphia is a very sleepy town.
Sec.378
That it is impossible for a man to learn how to thread a needle.
Sec.379
That there is something unmanly about a grown man playing the piano, save only when he plays it in a bordello.
Sec.380
That a couple of quinine pills, with a chaser of rye whiskey, will cure a cold.
Sec.381
That all Congressmen who voted for Prohibition are secret lushers and have heavy stocks of all sorts of liquors in their cellars.
Sec.382
That a certain Exalted Personage in Washington is a gay dog with the ladies and used to cut up with a stock company actress.
Sec.383
That all the best cooks are men.
Sec.384
That all Japanese butlers are lieutenants in the Japanese Navy and that they read and copy all letters received by the folks they work for.
Sec.385
That the best way to stop nose-bleed is to drop a door-key down the patient's back.
Sec.386
That a thunder-storm will cause milk to turn sour.
Sec.387
That if a man drinks three glasses of buttermilk every day he will never be ill.
Sec.388
That whenever two Indians meet they greet each other with the word "How!"
Sec.389
That the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States all chew tobacco while hearing cases, but that they are very serious men otherwise, and never laugh, or look at a pretty girl, or get tight.
Sec.390
That all negro prize-fighters marry white women, and that they afterward beat them.
Sec.391
That New Orleans is a very gay town and full of beautiful French creoles.
Sec.392
That gin is good for the kidneys.
Sec.393
That the English lower classes are so servile that they say "Thank you, sir," if one kicks them in the pantaloons.
Sec.394
That the gipsies who go about the country are all horse-thieves, and that they will put a spell upon the cattle of any farmer who has them arrested for stealing his mare.
Sec.395
That every bachelor of easy means has an illicit affair with a grass widow in a near-by city and is the father of several illegitimate children.
Sec.396
That a country editor receives so many presents of potatoes, corn, rutabagas, asparagus, country ham, carrots, turnips, etc., that he never has to buy any food.
Sec.397
That whenever news reached him of another Federal disaster Abraham Lincoln would laugh it off with a very funny and often somewhat smutty story, made up on the spot.
Sec.398
That George Washington died of a heavy cold brought on by swimming the Potomac in the heart of winter to visit a yellow girl on the Maryland shore.
Sec.399
That all negroes who show any intelligence whatever are actually two-thirds white, and the sons of United States Senators.
Sec.400
That the late King Leopold of Belgium left 350 illegitimate children.
Sec.401
That Senator Henry Cabot Lodge is a very brainy man, though somewhat stuck up.
Sec.402
That if one eats ice-cream after lobster one will be doubled up by belly-ache.
Sec.403
That Quakers, for all their religion, are always very sharp traders and have a great deal of money hidden away in banks.
Sec.404
That old baseball players always take to booze, and so end their days either as panhandlers, as night watchmen or as janitors of Odd Fellows' halls.
Sec.405
That the object of the players, in college football, is to gouge out one another's eyes and pull off one another's ears.
Sec.406
That the sort of woman who carries around a Pomeranian dog, if she should ever have a child inadvertently, would give the midwife $500 to make away with it.
Sec.407
That a woman likes to go to a bargain sale, fight her way to the counter, and have pins stuck into her and her feet mashed by other women.
Sec.408
That, if one swallows an ounce of olive oil before going to a banquet, one will not get drunk.
Sec.409
That a mud-turtle is so tenacious of life that if one cuts off his head a new one will grow in its place.
Sec.410
That the only things farmers read are government documents and patent-medicine almanacs.
Sec.411
That if one's ear itches it is a sign that some one is talking of one.
Sec.412
That Italian children, immediately they leave the cradle, are sewed into their underclothes, and that they never get a bath thereafter until they are confirmed.
Sec.413
That all Catholic priests are very hearty eaters, and have good wine cellars.
Sec.414
That politics in America would be improved by turning all the public offices over to business men.
Sec.415
That department store sales are always fakes, and that they mark down a few things to attract the women and then swindle them by lifting the prices on things they actually want.
Sec.416
That 100,000 abortions are performed in Chicago every year.
Sec.417
That John D. Rockefeller has a great mind, and would make a fine President if it were not for his craze for money.
Sec.418
That all the Jews who were drafted during the late war were put into the Quartermaster's Department on account of their extraordinary business acumen.
Sec.419
That a jury never convicts a pretty woman.
Sec.420
That chorus girls in the old days got so tired of drinking champagne that the sound of a cork popping made them shudder.
Sec.421
That the Massachusetts troops, after the first battle of Bull Run, didn't stop running until they reached Harrisburg, Pa.
Sec.422
That General Grant was always soused during a battle, and that on the few occasions when he was sober he got licked.
Sec.423
That the late King Edward used to carry on in Paris at such a gait that he shocked even the Parisians.
Sec.424
That it takes an Englishman two days to see a joke, and that he always gets it backward even then.
Sec.425
That headwaiters in fashionable hotels make $100 a day.
Sec.426
That if a bat flies into a woman's hair, the hair must be cut off to get it out.
Sec.427
That all the women in Chicago have very large feet.
Sec.428
That on cold nights policemen always sneak into stables on their beats and go to sleep.
Sec.429
That all the school-boys in Boston have bulged brows, wear large spectacles and can read Greek.
Sec.430
That all dachshunds come from Germany.
Sec.431
That nine out of every ten Frenchmen have syphilis.
Sec.432
That the frankfurters sold at circuses and pleasure parks are made of dog meat.
