James M. O'Neill

JAMES M. O'NEILL worked as a reporter, columnist, and finished his forty year career in journalism as the executive editor of the Camden Courier-Post. He was born in Philadelphia, and graduated from Camden High School in 1924. James M. O'Neill briefly attended Haverford College before taking a position with the Philadelphia Public Ledger in 1925. He soon moved to the Camden Daily Courier, and was kept on when the Courier and the Post-Telegram newspapers merged.

During the 1930s and 1940s his column, “Checked and Double Check” by “Jiminy” gave readers the “inside scoop” on Camden politics and other things. The 1947 Camden City Directory shows him living at 501 Cooper Street in Camden. He served as a member of the Camden Board of Education in 1955 and 1956, but resigned when he moved out of the city.

On April 3, 1954 a banquet was held at Kenney’s restaurant on Market Street in honor of retiring Camden Police Department detective August Pfleiderer. Joseph Mardino chaired the committee which put the banquet together. Other members of the committee include Clifford Carr, Harry Tracy, George Ellis, Nathaniel Jones, James Mulligan, Russell Maurer, Samuel E. Johnson, Edward C. Garrity, Frank H. Ryan, James M. O’Neill, Stephen M. O’Keefe, Edward J. Quinlan and Joseph Webster.

During his time in Camden, he was on a staff that featured many fine columnists, including Ben Courter, Dan McConnell, Charley Humes, and Gordon Mackay. He retired from newspaper work in 1965.

James M. O’Neill passed away on November 11, 1970.

by JIMINY

FROM the U. S. District Court in Trenton comes one about Federal Judge George M. Bourquin, of Butte, Montana, who, as you have read, was brought here to help clear up the congested court calendar. This he has done so effectively that the district attorney’s office is hard put to it to keep up with him, while bootleggers are wondering what hit them.

At any rate, several local attorneys relate that Judge Bourquin was ten minutes late the other morning. He walked to the bench and said calmly:

“I find that I am in contempt of this court and fine myself $10.”

So saying he handed a ten-dollar bill to the court clerk, who thought that hizzoner was not in earnest. The attaché was flabbergasted when the jurist insisted upon receiving the customary receipt showing that he had paid the court’s edict.

* * *

Freddie Allen asks if the cow hadn’t jumped over the moon, who would ever have thought of vanishing cream?

* * *

THIS IS newspaper stuff that does not crash the news columns.

A local reporter covering police headquarters was being annoyed by two inebriated Philadelphia news hounds the other afternoon. They wouldn’t permit him to do his work and coaxed him to take a drink with them. Finally he told them that he knew where they could get a drink.

“The cops knocked off a place, and I know where they put the liquor,” he winked.

He led them to the detention rooms on the third floor and pointed to one of the cells. “That way,” he nodded and the two inebriates went into the cell. The headquarters reporter propelled them with his hand and closing the door, locked it.

“There are a couple of beds, fellows. There’s your chance to sober up.”

And he didn’t let them out for four hours.

* * *

One of the prize lines in the Marx Brothers’ new movie, Monkey Business, is when Marx puffs a cigar and asks pointedly of one of his frères, “May I buy back my invitation to you?” … And those ads in the New York papers from burlesque houses get funnier all the time … Yesterday’s was Lotta Hips from Eaton … And if you wanted to call the Camden police headquarters yesterday to tell them that you shot a bill collector, but you couldn’t get headquarters, it was because the telephone line was out of order! … Aside to R.W.— Thanks and we’ll use it tomorrow. As for getting away with it, we have so far … And sotto voce to Ed Diehl— We’ll be good fellas until it’s too cold to work it any more, … Then we will spill the beans … Okay! … McAmis calls our attention that when you go to the aquarium, no matter how hard you try, you can’t make a fish look you square in the eye … We saw a former prominent real estate speculator in town yesterday… Wonder if that has any significance? … And who is the Mt. Holly man who was driving the other day when a muscovie duck crashed into his windshield? … The driver was so nervous (no wonder) that he had to stop and quiet down awhile, … And what lawyer pleaded important business one afternoon last week in court to get a hearing postponed until the next day? … So that he could see the World Series game that afternoon … Another law-yer said he pushed the clock ahead an hour to get off that much earlier … And while we’re asking questions, Policeman “Dick” Powers knows a swell story about “honey” … Ask him to lend you five bucks.

by JIMINY

IT MAY be true in more than one South Jersey town, but we have a particular community in mind as we write this.

