Judge — January 1937 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

ANYBODY WHO happened to be a buffalo in 1936 (or was supporting dur- ing his taxable year one or more buf- falos closely dependent upon him) is going to have a pretty hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach when he gets a hinge at the December issue of “The Field.” In that excellent British sport- ing magazine, one “Old Harrow Boy” attacks the custom of shouting and wav- ing the arms and hat to break up stam- peding buffalo, and actually suggests whistling as a better means of dispers- ing unlawful assemblages of bison. I hold no buff for the briefalo—I beg pardon, I should have said “I hold no brief for the buffalo,” but I am too choked with rage about this matter to be very coherent. I have never taken money from any pro-bison organization and outside of a fatty deposit between the shoulder blades I am no more buf- falo than you are. But of all the appal- ling, repellent, revolting and insupport- able bits of schrecklichkeit ever fobbed off on a lethargic public under the guise of sportsmanship, this is the absolute pay-off. First, just who és this “Old Harrow + Boy” anyway? I looked him up in the London Street directory but the only name like it was “O'Hara Roy, 15, Pig's ‘Walk, Wapping Otd: Stairs.” - “Pig's Judge BUFFALOS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! BY S. J. PERELMAN Walk” is good; “Pig's Talk,” if you ask me. A man who hasn't even got the nerve to sign his own name to a letter. Well, Mr. O'Hara, let us cast an eye over your record and see who it is that goes around lousing up a buffalo's good name. It might interest you to know that I sent a friend of mine around to Wapping Old Stairs to ask a few questions. I believe he came to your service flat one afternoon and talked to your “housekeeper.” Bet you thought he was some kind of an idiot, eh? Well, he is. He’s one of the most all-around idiots I know, but there's one thing about him. He doesn’t spend his day teasing buffalo. He leaves that to a certain pig in Wapping Old Stairs. No need to mention names. Among other things I was interested to learn that our precious Mr. O'Hara had been tried and convicted in Rho. desia for acting as agent-provocateur in an uprising of water-buffalos in 1911. Shortly afterward three buffalo reported to the British High Commissioner at Elandfontein that they had been bored by Mr. O'Hara. The seriousness of the charge forced the Commissioner's hand, and an investigation was held. It re- vealed that O'Hara had approached the buffalo in a kind of hysterical, excited fashion and told them some rambling inconsequential story without any point. The bisons alleged boredom and peti- tioned for damages. I have been in cor- respondence with Sir Herbert Antinous (then Sir Herbert Antinous) who acted as medical officer in the case. He has been kind enough to forward me a tran- script of the evidence together with a locket containing hair from one of the buffalo as proof. Here is Sir Herbert's version of the matter: “I examined the three buffalo about an hour after they claimed Mr. O'Hara had bored them. They still bore the marks of their recent ordeal. One of them had a coated tongue and was fever- ish. The second seemed normal but slightly bemused. The third, however, had no tongue. I guess the cat got it. (Laughter.) "Question from Magistrate Nirdlin- ger: Sir Herbert, kindly confine your- self to the case. What is the difference between a Florida orange and a letter? "Sir Herbert: 1 don’t know, your worship. "Magistrate Nirdlinger: Well, you'd be a hell of a man to send to mail a letter. Stand down.” At this point there was a commotion in court caused by O'Hara's pitching forward out of the dock in a dead faint. 12 comicbooks.com