Part 4
I thought more of the Geisha dancers than the dance, and that wasn’t much. The word “Geisha” means accomplished one, and there are schools for their education in music and the arts. People visit the girls more for pleasure than for profit, and since they are one of the institutions of Japan, I went one night to a tea-house to see them. Making myself as comfortable as possible on the floor, a screen door was slipped aside, and in came a pretty Geisha girl who touched her head to the floor three times, sat down and looked at each one of our party. Immediately there fluttered in three more, and they made the room look like an Oriental bird cage. They sang for us in a tone that suggested an ungreased axle or a nail drawn across a piece of glass, played on the samisen and koto, which nothing but the genius of a Wagner could appreciate went through a fancy fan drill and proved themselves good entertainers, but felt embarrassed because we were not familiar and indecent. They acted serious and spoke to one another, and I asked what was the trouble. It seems they didn’t know what to make of us, as the average tourist was usually boisterous, drunk and rough.
The Yoshiwara is the red-lantern district of Japan. One night we formed a stag party to visit the Tokio Yoshiwara, but we couldn’t shake the “dears” who were as anxious to go as we were and insisted on accompanying us. Our rickshaws rolled through squares and streets and miles of mud and misery, until we came to what was in itself a “city of dreadful night,” but all ablaze with electric lights. Here were squares of theatre-looking buildings in which women, dressed in bright and fancy garb, sat by little stoves, and sullen, smiling or smoking pipes, looked out at the spectators. The government regulates this “social” as a “necessary evil,” and houses, supervises and guards the girls. In Japan it is regarded as noble and filial for a daughter to sell herself to support the father and family who may have failed financially. The same thing is done in Europe and America for wealth and social position, but differently estimated and under another name.
Here they squatted in butterfly regalia, with silk kimona, obi, glossy black hair stuck full of combs and gold pins, eyes painted and faces powdered, thrumming a little guitar, squeaking out a love-song, and making goo-goo eyes in a way that would make one smile if he could forget the hell-horror of the place. Some of the inmates do not leave until death; others return to society, which welcomes and does not disown; one may return to her home, loved and respected, but with none of the fine clothes and jewels given by her admirers during her absence. However, the place often becomes a matrimonial bureau, and the girl is met, courted and selected by some Jap as his wife. In addition to segregation, there is such a supervision that the inmates can’t leave for even an hour without the consent of the police.
Hotel life is interesting. If you are curious, you have only to wet your thumb and thrust it through the wall paper of your bed chamber to get as many views as Peeping Tom had of Lady Godiva. This hole privilege is, however, only claimed by the traveler who has no respect for the holy of holies at inn or temple.
Japan is the land of the Rising Sun—and daughter, who with the whole family will take their bath and leave the same water for you to swim in unless you set your alarm clock for a very early hour, or sit up all night to get there first. Imagine a public bath, if you can, for many homes have no bathroom, where the water by 10:00 A.M. is like a roily creek after a rain; by 3:00 P.M., yellow as the Missouri, and by bedtime like the mud geysers of the Yellowstone.
The public bath was the one thing we wanted to see and kept asking about. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and after visiting 2,738 of the 3,000 temples in Kobe, I wanted to get “next” to a public bath. At last I discovered one and sent the guide ahead to reconnoiter. He said, “Come.” I passed the word along and the ladies came, but wished they hadn’t. We entered and I became a “looker-on” at Venus in the bath, and not one but many, who made the painted females in the Uffizi look like chromos or Mrs. Jarley’s wax works. They eyed us with an indifference that made us blush and look through our fingers for shame. With the ease that only a model for the altogether possesses, they posed before the mirrors, arranging their black hair, or poised like maids of the mist by the steam tank. Their type of beauty is different. Jap beauty is in angles, the American in curves. Nature made one with a ruler, the other with a compass. As a rule, the baths for men and women are divided by a wooden partition at the end of which sits the proprietor or his wife on the lookout. Formerly there was no privacy and the fastidious foreigners insisted that the sexes should be separated. This was accomplished by placing a bamboo rod between them, but even that is discarded now in some sections. Everybody gets into the swim, thus beautifully illustrating the proverb, “Evil to him that evil thinks.” O tempora! O mores!
