Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, June 1922 · page 41 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #34 — page 41: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"Why Walk a Mile?"** is a crude joke about women smoking. The title plays on a cigarette advertising slogan ("I'd walk a mile for a Camel"). The humor attempts wordplay: the biblical reference to Rebekah "lighting off" her camel is twisted to suggest "lighting" a cigarette—implying women have smoked since biblical times. This reflects 1920s anxiety about changing women's behavior; female smoking was then controversial and seen as morally questionable. **"The Tropics,"** attributed to Randolph Atkin, presents a poem warning against Central America. It catalogs stereotypical dangers: disease, moral laxity, political chaos, and sensuality. The repeated emphasis on "dark-eyed" women and "white-skinned gringoes" reflects contemporary racial attitudes. The poem's underlying message: despite tropical allure, the region's corruption and disease make it ultimately dangerous—yet irresistibly seductive. It expresses American imperial-era ambivalence toward Latin America.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 39 Why Walk a Mile? Smoking is not a new accomplishment with the ladies. Far from it. Nor are the popular brands of today so very new. Mention is made in the Bible, under Genesis XXIV-64, as fol-lows: “And Rebekah lifted her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the Camel.” * * * The Tropics While basking in the sunny clime of Cuba last spring, we flipped a dollar one day to decide if we should push onward to Central America or return to “the land of the free.” U. S. won and we bade goodbye to sparkling grapes and fast horses. Now we’re glad we didn’t go farther into the Tropics. The following poem by Randolph Atkin explains why our joy. Read it.—Capt. Billy. Northwards 'long Pacific's coast from Puntarenas Bay, To Guatemala City, where the sweet marimbas play, There lies a tropic country, where the forest birds are mute, Where the beauty of the women is a thing of world repute, And the men are famed for eating of the old forbidden fruit. It's a land of dusty cities, where a dark-eyed people dwell, And churches are as plentiful as cinders are in hell; Where life is free and easy, and good intentions fade, Where there ain't no cast-iron morals, for a saint was never made Where the mercury hovers about a hundred in the shade. It's the home of politicians, where men seldom can agree— The land of wailing donkeys and the tantalizing flea; There dusky lovers serenade and strum the old guitar, And white-skinned gringoes congregate from many lands afar, Each with a manly heart of gold and soul as black as tar. It's a land where dread diseases are inhaled with every breath, And one is ever treading on the line 'twixt life and death; But though you may forsake its shores of hardships and of pain, You'll hear that voice a-calling you, which never calls in vain, With the longing of a lover you'll return to it again.