Page:The New Yorker 0001 1925-02-21.pdf/3



Advisory Editors: Ralph Barton, Marc Connelly, Rea Irvin, George S. Kaufman, Alice Duer Miller, Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott

IGHT next door to the Follies, some young adventurer has opened a penny peep-show where you can see five hundred and fifty glorified young women for what Mr. Ziegfeld charges for his much smaller collection. Well, competition is the life of the party, as Mr. LaFolette might have it.

On general principles, this magazine expects to take a firm stand against murder. But we don′t want to be bigoted. If, for instance, someone should ask you to advertise in, and throw out the hint that your refusal might lead to some unwelcome publicity, you wouldn′t shock us much if you poured him into the nearest drain.

First in Enterprise, is pleased to announce that it has engaged, for winter service in our side streets, the men who took the antitoxin to Nome.

Mr. Hearst strews the laurels of fame with a liberal hand. In his Cosmopolitan he publishes the portrait of “Charles Hanson Towne, New York′s most popular bachelor,” and in his International of “George Jean Nathan, America′s most distinguished bachelor.”

If Charles can make the weight, the boys might get together for the world championship.

And, speaking of the International, one need go no further than the table of contents for the plot of America′s Great Novel:

“Love Is Blind,” “I Have Tried to Live as Christ Might Live Today,” “To a Girl at the Ritz,” “Where I am Monarch of All I Survey,” “The Girl Who Was Herself,” “Just a Big Hearted Rascal,” “That Royle Girl!” “That Man Darrow!” “There′s a Lot of Truth in That Old Song About Home, Sweet Home,” “We Tried a Divorce in 45 Days,” “If I Had My Way,” “I Grinned My Way Out of the Grave,” “Women Are Playthings,” “Oh, I Have Lived!”

Having thus done its duty by posterity, the International passes on to its merited reward.

Mr. George Jean Nathan, who when not engaged in his more serious work of telling everybody where to get off at, finds relaxation in writing for Mr. Hearst′s publications, is the author of “Women Are Playthings.” Ah there, (as the editor of our “In Our Midst” column would say) George!

Two of the big collar firms have combined. Our own Beauty Contest judges announce that the handsomest man in American is now Mister Cluett Peabody Earl Wilson.

It turned out, after a New York jury had got down to business, that the foreman didn′t understand English, so the judge excused him and told the remaining eleven to reach a verdict on of their own. We don′t get the point. Readers of Daily News doubtless don′t understand English but they ought to be experts on crime.

We and Mr. Hearst are among those who credit Mayor Hylan with sagacity. For, just before the transit investigators issued their report (which was not exactly in the form of a valentine) didn′t he say to himself, “Go South, young man, go South.”

Our Ear to the Ground Department reports that Charging Buffalo, the Indian in training with the Yankees has, at the insistence of the management, agreed to change his name to John Levi, as being more typically American.

This same bureau of assures us we may refute the rumor that Commissioner Enright, overhearing the question, “Who killed Cock Robin?” replied, “Undoubtedly Gerald Chapman, who is now safely under lock and key, thanks to police efficiency.”

Mr. Enright′s publicity man has just announced that “one patrolman handed a loaded weapon to a lieutenant with the muzzle pointed toward the officer and the revolver cocked. What the lieutenant said to him would have blistered an asbestos wall But that was two years ago.” We note with relief that such fussy and abusive lieutenants have been discouraged.

Mr. Enright′s publicity man also would like the world to tell him: “In these days of silent police cars bobbing up here, there and everywhere, what bandit, be he ever so clever, can be sure of finishing a ‘job’ in peace?” Several bandits interviewed confess that they cannot be, but all avow a willingness to take a sporting chance.

One of the first things you do in starting a magazine, after you have got the notion to do it and, as our advertising friends say, sold your associates on the idea, is to rent an office and the next thing you do is get a telephone. You don′t actually get a telephone next, but you put in an application for one. You do this on the sagacious suggestion of the agent of the building who explains that it is the busy season with the telephone company and that you should hurry because it usually takes thirty days to get a telephone, and while he will use his drag with the telephone company and cut this down to two