There is a certain chief of police who for some reason or other chooses to belittle the activities of one of his cops. The chief would make no record of many of that policeman’s reports, we are told, and would not tell reporters of anything done by that bluecoat, although the latter is the most active one on the force.

That cop is the only one in that department who will give the reporters an even break, which is all that they ask. The chief doesn’t want the newspapers, or the taxpayers for that matter, to know everything that happens in his department. The reporters know almost everything, or think they do, even if one of the chief’s pals, when asked the other night if there was anything along the news line, replied, “There’s nothin’ doin’, an’ even if there was, I wouldn’t give it to yuh.”

“Maybe the taxpayers will also know a few things soon. Certainly the town fathers have gotten wise to some extent, so they took the chief to task. Now you should see the police docket, beautifully decorated with stickers between the old entries. The stickers contain accounts of ac-tivities of that cop who is in disfavor with his chief.

* * *

You’ll get a laugh from this.

Although we didn’t, we wouldn’t. Louella Parsons, movie writer, recently noted on this theatrical page that it is curtains for gang pictures, because the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America agreed to cooperate with the parent-teacher associations in ceasing to glorify the racketeer and kindred gentlemen.

And so, says Mrs. Parsons, “Tiffany, which has just started on a picture called ‘X Marks the Spot,’ stopped production and changed the story into a newspaper yarn.”

And there will be those of you who will ask why any change had to be made. Is our face red or is our face red?

OFFICER John V. Wilkie forwards this one to us. He says that his curiosity was aroused by a man who walks along the curb on the east side of Admiral Wilson Boulevard, going south, every morning and some time later, can be seen walking north on the west side.

Wilkie questioned him one morning, asking him if he was a motor vehicle inspector. The man replied he wasn’t. Upon further questioning, it developed that every morning he starts at Penn and Linden streets, goes as far as the circle at White Horse Pike and Crescent Boulevard and returns to his starting point.

“I find nickels and dimes,” he continued. “Sometimes I find quarters lying in the gutters. The highest I ever found was a $5 bill. But I find something every morning.”

It may or it may not please you who work hard and lose that money, to learn that this gentleman has not worked for three years!

* * *

What do you want to bet that Admiral Wilson Boulevard won’t be con-gested with pedestrians tomorrow morning? … A Hightstown reader, R. W., sends us a clipping from a Muskogee, Oklahoma paper, because he is an admirer of “Pepper” Martin, World Series hero … The item pictures Martin as a Huckleberry Finn of the sandlots, having played ball garbed only in overalls when a kid … The clipping also declares that Martin played football with a commercial league team … In fact, he played too good, and a claim of ineligibility was filed against him and sustained … To get him out of the way, one presumes…. If only the A’s could have done that…. Although Harry Weir says that he saw Martin in Rochester and the youngster didn’t look like big-league material then… How things change in a year or so. Not only did he become big-tent stuff, but he was transformed into the most sensational player any World Series ever saw … Saturday last was a headache in more than one instance … Not only did the Mackmen lose, but Notre Dame was held to a scoreless tie by the powerful Northwestern outfit, though that is no disgrace … Navy, Princeton and Yale took the count, while Atlantic City, … conquerors of the champion Vineland eleven, took it on the chin from Collingswood … It appears that there will be another classic between Collingswood and Camden … The two are traditional rivals, and you can throw past records to the winds when they meet, whether on gridiron, diamond or court … But if Vineland beats the Colls, the Class A football race will be in an awful mess … Which is about what will happen.

by JIMINY

State police have just received orders that they cannot have pets of any kind at their barracks. Well, maybe the state cops don’t know that every police force has its pets.

