Delphi complete works of.., p.244
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 244
Polite Passenger. . . . They say the new line of air boats are to do it in half a day. That will make a big difference. And yet I think I like this slower line better. After all, there’s nothing like taking things easy.
Announcer. . . . Coast of Germany! . . . Berlin! . . . Poland! Warsaw!
Vociferous Boy. . . . Cigars, cigarettes, candies, chewing gum!
Husband. . . . So that was Germany, eh? Much flatter than I thought. And Poland looks a good deal yellower than I had supposed. Nothing like foreign travel for clearing up your ideas. I don’t think you can understand foreign nations in any real sense without actually seeing them.
Saloon Attendant. . . . Last call for Lunch!
Announcer. . . . Here you see the wide plains of Russia, a vast expanse that it takes us twenty minutes to cross. The city that went past four seconds ago is Jefferson City, formerly called Leningrad and before that Petrograd and in early history, St. Petersburg.
Restless Child Among the Passengers. Mother, may I run up and down the aisle?
No, dear.
May I go and climb up the ladder to the top deck?
No, dear, you might fall off.
May I go and see where they cook?
No, dear.
Well, mother, what can I do?
The Courteous Traveler. . . . It gets a little monotonous for the children, doesn’t it, this part of the voyage?
The Lady. . . . Yes, indeed. Where are we?
The Courteous Gentleman. . . . Over Central Asia and of course just here there’s nothing to see — just the Ural Mountains, and Turkestan, and Samarkand, and the Desert of Gobi.
The Announcer. . . . In passing over the Desert of Gobi, to mitigate the tedium of the trip, we now turn on the radio and allow the passengers to listen to the latest world news coming over the waves.
The Radio (in its Deep Guttural Tones, Without Hurry). . . . New York, ten-thirty a.m. International Oil, 40; International Air, 62; International Fire, 81 ——
The Husband of the Lady. . . . Gee! International Fire up to 81!
The Radio (continuing). . . . St. Louis nothing, New York nothing: Boston one, Chicago nothing . . .
The Courteous Gentleman. . . . It’s pleasant, isn’t it, to keep in touch like this with the news of the world? It prevents the trip getting monotonous.
The Radio. . . . Bandits rob Chicago bank. . . . Bandits kidnap teller in Denver. . . . Bandits explode bomb in Detroit. . . . Bandits steal babies from Maternity Hospital . . . Bandits . . .
The Gentleman. . . . Yes, it’s nice to feel that the comfortable old world is still close all around us.
Announcer. . . . China! . . . Looking below you can see, if you look quickly, a Chinese rebellion. . . . The army of General Ping Pong will be seen in four seconds on the right. . . . The army of General Ham is attacking it. . . . By the courtesy of the company, our ship will drop bombs at the expense of the company on either General Ping or General Ham . . .
The Restless Child. . . . Oh, ma! Can I see the bombs dropped?
Yes, darling, look close and you’ll see.
The Gentleman with the Lady. How do they arrange about the bombing?
The Courteous Traveler. Oh, it’s done by the International Friendship Committee, but, of course, the company has to bear the expense. . . . Ah! I think that one hit General Ping Pong’s munitions dump!
Vociferous Boy. . . . Cigars! Cigarettes, candies, chewing gum!
Announcer. China. . . . City of Pekin. . . . The Yellow Sea. . . . Japan. . . . Tokio. . . .
The Radio. . . . Philadelphia nothing, Cleveland nothing!
The Saloon Attendant. . . . Tea served in the forward compartment — afternoon tea.
Announcer. . . . The Pacific Ocean! . . . Kamskatska! . . . The Aleutian Isles. . . . Alaska. . . . You are now again in sight of the United States!
All the Passengers. Hooray! Hooray!
The Gentleman with the Lady. . . . Feels good, don’t it, to get back again in sight of the old flag!
The Announcer. . . . The Rocky Mountains. . . . British Columbia. . . . Western Canada.
