Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, March 1924 · page 24 of 71
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #57 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from the satirical magazine contains three gossip-style items mocking entertainment figures and social issues: 1. **The opening anecdote** sarcastically describes a wealthy man shooting the "wrong guest" after picking up a stray pistol, blaming drug use ("dope"). The satire criticizes how wealthy, privileged individuals commit violence yet society excuses it through convenient explanations like drug addiction—treating such crimes as inevitable rather than criminal. 2. **Bayard Veiller** (real playwright, author of "Within the Law") is ridiculed for not paying his tailor, receiving a lawsuit ("suit—not of cloth") instead. The mockery uses flowery language about his appearance and cologne. 3. **Ruth Roland** (silent film actress known for serials) is presented as unusually frugal, saving her vaudeville earnings—the item implies this contradicts the stereotype of lavish-spending performers. The satire targets wealth, excess, and the entertainment industry's reputation for extravagance and poor character.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
22 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang his beautiful movie star mistress at a New Year's night party, and so he naturally picks up a target pistol lying loose in the car, calmly walks into the house, gets the *wrong* gentleman guest in the kitchen and shoots him. Very probable. Dope causes a good many queer actions from its devotees, and when a man is normal enough to drive a big car, and has never killed any one before, he has a habit of picking off oil princes and puncturing one of their lungs with a target pistol. But let us blame it all on dope. The more charges, the quicker we get rid of the insidious fester in the nation's heart. * * * As to Bayard Veiller, author of "Within the Law," his tailor says he may be a playwright but he doesn't play right when it comes to paying. He has been presented with a suit—not of cloth. Those who know say that the playwright is not only arrayed like the lilies of the field, but is redolent as the bottles of the boudoir; wherefore, they aver, he is worth both seeing and smelling. * * * LOTS of persons who sit on the non-paying side of the footlights may wonder what the actors and actresses do with the fabulous salaries they get or are supposed to get. (That is, such parts of the emoluments as remain after they have laid in their weekly supply of diamond tiaras and spats.) Well, in the case of Ruth Roland, that thrifty actress, used the contents of her vaudeville pay