* * *

We sure started something by printing that “Casey Run” practical joke. James Thompson, of Penn Street, who had an illusion show on the road, said it is a favorite joke with show people, who knew it as the “Mamie Party.”

Thompson’s victim was a six-foot ox named Ben who joined the show at Watertown, N. Y., and knew only one sentence in the English language was “When do we eat?” So at Carthage, Thompson and the others decided to get rid of him. But here let Thompson tell it:

“We framed a ‘Mamie Party’ with a country store 20 miles down the road. That night he buys candy and fruit for a girl we’ve to introduce him to so he can take her on a party with us. After the show, we all went down to a house. When we get there, we tell him to knock on the door and ask for Mamie, which he does. One of the crowd planted inside opened the door and shouted, ‘So you’re the guy running around with my wife, eh?’ and starts shooting. The goof starts running, and at the corner of the house, two more men start shooting.

“Two days later he shows up, dirty and scared stiff and starts telling us about it. One of the crowd goes uptown and gets a state trooper. We also had an office in which to hold court. The trooper places Ben under arrest for the murder of the woman’s husband, and the big lummox starts bawling that he is only a poor country boy and not a show feller. We all went to court with him, and you should have seen that court.

“Finally the judge sentenced him to be hanged at daybreak and Ben fainted. We were scared, thinking he had died of fright, but he soon came to. However, I helped him to ‘escape’ through the window. When he got outside he hugged me and thanked me for saving his life. He didn’t stop for his suitcase or fishing pole, but just took it on the lam and never stopped. We never saw him again.”

* * *

THEY tell us it happened, though you can’t believe everything you hear or read—in columns such as this. A local banker called up a local garage proprietor and asked for payment on a note.

“I don’t have the money,” was the debtor’s reply. “Let me have more time.”

“Can’t do it,” was the reply. “We want the money; it’s overdue now.”

“Yeh, I know,” groaned the garage man. “Say, were you ever in the garage business?”

“No,” denied the banker.

“Well, you soon will be if you don’t give me that time extension.”

* * *

Dr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson told the teachers here the other day that the mosquitoes in the Arctic Circle are worse than the Jersey skeeters … We’ve heard that before, and the reason probably is that they go hungry so long because there aren’t as many people up there … Because roadhouses are fewer … Although j. l. buck, East Camden naturalist and game hunter, says that the snakes, poisonous insects and dangerous animals in Africa don’t bother him as much as Jersey mosquitoes … there is more danger here from automobiles than from natives or animals in Africa, Buck told us … Moreover, the natives over there wouldn’t think of stealing, the hunter alleges … Lots of people over here steal without thinking, too, … The jails are full of them … But maybe there’s nothing worth swiping in Africa …

Labor is cheap and gasoline is high there … Also here … Because we hear that a South Jersey factory is employing men for 15 cents an hour … Ten hours a day … $1.50 a day pay … All is quiet on gangdom’s front…. For a couple of weeks, anyway… Don’t get a crush on the girl you’re dancing with at the Ambassador Club’s masked ball on the 30th in Convention Hall … She might be a he … Steve Kirby is reported negotiating with some female impersonators to flirt with South Jersey sheiks … but not to enter the perfect form contest. … By the by the new law firm of Orlando and Kisselman has the most sumptuous suit of offices in town.

by JIMINY

When a young man is in love, he thinks that nobody in the world is good enough for her except himself.

***

HEARD via the radio:

“This fellah Columbus, now, He’d be a sensation in the automobile industry today.”

“Why?”

“Because he went a couple thousand miles on a galleon.”

* * *

AND this one:

“’S funny how we carry on traditions in honor of men who are dead and gone.”

“Howzat?”

“Well, Lincoln united the land, so we are staying united; Washington freed the land, and we are staying free, and Columbus was glad to see dry land, and they are keeping it dry!”

