Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, February 1922 · page 59 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #30 — page 59: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang* reprints humorous classified ads from newspapers across America, satirizing the absurdity and desperation evident in real classified sections. The humor relies on the gap between what advertisers claim to offer and what they actually mean. The jokes exploit double meanings and innuendo: a man wants a lady with "cash to have her chimney swept" (sexual); a father seeks to put four daughters "in a business of their own" (implying they'd become sex workers); a man wants a girl to "stay with me nights" with "room rent free" (soliciting a prostitute). Other ads mock broken English ("bane yust vat yu want," "very sheep" for "very cheap") and present absurd situations, like a woman publicly denying she was beaten by her husband—which actually suggests she was. The bottom line about Jonah is a non-sequitur joke unrelated to the ads above it. The satire targets both the desperation of ordinary Americans and contemporary moral anxieties about vice and exploitation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 57 Classified Ads This Soots Me (From the Spokane Spokesman-Review) YOUNG MAN, INDUSTRIOUS, WANTS to meet lady with enough cash to have her chimney swept. Dan Vall. * * * Whatcha Got? (From Richmond, Va., Times Despatch) HAVE four daughters; would like to put them in a business of their own. What have you to offer? P. O. Box 1092, City. * * * And Everything (From The Duluth Herald) I GOT 10 AKER of fine green timber dat I like for to sell on Miller Trunk Highway near Duluth. It bane yust vat yu want for a gude place to build cabin and have high old time, hunt yack rabbit & everything. I like for to go back to Norway & will sell very sheep. Write Lars Boguson, 1302 E. 8th St. * * * Ain't We Got Fun? (From The Aberdeen World) WANTED—Girl or lady to stay with me nights; room rent free. A-26, care of World. * * * The Wild and Woolly West (From Casper, Wyo., Herald) TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN—In justice to my husband to quiet a few rumors to the effect that he had beaten me up, during our recent family trouble, is absolutely untrue. Signed, Mrs. Bessie Peters. * * * Jonah came from the whale with an awful cough.