Vanity Fair (UK), July 21, 1904
[See attribution note on Vanity Fair menu page]
 

In the Stocks.
 

SIX of the daily papers have had long articles on the “twelve-year-old poetess” during the last week. The epidemic should soon be over now.

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A St. Louis doctor says that ninety-six per cent. of the inmates of British and American lunatic asylums have black hair. The hue of the raven is also, it seems, the hue of the ravin’.

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Referring to Kuropatkin’s spirited jeu d’esprit on the subject of a Russian invasion of India, Lord Kitchener says that at any moment he could stop all the passes. In that case the Russians would have to pay heavily to get in.

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By a curious paradox, the Tibetans who took refuge in the Rong Valley consider it the right place for their purposes.

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The old bulldog spirit of perseverance lives in the breast of David Seeley, of Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is eighty years old, and is at present experiencing a certain amount of trouble with the justices because he has amassed eight more wives than a parsimonious law allows him. Recently, when he was permitted to leave gaol after serving a sentence for bigamy, he celebrated the occasion by marrying five more ladies. The justices, we read, are considering his case. It may be a foolish notion, but we should think it was about time they did.

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“Russia,” says a Muscovite paper, “has never concealed her defeats or her conquests.” Russia never has any defeats. What seems to the lay mind a defeat is really an acute strategic move.

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False Premises.

[A Parisian attacked a stranger with a knife the other day because he was fat. He said he hated “these bloated capitalists.”]

My worthy, but misguided, man,
   Your spirit I commend;
But still, in your ingenious plan
   I see a flaw, my friend:
Not everyone of ample girth
   Has money of his own:
The mightiest millionaires on earth
   Are often skin and bone.

The widow and the orphan lose
   Their customary all
Quite frequently to people whose
   Physique is slight and small:
And shrewd financiers, by the score,
   With flattering success,
Have ground the faces of the poor
   At eight stone six, or less.

In future go, remembering this,
   With caution on your way:
Eschew insidious prejudice;
   Think well before you slay.
Don’t pink a man because you see
   He’s stout enough to burst:
Pause ’ere you draw your snickersnee;
   Inspect his pass-book first.

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It seemed for a moment to the perturbed spectators in Clerkenwell County Court the other day that Judge Edge was not himself. “I can neither see nor hear you,” he said to a solicitor. The public looked amazedly at one another. There was the solicitor, not a dozen feet from his Honour! He ought to be able to see him “with the naked eye.” And even if Justice was blind, he ought to be able to hear him. Then the explanation came out. The solicitor had not his robes on.

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Many disparaging remarks have been made concerning the fire brigades of England, but the record has just been lowered at a certain seaside town. The brigade was called out to attend to a fire at a warehouse. After pouring water on the flames for an hour or so, they went home. Five weeks later they were called to the warehouse again. The same fire was still smouldering.

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The late author of “Self Help” left property to the value of £79,960. Evidently he practised what he preached. He seems to have helped himself freely.

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For a thesis on “the psychology of the guinea-pig” a Chicago lady has been made a doctor of philosophy. It is not the first time that guinea-pigs and “promotion” have been connected.

Rasper. 

 


 

Printed unsigned in Vanity Fair; entered by Wodehouse as “In the Stocks” for this date in Money Received for Literary Work. It is possible that not all individual items are by Wodehouse.

 

Notes:

 

TOO HAPPY TO LIVE. Victor Bosc, a Paris publican, while standing contentedly before his shop Tuesday, was stabbed by a stranger. The murderer, when arrested, said he “could not stand the satisfied look of that fat, bloated capitalist”; he objected on principle to “people with such paunches.” (Portsmouth Evening News, June 15, 1904)

 

John Dawson    

 

Kuropatkin: Alexei Kuropatkin was the Russian Imperial Minister of War.
LONDON, July 11. The Daily Express to-day prints what it declares is Gen. Kuropatkin's signed plan of invasion of British India. This plan, it is stated, was filed in the Russian War Office as the official method of procedure in case of war between Russia and Great Britain. The document goes into minute details, and is three columns in length. (New York Times, July 11, 1904)
passes: The pun is on “mountain passes” and “free theatrical tickets”.
eight stone six: 118 pounds
Self Help: This 1859 book by Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) encouraged the working classes to take every opportunity to advance their education, not merely to better themselves financially, but also to increase their enjoyment of life and its artistic and intellectual pleasures.