All the British Passengers. . . . Hooray! Hooray!
Vociferous Boy. . . . Cigars, cigarettes!
Radio. . . . Boston nothing.
Attendant. . . . Last Call!
Radio. . . . Oil eighty. . . . St. Louis nothing. . . . Bandits . . . murder.
Announcer. . . . Reëntering the United States. . . . All hand bags ready, please. . . . Kindly get ready for customs officers, immigration officers, prohibition officers, revenue officers. All persons who haven’t paid income tax will be thrown out. . . . Persons not on the quota kindly jump off into the air. Gangway, please. All out!
All the Passengers (in a babel of talk). . . . Well, good-by! Good-by! It’s been a great trip. . . . It certainly has. . . . And remember, if ever you come to Cincinnati. . . . I certainly will, and if you ever come to Toronto. . . . Well, good-by! Good-by!
Athletics for 1950
EVERYBODY HAS NOTICED the great change that has come over athletics within the last generation. To be in athletics, it is no longer necessary to play the game. You merely look at it. For the matter of that, you don’t really need to be there: you can hear athletics over the radio. In fact, nowadays, or at any rate to-morrow, you can see it all, with the television teleptoscope. Or, if you like, you can wait and see the whole contest in the high-class movies for sixty cents; or you can wait till next year and see it in the low-class movies for a nickel.
An athlete in the days of John L. Sullivan meant a powerful-looking brute of a man with a chest like a drum and muscles all over him. An athlete now means a pigeon-chested moron with radio plugs in his ears.
In old-fashioned football, thirty people used to play in the game and about thirty-three looked on. Nowadays, two elevens play the game and thirty thousand watch it. Even twenty-two is far too big a percentage of players. They block the vision of the athletes. Hockey is better. There half a dozen play on each side and thirty thousand look on. Prize fighting is a higher form still. Two play and two hundred thousand “athletes” participate.
And there’s more than that. Athletic teams don’t need to be connected with the places they come from — women seem to invade all sports equally — mechanical devices replace human skill ——
Or stop! There is no need for me to write it all out in that way. That’s as prosy as a college essay.
Let me present the subject in the form of a few selections to show what will be the nature and fashion of the Athletic Page of any popular newspaper about a generation hence.
harvard-oxford conflict
(Extract from the Sporting Press of 1950)
Definite arrangements have just been concluded for the Harvard-Oxford football game of this autumn. The contest is now scheduled to take place in the oasis of Swot in south center of the desert of Sahara. The clarity of the desert sunlight, it is expected, will immensely favor the dissemination of the game by the Television-Teleptoscope, while the clear, still air will enable every faintest sound of the great battle to be carried all over the globe.
Front seats for the game in London, New York, Paris, Monte Carlo, Palm Beach, and other great athletic centers are already selling at prices ranging from ten to a hundred dollars.
Meantime the actual scene of the game itself will not be without a certain interest. It is calculated that the players, spare men, umpires, radio broadcasters, and television experts will probably number over a hundred people, a record attendance at any actual ground. No less than five airplanes will be needed to carry the players and the apparatus.
The athletic line-up is not yet complete, but it is officially announced that the center forward for Harvard will be, as last year, Youssouf-Ben-Ali of Ethiopia, with Yin Foo of Foochow and Billy Gillespie of Toronto on the wings. For Oxford the brilliant young Scottish captain from Dundee, Einstein Gorfinkel, will have as his front line stalwart Rum Rum Gee of Allahabad, Hassan Bay of Mecca, and Al Plunket of Orillia, Ontario.
A special feature of interest this year is found in the fact that one of the Harvard players was actually in attendance two years ago at Harvard University where he was janitor of a dormitory. At the same time two of the Oxford team, the brothers Hefty, are bona fide Oxford men, having been butchers in the town for many years past.