One of the strongest impressions made upon me in my journey through Japan was at Mogi, a malodorous little fishing village, out from Nagasaki, with so large a smell that a blind man could easily find it by following his nose. Coleridge, the poet, whose business it was to rely on imagination rather than on fact, counted sixty well-defined and several stinks at Cologne. He would have been overpowered here and called for the help of a professor of higher mathematics to enumerate the volume and variety of odors we encountered from Nagasaki to this town.
A well made road lassoes the intervening foot-hills which are covered with cultivated fields; the peasants were all busy, the children were happy and more so when we threw them peanuts instead of “pansies” for thoughts. Men, women and oxen were carrying various loads, but the common one was a bamboo bucket affair balanced on both ends of a bamboo pole. These buckets were not filled with milk, or cheese, or vegetables, but with a substance which they had assiduously collected in accordance with the Scripture, “Gather up the fragments that nothing be lost.” I can never forget the ascent or the descent to Mogi. From rocky road, through pretty forest, by picturesque ravine, we reached the fishermen’s huts with their nets by the shore and beach where bathing mermaids can only be caught and carried home in a camera.
* * * * *
The Last Chortle
A magician having nearly finished his act without exciting any applause, gave his best stunts, expecting to get a rise out of the audience, but without result. He then advised that he had saved his very best trick for the last and asked all who wanted to see the devil to raise their hands. Receiving a hearty response, he told them to go to hell, leaving the stage in much haste.
* * * * *
Back to Childhood Days
I visited an insane hospital at Oshkosh, Wis., and the keeper took me through. Up on the second floor we passed down a long hall. At the end there was a heavily padded and ironed cell. The keeper said to me, “The man in this cell is the most violent and strongest man we have here.” I looked at him. He was of Herculean build.
As we turned away, there was an awful crash and the front of the cell was thrown out in the hall. I ran down the hall and the big fellow right after me. I jumped out of a window at the end of the hall and he jumped right after me. I ran around the hospital and he after me. The attendant stuck his head out of a window and said to me “Why don’t you run?” I said, “Do you think I am trying to throw this race?”
I ran across a field and he was right after me. I could hear his footsteps behind me. I ran into a plowed field and that slowed me up. He was gaining on me. Finally he got near to me and he reached out and slapped me on the back and said, “Tag, you’re it.”
* * * * *
How’s This One?
Jiggs fell into a big vat of turpentine over at the paint factory.
Did it hurt him?
Don’t know, they haven’t caught him yet.
* * * * *
Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
Our Rural Mail Box
=_Petie L. Arsony_=—The reason why they feed convicts coarse food is to keep their blood pure, so that they won’t “break out.”
* * * * *
=_Johnnie L._=—A divorce suit should always be cleaned before being pressed.
* * * * *
=_Sweet Sixteen_=—You’re wrong. Woman is known not by the company she keeps, but by the company she does not keep. You did right in not keeping Johnnie’s company.
* * * * *
=_B. Good Tome_=—No, B, all chickens do not use fowl language, but I have met several who could swear quite fluently.
* * * * *
The Vanguard
’Tis weary watching wave by wave, But still the tide sweeps onward; We build like corals, grave by grave But pave a path that’s sunward.
We’re beaten back in many a fray, But newer strength we borrow; And where the vanguard camps to-day, The rear shall camp tomorrow.
* * * * *
Ghouls, Take Note
(From San Francisco Chronicle.)
Wanted—Second hand Coffin or couch casket. Box 4050 Chronicle.
* * * * *
Drexerd Pulls This One
He—Let’s go to the dance tonight.
She—Why do you like to dance so much?
He—Oh, for many reasons—I can put my arm around you, draw you up close, feel your soft cheek against mine, and—
She—That will do! Let’s stay at home and make believe we went to the dance.
* * * * *
Jes’ a Jester Jest
Some people say: “Get thee behind me, Satan and push me along.”
* * * * *
What Ho?
First Lunch Hound—“Well, old strawberry, howsa boy? I just had a plate of oxtail soup and feel bully.”
Second Counter Fiend—“Nothing to it, old watermelon. I just had a plate of hash and feel like everything.”
* * * * *
_He knew that she would thank him not,_ _He cared not for her scorn;_ _He offered her his street car seat,_ _To keep her off his corn._
* * * * *
Our Harnessed Bulls
First Cop—Say, did you get that fellow’s number?