** *

Signs of depression in South Jersey:

Maple Shade police department repairing its only fly swatter in preparing for next Summer’s flies … More lawyers getting ambulance chasers … train fares down … knickers with new suits … Certain special officers, who get paid only when they make arrests, pinching more and more motorists … Motorists coming back for a hearing rather than forfeit cash deposits … Jail becoming filled with “non supporters” who can’t raise the bond imposed on them … Fewer plans for Halloween… wood fires and empty coal bins … The price of gin dropping until they almost give it away … baggy knees.

* * *

OVERHEARD in one of the county libraries recently:

Reader: “Do you have Henry Fielding’s ‘Tom Jones’?”

Library Employee: “I don’t think so but I’ll look.”

Library Employee (after looking in the file): “Are you sure you have the right name? Are you certain that it isn’t ‘Thomas Jones’?”

* * *

What fraternal lodge has had “Check and Double Check” marks printed on its stationery? … Still those New York burlesque show ads are funny … The latest is the bill for attraction advertising “Henrietta Ham from Virginia” … What scribe had a cold the other day and after taking pills all day remarked that he felt better? … To discover that they were rheumatism pills … There was an awful uproar in political circles in a suburban town last week, because of an error … One political outfit had a sign painted containing the names of its two local candidates … The sign also bore the names of two officials of the opposite political faith endorsing the two candidates … Endorsement had not yet been obtained, we are told, but the sign was ordered in anticipation of approval … The sign painter was told to deliver the sign and place it face against the clubhouse … Instead, he put it face out where everybody could read it.

Supporters of the two officials gasped in amazement … Later, some one went out in all the rain and cut out the names of the two “endorsing” officials … What two Philly de-tectives come to Camden nearly every day and park themselves in front of a bar to “get away from it all”? … What Philly police inspector called Director Schofield up and down, and got away with it? … We know a fellow who can eat more than Charley Humes, and he’s almost skinny! … That joke about Columbus left out the fact that he’d be a remarkable man if he were living today? … Because he’d be almost 500 years old.

by JIMINY

Recommended to puzzle experts:

“The Mystery of the Rogues’ Gallery.”

We have unsuccessfully tried to solve it, as have the Camden cops, for believe you us, while the mystery does not actually shed blood, it is making some of the cops sweat blood. In anticipation of what, they do not know.

A number of the local constabulary have been receiving orders to report to Tom Stanger, Rogues’ Gallery photographer, to be fingerprinted and mugged. There has been no explanation whatever.

Now it is scarcely possible that the cops’ pictures will adorn the gallery with those of lawbreakers, however appropriate it might be in some cases. So the cops are all agog. They whisper that there’s an investigation, and they wonder who’s conducting it, why and along what lines. They wonder if somebody is blowing the lid off a shakedown scandal.

They wonder if some officer owes a bad bill. So they’re trying to remember if anything happened during the last two weeks of August and the first fortnight of September, for the cops who were vacationing then are the ones being called for photographing and fingerprinting.

Look for the birdie.

* * *

AL JOLSON, than whom there is no better comedian on the stage, has a new bagful of jokes in “The Wonder Bar.” Some of them can be printed and some can’t, not even in a column. One of the former we’ll present here with apologies to Jolson. Some of the others we’ll tell you in the smoking car or at the sewing circle.

Jolson says that his father, some 72 years old, called on a physician recently. The doctor told him to go to Atlantic City and take frequent salt baths, preferably right in the ocean. But the elder Jolson, being modest and retiring, decided he would get himself a bucketful of water at the beach and then return to his suite to bathe himself.

So he went to the beach and scooped up a pailful of water. A fresh cop saw him, bawled him out and then said:

“That’ll cost you fifty cents!”

Mr. Jolson, Sr., paid the money and returned home. About four hours later he thought it was time for another salt bath. So with bucket in hand he went back to the beach. The same cop was there.

This time it was low tide. Surveying the ebbing water in unconcealed surprise, the elder Jolson turned to the cop and said:

“Migawd! The money you make!”

* * *

And believe it or don’t, there is our friend who called up his dentist in Camden, and complaining of a severe toothache, asked the dentist if he could go to the office right away.