The sharp rise in the shares of the Sahara Syndicate consequent upon the definite announcement of this the greatest feature of manly sport, has led to a revival of the rumor that a German syndicate is making an offer for Oxford and Harvard.
derby day in 1950
An Exciting Finish
(Special Correspondence from Epsom Downs)
The advantage enjoyed by the present clock-work Derby over the now almost forgotten horse-race, in which living horses were used, was never better illustrated than in the exciting finish of the contest to-day.
Our older readers will perhaps recall the Derby as it was a generation ago and the way in which the introduction of machinery has gradually improved it up to its present standard. It appears that the first step was taken in introducing the Pari-Mutuel machine, which mechanically made betting odds.
The introduction of the stuffed bookmaker with clock work under his red waistcoat marked a further advance. The invention of the mechanical judge with high-power, 100 lens eyes, similar to those of the fly, and a running spool of registering tape in place of a brain brought for the first time a decision of absolute certainty.
The clock-work horse, operating on a moving platform geared at 200 miles an hour, enabled the whole race to be focussed into a small space, without straggling it out over miles of open country, as in our grandfathers’ time. The jockey, still remembered in old prints as a monkey-like figure in a little half jacket, naturally gave place to a power-house operator working with radio.
The cardboard stadium was filled (for photographic purposes) with some 10,000 (mechanical) spectators and gave an admirable setting to the event, recalling the days when thousands of people literally attended the Derby in person.
The great interest of this race lay in its exciting finish. When the photographic plates of the races were developed, it was found that Clicko, the English horse, had beaten the front leg of the American machine by the one hundredth part of a second. The announcement of this over the radio created an intense silence. Seismographic records show that ten million people held their breath at once. When they let it go it started a tidal wave that was felt as far as Japan.
passing of a great athlete
We chronicle with regret the death of Mr. Eddie Feinfinkel, the famous Scottish hammer-thrower. Mr. Feinfinkel died at his residence last evening after an illness — a general debility — extending over about forty years. It is said that he had put more money into hammer-throwing than any man of his generation.
In the earlier part of his career the late Mr. Feinfinkel obtained a world-wide celebrity as a toreador by organizing the Pan-American Bull-Raising Corporation of Montana. It was his intensive work at his desk in raising bulls that first undermined the great sportsman’s health.
Mr. Feinfinkel afterwards threw himself with enthusiasm into aerial work as a director of the Pan-American Transit Company, in which capacity he sent no less than one hundred experts across the Atlantic, with a loss of less than ten.
It was while recuperating in Scotland that the great athlo-magnate first conceived the idea of hammer-throwing, and engaged a corps d’élite of sixty Scotch gillies to throw hammers for him. Mr. Feinfinkel, whose interest and energy were tireless, often kept up the hammer-throwing for eight or nine hours at a stretch.
The loss of Mr. Feinfinkel will be greatly felt also in mechanical crap-shooting, automatic dice-throwing, and in all forms of nickel-in-the-slot athletics, of which the late magnate was a generous supporter. His funeral (mechanical) will be broadcast next Friday.
world’s baseball series
The world’s baseball series was held last night at the office of the Anglo-American-Pan-Geographic-Tele-Radio Company, New York. It has not yet been decided which club will be declared the winner, as the money is not all in yet.
minor items of current sport
Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race. — Advices from London bring the news that Oxford stands as the first favorite for the approaching annual boat race, the betting being at three to one. The Oxford women, it appears, are heavier than the Cambridge crew, some of whom are scarcely more than girls. Great interest, however, is still shown along the towing path, a number of the university professors turning out each day as spectators, wearing for the most part the new French chemisettes with ruffled insertions, so popular this season.
Among others, our correspondent noted Professor Smith, the biologist, in a dainty Cambridge blue creation under a picture hat, and the Vice Chancellor in a pretty frock of carnation, shot, or half shot, with something deeper underneath. The professor’s skirts are reported as slightly longer than last week.
revival of walking
The efforts of Old Time Sports Society are apparently being crowned with success, at least in one direction. Walking as a form of athletic sport is becoming extremely popular. Joseph Longfoot, the great East Anglian amateur, established the endurance record yesterday in a contest in which he walked four and a half miles without stopping. He was brought back in his helicopter not much the worse for his titanic effort.
