Expressions of a Prima Donna

1906

America is delightful!
Yes, football is too rough.
New York is wonderful, magnificent!
American women are the most beautiful and charming on earth.
Nothing is better for the complexion than Smearine.
The tones of the Pianoleon are exquisite.
I always take Doperine for headaches.
Eau de Swash is the finest hair tonic.
The Gasmoblle is the best made.
Denticide is excellent for the teeth.
I can't breakfast without Boneless Oats.
N. G. corsets are the only proper ones.
Never travel without Sneezerine for coughs and colds.
I fervently recommend Scrubolio.
By all means try Nervosis.
Yes, this is positively my last season on the stage.
I expect to get the decree next week. — Smart Set.

Wicked Humor — A Great Satire On The Ways of Tramps

1878

A Sarcastic Mendicant

"I'm very hungry," said a haggard tramp, with very red eyes, as he stood obsequiously at the side entrance of a Court street house. "Won't you please, ma'am, be so good as to give me a little something to eat? Anything will do — odds and ends — cold or warm — it don't matter, for I'm not one of them high-toned fellers."

"My husband has forbidden me to encourage idleness by giving away any more provisions," replied the lady of the house. " He says you fellows have a sort of Free Masonry way of letting others know every house at which you have been fed, and it is sure to bring a troop of lazy vagabonds upon us who would starve before they'd lift a hand to work. So you will have to move on and get your breakfast some place else."

"But I'm not a vagabond, ma'am; I'm a hard-working, industrious man. I came up on a boat from Memphis to see my sick mother who lives out near Camden, and isn't expected to live. I was robbed on the boat of every cent I had and all my clothes, while I was in bed. The captain gave me these old things. I don't like to beg, but Camden is a good stretch from here, and I can't walk it on an empty stomach. Think of the outstretched arms of a poor sick mother toward her absent child, and put wings on my feet with a few cold potatoes. I'm just at that point where I can eat 'em without salt."

"I can't do it. They all have a story about like that. The last man I fed had to go to Columbus inside of twenty-four hours to save an innocent man from hanging, but two days afterward I saw him down town so drunk he couldn't hold his mouth shut."

"Well, I never drink. If I hadn't been robbed I could show you my Murphy ribbon that I've worn till it's raveled into strings. Long years ago I swore at my mother's bended knee — the same one who moans on her couch of pain because I'm not with her — that I would never touch the blighting cup, and I hain't, from that time up to this minute. Can't you help me to get there in time to comfort her declining hours with the joyful tidings that I have been steadfast through all temptation, by giving me the cold grub you had intended to dump into the garbage box? I'm awful hungry."

"I can't help it. I must obey my husband — his orders were positive," said the woman, snappishly.

"Well, you're the most extraordinary woman I ever saw if you do. But say, can't you give me the paper the beefsteak was brought home in, to chew as I go along. It may fool my stomach for awhile and make it brace up by thinking something better will be along presently. You'll do that much toward easing a fond parent's anxious heart, won't you?"

"No, I won't."

"Well, then give me a newspaper and let me sit by the fire and read the advertisement of a meat market, and show me the place where it tells all about provisions. Even that would give me a feast — for the imagination — which has been about the extent of my living lately. You won't believe it, maybe, but it's a fact, that all the nourishment I've had for two days is the bill of fare painted on the outside of the Fifth-street restaurant. Can you think of that and keep your stale bread on the inside of your cupboard?"

"Yes, I can; and I want you to make yourself scarce without any more palaver, or I shall send my boy to call a policeman," exclaimed the indignant woman.

"Even the photograph of a chicken would be some comfort," said the man, by way of banter, as he moved off, "and if you don't use soap in your dishwater a few potatoes sliced up in it would be regular barbecue for me." — Cincinnati Breakfast Table.

County Jail Could Be New Country Club

Kingston, New York, 1916

STREET GOSSIP ABOUT TOWN

We see that it is now recommended that the county jail be supplied with hot water. We always labored under the impression that it was only those who "get into hot water" ever went to jail.

Our own report of an inspection of the Ulster county jail made after reading in The Freeman how the jail needed shower baths, hot water and other luxuries:

It was exceedingly gratifying to find all parts of the jail satisfactorily clean. In this connection we would say, however, that it works an unusual hardship on a prisoner confined in the jail as he is not used to such cleanliness, and it is liable to make him homesick. We would therefore recommend that the jail be kept not quite so clean.

