Madame Eulalie’s Rare PlumsVanity Fair (UK), June 23, 1904
[See attribution note on Vanity Fair menu page]
From My Tub.
A MAN has just killed an Italian organ-grinder at Oxford. His defence was that he did not know it was wrong.
• • • • •
Now that life has become so rapid all over the world, the methods of August Albrecht, of Austria, may be largely adopted by sportsmen. This gentleman recently slew two roebucks at a single shot. They happened to be butting at one another. The intelligent Austrian, selecting a moment when their heads were touching, “loosed her off,” and down went the roebucks as dead as two coffin-nails. Shooting at the butts is his happy way of describing the episode.
• • • • •
The difficulty, says a daily paper, of picking up a well-horsed cab is now almost insurmountable. It has never been really easy, except for Sandow's pupils.
• • • • •
Lambeth Bridge is no longer the stout, hearty structure it once was. It is getting very weak, and cabs and other vehicles are only allowed to walk over it now. Even flies have to be careful how they go.
• • • • •
Port Arthur stock, says a provincial paper, is falling very low. Curious, this. The place has been very carefully invested.
• • • • •
There is an unfortunate man in San Quentin Gaol, California, who simply can’t get anyone to hang him. Four years ago, in a moment of exhilaration, he slew a fellow-citizen. “All right,” said the Law, “now you have done it. You just wait!” He has waited ever since. A few days ago the Law pulled itself together. “We must make an effort,” it said. So a hangman was sent for; somebody kindly lent a rope; and all the best people booked seats. The prisoner was the cynosure of all eyes. His disgust may be imagined when, at the last moment, a reprieve arrived. He is not going to go on murdering, as he very justly remarked, “What’s the good?”
• • • • •
One in a Thousand.
In every thousand cigarettes
Is one designed by magic,
And he who smokes that one forgets
If life is tame or tragic;
There’s such a subtle spell within it
It makes him happy in a minute.
First, as the smoke rings waver up,
He drinks their mystic power,
And finds new rapture in the cup—
The voice of earth sinks lower—
And next, he spurns Time’s gloomy portal
And soars—a rainbow clad Immortal.
Earth beckons him with laurel crown,
He cannot stoop to grasp it.
His body’s light as thistledown,
His soul—no sky can clasp it.
A crown oft melts into a fetter,
He’s found a key to something better.
But, as the key turns in the lock
The voice of earth grows stronger,
He feels a disconcerting shock,
Smoke ringlets rise no longer;
Downward his grieving spirit flashes—
The cigarette’s reduced to ashes.
• • • • •
All great spiritual teachers have been noted for the simplicity of their lives. Dr. Dowie is no exception. When at home, says one who knows him, he is content to pig along as an ordinary millionaire in a conventional palace.
• • • • •
A Mr. Kremnitz has been inveighing bitterly against the habit he has noticed in many Londoners of wearing hats. Mr. Kremnitz is a whole-hogger. The old battle-cry of the Crusaders, “Why wear heavy hats?” is too mild for him. “Why wear hats at all?” is his motto. They produce headaches and remove hair, he thinks, and he warmly advises mankind to give them up. You take your choice. Either you are happy and careless, like Mr. Kremnitz; or cappy and hairless, like other people.
• • • • •
What constitutes fame? During her eight days’ visit to St. Louis the newspapers of the town gave Miss Roosevelt fifteen columns a day. Nelson has only one.
Tuesday morning. Rasper.
Printed unsigned in Vanity Fair; entered by Wodehouse as “In My Tub” for this date in Money Received for Literary Work. It is possible that not all individual items are by Wodehouse.
Editor’s notes:
Sandow: Eugen Sandow (1867–1925), German-born bodybuilder active in England and America, author of books on muscular development
flies: lightweight horse-drawn carriages
Port Arthur: strategic harbor in China, focal point of the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904
Dr. Dowie: John Alexander Dowie (1847–1907), Scottish-born evangelist and faith healer, active in Australia and the United States. Became wealthy by collecting tithes from his followers; accused of fraud in founding the religious community of Zion, Illinois, and its bank, from which millions of dollars went missing.
Miss Roosevelt: Alice Roosevelt [Longworth] (1884–1980), eldest daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, had traveled to St. Louis to award medals at the 1904 Olympic Games.
— Neil Midkiff