Advertisement. Great Spring sale of sporting goods: — lorgnettes, field glasses, cushions, hot-water bottles, flasks, drinking cups, cigar cases, vanity boxes, men’s powder puffs. — Everything for the sportsman.
The Criminal Face
LATELY THERE HAS been much concern with what is called “The Criminal Face.” It appears that there is a certain type and shape of head and features that always goes with the commission of crime. If you have it, there is no escape. You might as well go right away and ask to board in the penitentiary.
Experts can explain to you this criminal face, feature by feature and line by line. But the real trouble with the expert is that he always knows beforehand that the face he is analyzing is that of a man who has committed a crime. That colors his conclusions. What if we were to put before him, as a criminal, the face of a philanthropist? What then?
Thus we take the picture of a certain face and we know that it is in reality the face of a kindly old professor. Indeed, we have recently, let us say, seen it described on the occasion of a presentation of his portrait to the city in the following terms:
portrait of a sage
“The face of this distinguished scholar is known and loved by thousands who have listened to his inspired and inspiring words. It is a broad face, a kindly face, the face of a man with a wide heart, whose broad lineaments seem to indicate a corresponding breadth of sympathy. But there is a firmness, too, in the wide mouth, and character in the large but firmly chiseled nostril. The brow slopes nobly from the projecting frontal bones, the head is wide, of a width that tells of the capacious brain within. The ear is large, noble, and mobile, and the scant and snow-white hair remains as the mark of honor of a life spent in the service of mankind.”
But put the same portrait before the graphofacial expert, or facial graphologist, and tell him that it is a picture of a criminal recently sent to jail for life plus ten years, and ask him where he can see the tendency to crime, and this is the analysis you will receive of the countenance of the venerable scholar:
dangerous criminal
“The photograph is that of a male about sixty years of age, with marked criminal tendencies. Note the flat face, indicating complete absence of thinking power. There is something almost simian or ape-like in the width of the mouth, while the low, sloped forehead is but little higher in development than that of the most degraded savages. Such brain as this man could have would be sunk so low towards his neck as to be of little use to him. The premature loss of practically the entire capillary growth of the scalp, with the utter loss of pigment in the remaining part, indicates a life evil and irregular to the last degree.”
Or suppose, in the same way, that a facial graphologist looked at a picture of a great war hero, he would say:
“What a stern, soldierly face, the face of a man accustomed to command, keen, penetrating, and able at the same time to be ruthless, but always to be just.”
But show him the same picture and tell him that it was taken from the criminal records of the New York police, and he may say:
“We see here the true type of the hardened criminal — the small brain, the wide-set eye, and the dull look that indicates moral irresponsibility, etc., etc.”
But the trouble is that the world is coming to attach more and more importance, too much importance, to experts. When the facial graphologist gets a little further, we shall find our courts of law following in his wake. The face itself will become a crime and our police court morning records will contain little items after this fashion:
a menace to society
“Albert Jones, who later on gave in his name as coming from Chicago, undertook to take his face down town yesterday afternoon with the apparent intention of parading it on Main Street. Police Constable Simmons noticed Jones’s face moving through the air and at once arrested him.
“On being taken to headquarters and submitted to expert examination, it was found that his face was criminal in a high degree. The stunted lobes of his ears, for which he received six months in jail, are only one among varied evidences of guilt. He was given from twelve to fifteen months for various parts of his brain that were absent.
“The lack of eyelashes drew a caustic condemnation from the court, which warned Jones that a face like his is more than society is prepared to tolerate.”
Or things may go even a little further than this, and we may find the “facial criminal” filling a still larger field, thus:
