Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, May 1922 · page 12 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #33 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece uses dark humor to mock sectarian violence in Ireland. The story depicts an Irish Catholic ferryman ("Pat") forcibly converting a Jewish passenger ("Isaac"/"Ikey") through repeated drowning—a grotesque parody of baptism. Each submersion is accompanied by demands for religious conversion ("Do ye belave?"). When the terrified Jew finally agrees under duress, the Irishman drowns him anyway, declaring "Then die in the faith!" The satire targets Irish Catholic religious fanaticism during a period of documented sectarian conflict. By literalizing forced conversion as murder, it highlights the absurdity and violence of religious coercion. The piece appears in *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang*, a satirical magazine known for irreverent humor. The unrelated anecdote about "Maggie" at the page's end is typical filler humor—a cook avoiding math education—with no connection to the main story.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
10 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang Ikey Believes It Now Bob Sievier tells a rather humorous story in a recent issue of The Winning Post regarding the recent violent outbreaks of sectarian feeling now going on in Ireland. “The Irish difficulties,” says Bob, “bring to mind a story of the Irishman who converted the Jew. Pat was a ferryman, and it was while he was ferrying the Hebrew across the river that a hot theological argument arose. Presently the Irishman, full of zeal for the true faith, seized the Jew and plunged him into the water. “Do ye belave?” he roared, as the Israelite’s head appeared above the surface. “No,” spluttered Isaac. “Thin down ye go again,” and once more the stubborn one was submerged. “Do ye belave?” asked Pat again. “No, no,” obstinately replied the Jew, gasping and shivering with cold and fright, but tenacious of his religion. The process was repeated till the wretched Jew in mortal fear, spluttered out a “Yes” in reply to the remorseless Irishman’s question. “Then die in the faith!” shouted the zealot, as he thrust his convert below the surface for the last time. * * * Maggie, our cook, told me the other night that she quit school early in life to take up cooking because she just hated fractions and square root.