Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, April 1923 · page 6 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #44 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang* (a 1920s-era humor magazine) contains two anecdotes: **First story**: A humorous domestic scene where the narrator's wife deflates his ego—when a flirtatious woman at a Savannah hotel flirts with him, his wife replies that she laughed at *him* when they first met, implying he was equally ridiculous-looking. **Second story**: The editor visits Cole L. Blease, twice-governor of South Carolina and noted criminal defense lawyer. The joke hinges on **Prohibition-era satire**: Blease quips that while he easily wins murder acquittals, freeing bootleggers (illegal alcohol producers/sellers) is actually *harder* in his state. This inverts expected difficulty, suggesting South Carolina's legal system punished alcohol violations more severely than homicide—social commentary on how Prohibition enforcement priorities exceeded justice for serious crimes. Both pieces use casual anecdote-humor typical of this magazine's irreverent tone.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
6 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang wee small crevice I helped to fill in history's mezzanine matinee party. SPENT a week during January in Beaufort, S. C., visiting my mother-in-law, after which my wife and I “saw” Savannah. A short skirted damsel breezed into the De Soto hotel in Savannah and there being nobody else in sight, proceeded to do a vamping act with this unsophisticated old farmer as the vampee. “My Dear,” I grinned at Friend Wife, like a fatuous fathead, “that doll over there is smil-ing at me.” “That’s nothing,” replied my “demure” little red-headed frau, “when I first saw you I laughed like ‘ll.” MRS. BILL and ye Editor spent a pleasant hour or two visiting Cole L. Blease in his offices in Columbia, S. C. “Colie,” as he is known throughout the Southland, was twice governor of South Carolina and is noted as one of the brightest criminal lawyers in Dixie. I asked him if he had much difficulty in obtaining acquittals in murder trials. “Hell, no,” answer the governor, “It’s more difficult to free a bootlegger in this state.”