“You cannot,” returned the dentist. “I’m just about to go out to the country club.”

“I didn’t know you played golf,” said our friend in mild surprise.

“I don’t,” admitted the gentleman with the big pull. “I go out there to get a drink.”

* * *

IT HAPPENED not so many blue moons ago. A chap applied at a local restaurant for a job. Strange to say, there was an opening, and he was put on. But many hours had not passed before the owner became suspicious of his new hired hand. The fellow was a tough-looking, ten minute egg, and the proprietor began to fear that something would happen. So he called a detective.

“Say, bo, the owner wants you to scram,” the detective warned him. “So blow!”

“Oh yeah?” sneers the wise boy.

“I ain’t done nothin’. Dis guy hired me and I got me money comin’ to me. I ain’t done a thing.

As a matter of fact, the detective could not arrest the man, as he had done nothing to warrant a pinch. However, the sleuth took a brodie, saying:

“No, maybe I can’t arrest you, but I can take you over to headquarters and compare fingerprints.”

The tough guy wilted and scrammed.

The detective says he later learned that the hired help was a well-known racket man who undoubtedly had taken the job to “case” the restaurant for a holdup in the future.

One of the town’s better cafes was without beer for about a week, according to mournful patrons … And one of the big inn owners thinks that beer will be legalized in about another year … Then the beer will be better, as they can age it … No brewery will take the chance of keeping beer on hand to age … Not with cops, federal agents and hijackers knowing all about it … What suburban fireman went for sauerkraut the other day and did not return for six hours? … And when he did come back, had a badly swollen jaw? … That cartoon in a New York newspaper was side splitting … It depicted a modern dance hall with a lot of collegiates dancing, necking or wrestling … And one bird saying, “I’m looking for the girl I’m dancing with” … Aside to Judge Pancoast — Many thanx … Uncle Dan says that he hangs around the bakery shop because they still have some dough there … To which we add that even that dough is no good because most of it has a hole in the middle of it.

by JIMINY

A JUDGE in the Middle West says that formerly the majority of di-vorces were sought by women, but nowadays, there are more men than women asking legal severance of the matrimonial bonds. He wants to know the answer.

Alimony and depression.

* * *

In fact, that distinguished member of our Chancery Court bench, Vice Chancellor Leaming, once remarked that if there were no alimony, then would the number of divorce suits decrease. For not only do many women sue for alimony, but men seek to get a divorce first to prevent their wives from divorcing them and obtaining high alimony orders.

* * *

A WELL known Mt. Holly woman recently was seen standing at her new automobile, a very worried look upon her face. Investigation revealed that she had taken the machine out and parked it. When she returned, there was a big puddle under it.

Investigation proved that it was not oil, but water. Whereupon she began to get anxious about the radiator. New car owners are that way; when the car gets old, it has to be minus a wheel before anybody cares. But the radiator proved to be okay, and it was finally learned that her husband had bought a cake of ice and placed it in the car. It melted, as ice unfortunately does.

We’d like to report to you what the Mrs. said to the Mr., but as a matter of fact, we don’t know, ourselves.

* * *

We saw a card the other day which advises you and us not to worry. Not even if we don’t have our health. So if we are ill, we don’t have to worry. We’ll either get better or won’t get better. Even if we don’t get better, we should not worry. We’ll either die or we won’t. Even if we die, we must not worry. We’ll either go to Heaven or to Hades. And even if we don’t go to Heaven, don’t worry, because if we go to Hades, we’ll be so busy shaking hands with our friends that we won’t have time to worry.

* * *

THEN they’re telling the one about the man whose wife fell down a staircase and fractured her jaw. She couldn’t utter a sound, but motioned for him to call the doctor. He did, and when the physician answered the phone, the husband said:

“Say, Doc, if you’re around this way in the next two or three weeks, stop in, will you? My wife broke her jaw.”

