Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, June 1922 · page 50 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #34 — page 50: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece mocks Prohibition-era crime and its unexpected criminals. The article describes nine "booze bandits" who robbed the Hart mansion in San Mateo of $25,000 in liquor. The satire's bite comes from revealing these weren't hardened criminals but respectable professionals: a prominent insurance broker, chauffeurs, and waiters—ordinary citizens driven to crime by Prohibition's economic opportunities. The piece ridicules the insurance broker specifically, who allegedly couldn't focus on looting because he was distracted by the Hart household's young women in their nightwear, requiring the gang leader to punch him in the eye. The Latin phrases ("spirits fermenti" for booze, "requiescatting in pace" for prison labor) add mock-scholarly humor. The overall message: Prohibition created a lucrative "school and profession of crime," recruiting respectable middle-class men rather than eliminating vice.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
48 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang eyes. The dubs of peace and prohibition have been knocking the various cocktail chateaux and highball hangars for a row of German epitaphs. As a result of the rising crime wave and the startling increase in the dope habit the pendu- lum seems to be swinging back—at least to wines and beer. Hitherto criminals have had precarious lives and precarious profits but boot- legging supplies a school and profession of crime. Recently nine booze bandits took pos- session of the Hart mansion at San Mateo, and held carnival there the entire night. Trucks and autos carted off $25,000 worth of liquor while the bandits held high sport with the Hart household. It wasn't a case of narcotics being responsible for the crime. Perhaps insanity would be the better answer, for one of the bandits was found to be a prominent young insurance broker of the city. Chauffeurs and waiters made up the remainder of the gang. And curiously the in- surance broker was the only man that couldn't stand the strain of seeing pretty young misses of the household sitting around in their dainty night robes and other unmentionables. The leader finally had to hit him a poke in the eye to keep his mind on the spirits fermenti—which is Latin for booze. He is now requiescatting in pace—which is Latin for making little rocks out of big ones.