A Good Knight

1901

"Don't you think that if I had lived the days of old I would have made a good knight?" asked the young man who had been talking ancient history from 8 to 11 p. m.

"I don't care so much what you would have made then," wearily observed the young lady, "but you might see what kind of a good night you can make right now." — Baltimore American.


Caricatures and Photos

Most of the dandies of the Georgian period took as great a pleasure in seeing themselves caricatured as our generation does in seeing their photograph in the shop windows.


Sugartime

The refining of sugar was invented in Antwerp in the sixteenth century.

Ye Gods! What'd John L. Have Said to Hair Curling and Brow Arching?

(Click the graphic for better view.)

1920

My dears, you should see that pompadour!

And that isn't half of it. He's having his eyebrows daintily arched, too!

And, to cap it all, his cheeks are adorned with the best grade of milady's rouge carefully handpainted over a field of perfumed pink powder. 'Tis even hinted that for a time he considered wearing a lace-covered corset to accentuate the lines of his form-fitting suit of clothes, but this has later been indignantly denied.

No, Genevieve, your guess is wrong. It isn't Launcelot de Slushe, the hero of "Nine Oceans of Tears" in the movie — it's no less a personage, they say, than Jack Dempsey, heavyweight fistic champion of this universe.

Dempsey won't say whether it's the influence of his recent trial at the movies or the success of his next opponent, Georges Carpentier, the bearcat boulevardier of gay Paree, but —

The erstwhile training camp, 'tis whispered, exudes an odor of lilac toilet water and face powder. Electric curling irons are said to adorn the walls where boxing gloves once hung. Cauliflower-eared attendants no longer take to road work and handball — manicuring and eyebrow-arching is the order of the day now, according to latest reports.

So much did Dempsey admire his first marcel wave at the hands of a Los Angeles society barber that he returned to have his brows arched and has since made it a regular practice, if Los Angeles advices may be believed.

But, ye gods! What would the shades of John L. Sullivan and Bob Fitzsimmons say if they could return to earth and see a modern fistic champion?

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 10.

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.

A Little Tale From the Persian

1901

There was a young man who loved a beautiful maiden, but he was poor. One day he asked her to be his wife, and she answered:

"I love you. Still, I do not wish to be a poor man's wife. Go and get money and then return and we will live happily ever after."

The young man went away and ere long began to sway the markets. He made millions and still more millions, and the maiden waited.

When the man had ten millions, he wanted to outshine one who had fifty millions, and when that wish was gratified he longed for a hundred millions, then he yearned for two hundred millions, and at last he set a billion up as the amount he wished to accumulate.

When, one day in those parts, a certain old maid lay dying, she said:

"There's no use expecting a hog to keep his mind on anything else after he gets his feet in the trough." — Chicago Times-Herald.

Reflections of a Bachelor

1903

Not all men are bad, not all women good.

The greatest passion in the world is vanity; the most powerful weapon flattery.

There is no age at which a woman's heart will not melt to the man who smiles upon her.

Beware the man who approaches you with the promise that he has come to do you a favor.

It is the little things that tell. A man who is facing bankruptcy and dishonor with a courageous smile will fly into hysterics when he can't get his collar buttoned.

There will be some way of understanding women when some one can explain how a woman will think a matinee hero is like a god, and yet have her blood run cold at the thought of her son being like him.

Most people want to make money so as to spend it, but those who make money do it by not spending it.

Some women with good figures understand how to dress so that a blind man would know it.

Even a man who knows enough to swap horses and get the best of it doesn't always know enough not to get married.

It is no use trying to make a woman understand that a man never knows why he loves a woman and never cares why.

If nobody else had the sense when a woman is pretty to tell her, she would have the sense to talk it in a phonograph and then listen to it. — New York Press.