* * *

That Laurel Springs councilman’s wife ought to see the card he is carrying around … Wonder if Bill Gotshalk, our genial assistant prosecutor, liked that Shakespeare play the other night? Dan Boone says we ought to be a little more careful with our use of the term “torch song” … And another redskin bites the dust … What police chiefs in this area get the dope on robberies and keep it to themselves so that not even their men know what happened? … Can you guess what dog owners that new Collingswood anti-barking ordinance was formulated against? They’re thinking of getting up an ordinance like that in Haddonfield … They’re only thinking about it, however, for the commissioners have too many relatives who are dog breeders … That car that rushes around one of the outer suburbs early in the morning is taking juice for breakfasts … They ought to start that racket at night when the shakers are clattering … That new road between Westmont and West Haddonfield is the latest speedway…

Uncle Dan says: I hang around the bakery because they still have some dough there.

by J.M. O’NEILL

Vicki Baum, author of “Grand Hotel,” and Samson Raphaelson, author of “The Jazz Singer,” are collaborating on the libretto for Oscar Strauss’ new operetta, which will be produced in New York late in the season.

* * *

E. Ray Goetz’s forthcoming musical, “Star Dust,” will have a cast of 125, but no chorus. The book is by Herbert Fields and Goetz, while the music and lyrics are by Cole Porter. Peggy Wood, Irene Franklin, Pearl Osgood and Joseph Allen are reported engaged for the production.

* * *

A new dramatic offering by Arthur Wilmurt, author of the current “Guest Room,” is in its last stages of creation. It is “Love Comes Fast” and may be done by Carol Sax. The latter has begun active work upon “Como Murphy.”

* * *

On Saturday night, the revivals at Erlanger’s theatre in New York will reach their 200th performance. The Gilbert-Sullivan troupe has given 168 performances, while the newer company, which is expected to continue all season, will have given 32 performances. Outlook for the Gilbert-Sullivan revivals in Philadelphia, is equally optimistic.

* * *

Sigmund Romberg— if you don’t know who and what he is, I hereby wash my hands of you— will direct the orchestra for the premiere performance of the new Schwab and Mandel play, “East Wind,” in New York, next Tuesday … The book is by Oscar Hammerstein 2d and Frank Mandel… Barry Macollum and Maurice Greet will soon present Dodson Mitchell’s melodrama, “Times Square” … Maurice Schwartz’s next will be “Bloody Laughter” … “Bush Parade,” the Nan Bagby Stephens play, is expected to arrive in New York next week via Brooklyn … Additions to the cast of the forthcoming Miller and Lyles musical, “Sugar Hill,” include Andrew Copeland, who was George Walker’s understudy in the bygone days of Williams and Walker … Bernard Levy has everything set for the staging of “Playthings of Broadway” … Al Regalia’s “Gun Moll” is set for production by Blumenthal and Hirsch … James W. Elliott will present “Hot Money” on Broadway Nov. 5 … “Listen, Genius” a comedy by James Ramsey Ullman and Arnold L. Scheuer, Jr., will be placed into rehearsal next week by Albert Bannister … “Hell on Earth,” a new play by Mark Linder, will be tried out by Chamberlin Brown next month … Arthur Richman’s “Giants in Our Midst” will be shown by Bela Blau as his first this season.

by JIMINY

WHETHER it is true or not, it sounds like a swiftie on a local scribe. He was out motoring with his wife recently and had his foot down hard on the gas. A state trooper materialized out of nowhere, and stopped him. The newspaperman argued and argued, and finally the cop said:

“Well, I’ll let you out of it this time, but I oughta tell your wife that you’re out with a chicken!”

The scribe’s wife started to laugh and her husband said:

“Why this is my wife.”

“Yeh,” snapped the trooper loud enough for the wife to hear. “That’s what you said the last two times, too. How she has changed!”

* * *

They credit it to B. A. Rolfe, and it’s been going the rounds. We mean that one about the tattooed lady in the circus who was discharged because the manager was convinced that the public wants talking pictures nowadays.

