AMERICAN HUMOUR

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 2, 24 March 1927, Page 6

AMERICAN HUMOUR

SOME PRESS SAMPLES THE PRICE OF A WIFE Ed. Whittlake, 40. of Lansing, Michi- j gan. is much disillusioned by the t subtletv of mankind. Why? ell. t Ed. sold his wife to a man for fifty | dollars—ten dollars down, and the remainder the next day. The man ran ; away with the woman without paying the remainder of the money. Seeking a warrant, Ed said: "He appeared so j much like a gentleman, too. Out West j we’d hang a fellow who would do a | trick like that. I acted in good faith. \ and gave him Mrs. Whittlake for a ! ten dollars down payment. He promised to meet me to-day with the other forty bucks, and I discovered he and she had left for Chicago.” The j police refused to grant the warrant. j and Ed boarded a train westwardbound. A VILLAGE CRISIS. Members of Haverstraw’s police 1 force—all eight of ’em took to the | woods yesterday to shoot their Christ- j mas dinner. Urihble to draw any pro because the conundrum, “when is i village president not a village president?”’ still remains unanswered, they went rabbit-hunting. Not only was the Rockland County village wide open to law-breakers, but four other village employees, who collect garbage and clean streets, also knocked off because their pay cheques were not forthcoming. Haverstraw has two village presidents, and is as bad off as if it had none. Ralph Stalter. restaurant man and Republican, beads , the village administration by virtue : of an injunction issued by Supreme Court Justice Tompkins. Everett j Snedeker, circus press agent and i Democrat, whose claims to the place were upheld ten days ago by the Appellate Division, is only a private citizen, and claimant. On the strength of the injunction issued by a lower court decree, Stalter will continue to hold office until next March, when he will carry the conundrum to the Court of Appeals. When Snedeker. appointed by the Board of Aldermen, after Patrick J. Lynch, elected village president, but forced to resign, held office, the board consisted of four Democrats and two Republicans, and village employees got their pay. With Stalter, who was runner-up in the election, in command, the board consists of three Republicans and three Democrats, and neither side will budge. So Haverstraw’s cops tried whistling for their Christmas dinner, and then went out to shoot it. "BEWARE THE FLAPPER." Solemn warning to the youth of the land to “beware the flapper and her petting parties” is now being spread nation-wide through the various outlets of the Y.M.C.A. Warning pamphlets are being distributed at association meetings; on the subject are planned: athletic events will be used to keep the mind of the youth from the flapper. From one pamphlet the youth learns that “Petting is mock love; it simulates the intimacies of genuine love, which in marriage normally find their culmination. Testing of love’s responses does not call for an abandonment to physical impulses, such as petters are inclined to indulge in. The essential harm in petting lies in the fact that it is n cultivation of a low order of love.” So, there! TOO MANY SANTA CLAUSES. Mothers of youngsters in Chicago who believe in Santa Claus are irritated because so many impersonators of Santa appear on downtown streets. One parent, objecting in a letter to a newspaper tliat she can’t take junior shopping because she has to explain so many Santa Clauses, suggests that the “flat-footed, hollowchested, pasty-cheeked individuals’' who bid for charities be stripped of their Santa Claus regalia, and dressed in neat uniforms as Santa’s helpers. A PROHIBITION AFTERMATH. The taste for wines of the American traveller in Europe has degenerated alarmingly in the last few years (says the newspaper the “Good Wine of France,” which appeals to wine waiters and restaurant proprietors to help their foreign guests to a better understanding of the French vintage. The question is serious, the newspaper continues, for wealthy foreigners, especially Americans, insist upon buying up famous vintages and “drinking them like water,” while the pained Frenchman who cannot afford the price sits by with sadness in his heart A SIX-PAGE SENTENCE. How long is a sentence? There are 1,743 words, 125 commas, and 32 semi-colons in the third sentence of the annual report issued by President Nicholas Murray Butler, of Columbia University. In bis third paragraph Dr. Butler starts off with “Of particular significance . . ” and continues without stopping for a peri for nearly six pages of the printed report, winding up with “ . . without change of rank.” And in that long sentence he enumerates the activities and accomplishments of Columbia University for the year. SELF-ELECTED CLUBMEN. The most exclusive club in America paradoxically has no waiting fist. None covers membership, yet each member elects himself, and, once initiated, wears its badge upon a proud chest, and would exchange it for none other. Its numbers are small —-perhaps twenty-eight or thirty accredited at this time, and not more than eight or ten others undergoing the prerequisite scrutiny. It is the Caterpillar Club, founded in the United States Army Air Service. Its members are flyers who have saved their lives by forced emergency jumps »'rom airplanes in flight by means of it parachute. No “dare-devils” are admitted. Jumps for pleasure or thrills do not count. To qualify, one must have used the parachute as a last resort; CALIFORNIA’S HAIR CROP. The annual whisker and hair crop of Californian citizens, including the shorn tresses of flappers, is worth approximately 118,000,000 dollai*s to the barbers of the State, according to a report submitted to the State Board of Health. A BLUE LAW SUNDAY. New Jersey’s Blue Law, invoked intermittently for more than threequarters of a century by ministers and others against “scofflaws” of the State, was employed again to-day in the arrests of 98 persons here for doing business on Sunday. Bootblacks, cigar storekeepers, confectioners, delicatessen operators, druggists, grocers, owners of gas and automobile service stations, drivers of taxis, trolleys, and buses, and newspaper photographers and reporters, were caught red-handed in violation of section 1 of the Vice and Immorality Act of 1854, which prohibits the sale, or the displaying for sale, of goods, the exercise of labour, and the vending of amusements. All the arrested persons resumed work ifter being* bailed. Four persons, one of them a woman, went to gaol in protest. They were all reporters, but after employing the quiet and solitude of Irvington’s gaol to write their protests against the day’s mediaeval doings, they reconsidered, were released on the recognisance of two dollars offered by each, and were ordered to appear in the police court. But everybody else smiled, and seemed to co-operate with the police. John Angus, proprietor of a lunchroom, telephoned the police early in " the morning to arrest him soon. “I’d rather be arrested in the morning,” said Mr. Angus, “because I’m pretty busy serving my patrons in the if tornoon.” Mr. Angus was obliged with an early arrest. All the confectioners and druggists who were arrested were displaying signs advertising a new ice cream on sale for the first time. It was called a blue law sundae.