Second Cop—No, he was going too fast.
Say, but wasn’t that a fine looking dame in the back seat?
Yep, wasn’t she though!
Musings of A Bachelor
Between two women of equal beauty, always pick the one who closes her eyes when she kisses you. She’s not so likely to think you want to marry her.
The proof that men do not understand women is that they love them. The proof that women =_do_= understand men is that they marry them.
The first kiss is always stolen by the man. And the last one is always begged by the woman.
The length of a woman’s kiss nearly always depends upon the breadth of her imagination.
To remain a woman’s ideal a man must die a bachelor.
A woman’s idea of Hell—“Nobody loves me and my clothes don’t fit.”
If there were only three women left in the world, two of them would immediately convene a court-martial to try the other one.
Men frequently marry to keep other men from getting the woman they desire. They are not always successful.
The final definition of love is something that gives pain without hurting.
Self-respect means a comfortable sense that you have not been found out.
When a man commits a sin, he says, “How shall I conceal this?” When a woman commits a sin she says, “How can I let my friends know of this without bragging?”
The theory that really to know two women one must introduce them is ridiculous. It often results in a divorce.
A woman’s head is not always turned by flattery; sometimes its peroxide.
When a woman starts an idle rumor, it at once ceases to be idle.
One beauty of being single is that it’s a dreadfully thrilling experience until one’s wife finds it out.
It must be dreadful to meet at dinner the man who ran away with one’s wife. It places one under =_such_= an obligation!
If there were only one bachelor in the world, every married woman would still think she made a mistake when she married her husband.
Experience in man is something which is brought with the tears of plain women and the kisses of pretty ones.
Love without respect is an angel with but one wing.
To make marriage perfect, the husband should be deaf and the wife blind.
* * * * *
Life is a river. Men are the boats. Women are the sandbars.
* * * * *
Fashion note: Cellar steps are worn very much this year.
* * * * *
Our Army Daze
About 2:00 o’clock one morning while making the rounds as Officer of the Day, I was halted by a sentry on post. After giving the pass word and being duly recognized, I asked for his special orders. You may imagine my surprise as he stood at port arms and said:
“Sir (hic), my special orders are: This post extends from tank to tank; Salute all officers according to rank; Take charge of all the shot and shell, And all the water in the (hic) well, And all the wood that’s in the yard,— In case of fire, alarm the guard. These are the orders I received From the gosh darned sentry I relieved. If this isn’t so, may I drop dead; I’ve only had two hours in bed, (Hic) Sir (hic).”
* * * * *
Blankety Blank Verse
By William Sanford
My wife came in very late last night, Explaining that she had spent the evening With her friend Cora. But she did not look me in the face When she said it. But what could I say, Coming in but a moment before, After having spent the evening Myself With Cora.
* * * * *
Even a fish won’t get caught—if it keeps its mouth shut.
Larry Turn the Crank
For the past year or so a flock of these motion picture fellows have been coming to see Ye Editor with propositions to put out a Motion Picture Edition of this little journal of wit, humor and filosophy, and now it looks like we would succumb to these offers.
At this writing, our Hollywood representative, Mr. Morrison B. Egbert, is negotiating with film distributors for the putting on the screens of up to eight thousand theaters weekly the
Screen Edition
OF
Captain Billy’s
WHIZ BANG
The film will contain gems of early issues and new material not published in current issues. Jokes, jests, jingles, advice to the lovelorn from Captain Billy, Mail Bag, Pot Pourri and other delectable offerings will be filmed.
As this magazine reaches the hands of YOU, the Reader, the weekly film should be ready for booking. If your theater doesn’t show it, ask the manager to get busy and climb on our band wagon. In conclusion, as our friend K. C. B. would remark—
I Thank You.
Captain Billy
_Our Winter Annual_
In addition to republication of gems of earlier issues of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, the first complete Winter Annual of this great family journal will contain a large variety of brand new jokes, jests, jingles, pot pourri, stories, and smokehouse poetry. This book, Pedigreed Follies of 1921-22, will contain four times as much reading matter as the regular issue of the Whiz Bang and will sell for one dollar per copy. It will be a book which will be cherished by the readers for years to come, and will contain the greatest collection of red-blooded poetry yet put in print. Included in the list will be:
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