We also noticed that the prisoners were forced to sleep in bunks. This inflicts untold privation on a prisoner, especially when he is confined in the jail for any length of time. We would recommend that brass beds be installed in each cell.

Prisoners are also forced to make up their own beds each morning. This should not be allowed to continue. The county should employ a chambermaid as it is not a man's work to make up his own bed.

Another bad feature of our present system in the handling of prisoners is the question of meals and the prisoner has absolutely no choice in the matter. He must eat whatever the jail authorities provide.

This is not right and the system should be abolished and arrangements made with the leading hotels to supply the meals.

We therefore recommend that each cell be equipped with a telephone so that the prisoner may have the privilege of calling up the hotel chef and ordering and selecting his own meals.

The idea that a man who commits crime is sent to jail as a punishment is no longer tolerated in the best society of long haired men and short haired women and is old-fashioned. We should remember that a jail is not intended for the punishment, but the uplift of the prisoner. Spell "uplift" in capital letters.

If you don't believe us we simply refer you to any report of an inspection of the jail made in the past few years.

As everyone knows the average jailbird is madly anxious to bathe himself. Usually when out of jail he bathes once each year, and that in July, but as soon as he is confined in jail the unnatural desire assails him to bathe every day.

"We recommend therefore that a large swimming pool be constructed on the first floor, and a shower bath be installed in each cell.

After our inspection of the jail we have reached the following conclusions which we group under the head of further recommendations:

The jail ceils are altogether too small and each prisoner should be furnished with a room at least 10 by 12 feet with hot and cold water, bath, gas and electricity, telephone. brass bed, and all the most modern improvements. He should also be given an electric fan for warm nights.

Each prisoner should be allowed two boxes of cigars a week, several packages of pipe and chewing tobacco at the expense of the county. He should also be given his favorite beverage in as large quantities as he may desire.

An elevator should be installed in the jail as it is too much to ask a prisoner to walk up to the third tier of cells.

We also recommend that the prisoners be furnished with Fords by the county so that they may enjoy some slight recreation in touring about the city and county when it is fair weather.

Another recommendation is that the rear of the jail yard should be excavated, a large pond built and stocked with fish and several rowboats placed thereon so that prisoners who do not care for automobiling may fish and boat to their heart's content.

In conclusion we rise to say that when our recommendations are carried out, as they should be, we expect to hit a policeman over the head with a club so that Recorder Lang will sentence us to at least sixty days in the new county clubhouse.

—The Kingston Daily Freeman, Kingston, New York, June 30, 1916, page 6.

Mrs. Highbrow Speaks of Wolffang Armageddon Mozart

1912

MRS. HIGHBROW SPEAKS OUT

Her Little Dissertation on Music Something to Be Read and Enjoyed

"Yes, yes, indeed! I simply adore music!" Mrs. Wood B. Highbrow clasped her hands with enthusiasm. "You know my beloved Shakespeare says 'If music be the food of love, play on' — he doesn't say on what, but I'm sure he meant the piano — and he adds, 'The man that hath no music in himself or is not moved by conflict of sweet sounds, is fit for trees and stratagems, he spoils!' How true it is; and the same might be said of a woman.

"Oh, yes, Gwendolyn is very musical. She studies at the conservatory — there is such an air of culture about such an institution, you know. Wood wanted her to take lessons at home until she is older, and offered to move the piano into our own conservatory, as we have to keep it heated, anyway, for the plants.

"Poor Wood! he is so practical — a regular pomme-de-terre! He thinks that, what With pianolas and victrolas and violas, there is so much music turned out by machinery nowadays that it hardly pays to do it by hand, anyway. Perhaps he is not altogether wrong — unless one has talent, and Gwendolyn certainly has!

"You should hear her play Ruben's 'Melody in F!' Then she can rattle off any cantata that John Sebastian Cabot ever wrote — or was it Wolffang Armageddon Mozart? I declare, I always get those antique composers mixed. Well, at any rate, it was the wonderful organist who, if he couldn't reach all the notes he wanted with his fingers, used his nose to help out.

"Yes, yes, indeed! Gwendolyn is so talented that her teacher says when she grows up she is sure to be a dilettante!"

—The Daily Commonwealth, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, December 18, 1912, page 2.