Sec.433
That all the cheaper brands of cigarettes are sophisticated with drugs, and in time cause those who smoke them to get softening of the brain.
Sec.434
That rock-and-rye will cure a cold.
Sec.435
That a country boy armed with a bent pin can catch more fish than a city angler with the latest and most expensive tackle.
Sec.436
That red-haired girls are especially virulent.
Sec.437
That all gamblers eventually go broke.
Sec.438
That the worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife.
Sec.439
That an elephant in a circus never forgets a person who gives him a chew of tobacco or a rotten peanut, but will single him out from a crowd years afterward and bash in his head with one colossal blow.
Sec.440
That it is unlucky to put your hat on a bed.
Sec.441
That an old sock makes the best wrapping for a sore throat.
Sec.442
That lighting three cigarettes with one match will bring some terrible calamity upon one or other of the three smokers.
Sec.443
That milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that is possessed only by yokels, and that a person born in a large city can never hope to acquire it.
Sec.444
That whenever there is a rough-house during a strike, it is caused by foreign anarchists who are trying to knock out American idealism.
Sec.445
That, whatever the demerits of Jews otherwise, they are always very kind to their old parents.
Sec.446
That the Swiss army, though small, is so strong that not even the German army in its palmy days could have invaded Switzerland, and that it is strong because all Swiss are patriots to the death.
Sec.447
That when two Frenchmen fight a duel, whether with pistols or with swords, neither of them is ever hurt half so much as he would have been had he fought an honest American wearing boxing-gloves.
Sec.448
That whenever Prohibition is enforced in a region populated by negroes, they take to morphine, heroin and other powerful drugs, and begin murdering all of the white inhabitants.
Sec.449
That all the great writers of the world now use typewriters.
Sec.450
That all Presidents of the United States get many hot tips on the stock-market, but that they are too honourable to play them, and so turn them over to their wives, who make fortunes out of them.
Sec.451
That Elihu Root is an intellectual giant, and that it is a pity the suspicion of him among farmers makes it impossible to elect him President.
Sec.452
That no man not a sissy can ever learn to thread a needle or darn a sock.
Sec.453
That all glass blowers soon or late die of consumption.
Sec.454
That all women who go in bathing at the French seaside resorts affect very naughty one-piece bathing suits.
Sec.455
That George M. Cohan and Irving Berlin can only play the piano with one finger.
Sec.456
That farmers always go into gold mine swindles because of the magnificently embossed stock certificates.
Sec.457
That the Germans eat six regular meals a day, and between times stave off their appetite with numerous Schweitzer cheese sandwiches, blutwurst and beer.
Sec.458
That David Belasco teaches his actresses how to express emotion by knocking them down and pulling them around the stage by the hair.
Sec.459
That only Americans travel in the first class carriages of foreign railway trains, and that fashionable Englishmen always travel third class.
Sec.460
That the whiskey sold in blind pigs contains wood alcohol and causes those who drink it to go blind.
Sec.461
That wealthy society women never wear their pearl necklaces in public, but always keep them at home in safes and wear indistinguishable imitations instead.
Sec.462
That the late Charles Yerkes had no less than twenty girls, for each of whom he provided a Fifth Avenue mansion and a yearly income of $50,000.
Sec.463
That when one goes to a railroad station to meet some one, the train is never on time.
Sec.464
That the theatregoers in the Scandinavian countries care for nothing but Ibsen and Strindberg.
Sec.465
That all doctors write prescriptions illegibly.
Sec.466
That Englishwomen are very cold.
Sec.467
That when the weather man predicts rain it always turns out fair, and that when he predicts fair it always rains.
Sec.468
That lemon juice will remove freckles.
Sec.469
That if a woman wears a string of amber beads she will never get a sore throat.
Sec.470
That no well-bred person ever chews gum.
Sec.471
That all actors sleep till noon, and spend the afternoon calling on women.
Sec.472
That the men who make sauerkraut press it into barrels by jumping on it with their bare feet.
Sec.473
That the moment a nigger gets eight dollars, he goes to a dentist and has one of his front teeth filled with gold.
Sec.474
That one never sees a Frenchman drunk, all the souses whom one sees in Paris being Americans.
Sec.475
That a daughter is always a much greater comfort to a mother in after life than a son.
Sec.476
That a man with a weak, receding chin is always a nincompoop.
Sec.477
That English butlers always look down on their American employers, and frequently have to leave the room to keep from laughing out loud.
Sec.478
That the most faithful and loving of all dogs is the Newfoundland.
Sec.479
That a man always dislikes his mother-in-law, and goes half-crazy every time she visits him.
Sec.480
That if one doesn't scratch a mosquito bite it will stop itching.
Sec.481
That all the men in the moving picture business were formerly cloak and suit merchants, and that they are now all millionaires.
Sec.482
That the accumulation of money makes a man hard, and robs him of all his finer qualities.
Sec.483
That, in an elevator, it is always a man who usurps the looking-glass.
Sec.484
That it is very unlucky to wear an opal.
Sec.485
That if a man's eyebrows meet, it is a sign that he has a very unpleasant nature.
Sec.486
That a negro ball always ends up in a grand free-for-all fight, in which several coons are mortally slashed with razors.
Sec.487
That if Houdini were locked up in Sing Sing, he would manage to make his get-away in less than half an hour's time.
Sec.488
That Bob Ingersoll is in hell.
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