Judge — December 6, 1924 — page 24: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

a | a | a " AND ama SIN NO RU <A) \ \\ The insurance agent sees the man he just wrote down as a good risk, buying a saxophone. Etiquette Self-taught Peer: Gounon A. RAMPAGE, whose anonymous ‘Language of the Fingerbowl” of a generation ago created a furore in polite society, has recently published under his own name “Etiquette—Its Whys and Wherefores.”” Professor Rampage aims to answer the many queries arising in the minds of the man in the street regarding what to do when embarrassment hovers in the offing. Ultra-fastidious ideas of etiquette are satirized in this handy volume (which can be concealed beneath the bosom of a dress shirt) and a new school of savoir faire is bound to follow in its wake. The professor shares Mr. Dooley’s horror of the “ojus politeness of the Frinch” and splashes a deal of printer’s ink on Mrs. Grundy. The first situation treated by Professor Rampage is that of the girl who consistently orders a chicken salad. He maintains an attitude of “Live and Let Live ving that sooner or later she will discover her mistake—a débutante can’t be ex- pected to know that veal is the dominant ingredient in such a dish. In the matter of the man who will walk between two ladies in the avenue promenade, the professor declares for less rigorous rules of behavior. Not that he will yield to the point of allowing Mr. Jones to continue his position as buffer between conflicting forces of con- versation; but he is for relaxing the rule in so far as it applies to the older of the two ladies being placed next to Mr. Jones. At first blush the professor seems unduly senti- mental; but his underlying motive is one of expediency. How can Mr. Jones ascertain the comparative ages of his companions without severing diplomatic relations? They have come home from a party. The hour is late. Should she invite him in? That used to be the question, comments the pro- fessor dryly, but nowadays it is “How can she keep him out?” The bride is to be given away by her father. What if she should err in the long trail to the altar? Her anxiety is nothing compared with father’s, The professor sug- gests that she make the trip alone and at her first miscue she will give herself away, saving father the ordeal. One cannot be expected to be con- versant with etiquette the world over, says Professor Rampage, as its shades of observance are as varied as the tongues of its sponsors. But the professor gladly sets forth the results of his own experiences, be- ginning in the modest hall bedroom which he occupied on the lower east side and continuing up to the time he became star boarder in the estab- lishment. The worst phase of polite society, concludes the author, is the wear and tear on $2 bills when renting dress clothes. Roswell J. Powers 22 The Dial System in Telephoning (A Criticism) T= one big fault to be found with the dial em is that it was designed especially for the intelli- gentsia. Few of the ordinary run of people are proficient enough in spell- ing to use it properly. Of course, it will be argued that it is not necessary for one to know how to spell the entire name of an ex- change in order to call it, as only the first three letters are used in dialing. True enough; but in spelling, it is frequently the first few letters that cause most trouble. If a person can get started properly on the spelling of a word, he or she can usually finish it, (Some words, naturally, are hard all the way through—sarsaparilla, for instance. But there are no telephone ex- changes named that.) A suggestion we would like to make is that the holes in the dials be made larger. Then it would be possible for a man who didn’t have lady-fingers to dial without getting his finger caught in one of the darn things. We knew a man once who wanted to call Broad 2468, and, in attempting to do so, caught his finger in the ABC2 hole and called Academy 2222 seventeen times trying to remove it. Naturally, the people at the other end of the line got pretty sore and there was hard feeling all around. R. C. O'Brien comicbooks.com