Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, April 1923 · page 48 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #44 — page 48: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This poem from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang* (a humor magazine popular in the 1920s) uses fishing metaphors to mock both male ego and female marital tactics. The speaker—a woman—advises her "sisters" that catching a husband requires strategic "bait." The satire targets male vanity: men believe themselves intellectually superior and resent women's intelligence, so they inevitably marry women who play dumb—feigning helplessness, admiration, and dependency. The poem cynically suggests this "virgin wise" strategy of faking ignorance ("no mind or will") is the surest path to marriage success. The joke cuts both ways: it ridicules men's fragile egos while simultaneously mocking women for manipulating through false helplessness rather than authenticity. The crude final quatrain about pickled shad serves as absurdist comic relief. The piece reflects 1920s anxieties about changing gender roles during the flapper era, when women's education and independence threatened traditional male authority.
📄 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 Bait O Sisters, dear, come closer, do, And let me tell you a thing or two: Since time first was, since the world began, The prey of a woman has been a man. She'll work and scheme and plan and plot, And sometimes she gets him and—sometimes not. But, Sisters, on this you can always bank: If you've tried and failed, you've yourself to thank; You can blame your stars, you can rail at Fate; But the fault was your own—and your kind of bait. Now, a man is a male; and the male, you know, Has always thought he's the whole blamed show. He wants to think that he stands alone, That brains and sense are his very own. He doesn't like women to poach around On what he regards as his sacred ground. They can smile and be pretty and sweet and all that, But they musn't possess the brains of a gnat; Because if they do they'll quickly see How vain is his boast of supremacy. They'd see that he wasn't the whole blamed show So he falls for the woman who doesn't know! A man may admire a woman with brains And sense enough to come in when it rains, But he falls for the one with the curly hair And the great big blue-eyed baby stare. The woman who does things he thinks is fine— But he marries the helpless clinging vine. And the virgin wise who will bait her hook With that “aren't-you-simply-wonderful!” look, Who “loves his strength” and “adores his skill,” Who confesses to having no mind or will, Who clings to and leans on the masterful male, Is the one who has never been known to fail. O Sisters, listen: these things are so. I've landed my fish—and you bet I know! * * * There was a little sad bad lad Who had a charming plaid clad dad; They both enjoyed a glad mad fad Of eating pickled shad salad.