* * *

BILL GAFFNEY says we can quote him on this one, just so we don’t use his name:

He relates that when a present high police official was only a sergeant, a pickpocket was taken to police headquarters to be “booked” and lodged in the jail pending a hearing. The sergeant booked him and declared to the world at large:

“Nobody can tell me that these pickpockets can take your dough without your knowing it. A man ought to know when someone is going into his pockets. I’d like to see anybody trying to pick my pockets.”

The prisoner was led back to the jail. Before he entered the cell he turned around to the jailor, took a watch out of his pocket and, handing it to the jailor, laughed.

“Say, will youse give the sergeant back his watch?”

* * *

They must take their politics seriously up in Maple Shade. The other night a cat visited a political rally in the town hall and became so frightened that she scampered out and climbed into the tallest tree in the neighborhood. Once there she was afraid to descend. Several members of the police and fire departments equipped themselves with a 60-foot ladder and tried to coax the feline to come down, but it was not until 1 a. m. the next day that the cat was convinced the rally was over.

Now they tell us that whenever there’s a political affair there, the police and firemen are busy keeping the cat in leash.

* * *

OFFICER John V. Wilkie, known as the notebook cop, laid his blackjack and handcuffs on a shelf in his traffic booth at Baird and Admiral Wilson boulevards the other day. He forgot about it, and later began to wonder what had happened to them.

He searched the booth but could not find the “tools.” So he went to Mt. Ephraim, to his home, to a chapel and several other places where he had been, but could not find them.

The following day an automobile broke down on the boulevard. The driver went to the booth and asked Wilkie if he could use the telephone to call a garage. He did not know the number, so he asked for the telephone book. Wilkie reached up on the shelf over his head, grabbed the book and took it down. The handcuffs and blackjack came down with it, the cuffs hitting him in the head and cutting it open.

* * *

What police department chains and padlocks its hand traffic signals to a telegraph pole overnight … Must be a lot of honest people there … What beer baron’s apartment is ablaze with lights from sunset to sunrise every night? … Why? … The world’s heaviest reporter was assigned to cover the arrival of the Akron at Lakehurst, but he didn’t go … Now they say that he was barred by naval air station officials who said that the Akron and Los Angeles were both there, and there wasn’t any room for another blimp … The road surface on the Camden bridge is getting rougher and rougher.

by JIMINY

A news story from Paris says that the identity of the Man In the Iron Mask has finally been solved.

So let’s get to work and solve the identities of a lot of men in black masks in this country.

* * *

HAVE you heard the one about the band leader who came to Camden and broke his whistle?

Everybody wondered why the band didn’t play very much. That’s the reason.

The leader forgot his own whistle, and borrowed one from a newspaperman. Everything went well for a while. The bandsman gave his signals to the drummer in good style. Then the drums did double duty the rest of the evening.

Afterward, when the borrowed whistle was being returned, the leader said: “That was a lousy whistle. Three tunes and I blew the side of it out.”

The whistle owner thinks the band chief should take up the tuba.

* * *

Recently, when the Anti-Saloon League got wise to what the Legislature was going to do for the beer and wine situation, preachers throughout South Jersey were deluged with pleas to intercede. “Protest any action on the wine and beer bill” was the substance of the letters.

A clergyman about seven miles from Camden, whose waste basket is littered every week with unopened Anti-Saloon League propaganda, got mad. He went to the telephone and wired the president of the Senate.

“For heaven’s sake” wired he. “Pass this wine and beer bill and put an end to this deluge of paper from the Anti-Saloon League.”

* * *

ONE of the uncertain lads has written the etiquette editor asking if it is proper for a discarded fiancé to be an usher at his former girl friend’s wedding. This is a puzzler but it isn’t as bad as a situation brought to our attention recently.

The young man in question had been engaged to a damsel. Something happened and the alliance was broken off. Then, some time after, the girl invited her former suitor to the wedding— but not in the usual way. She asked him to bring his saxophone and get up a little orchestra for dancing after the ceremony. The punch of the story is that the fellow did it. Perhaps there was joy in those toots— Who knows?

* * *

What newspaperman was playing polo the other night and was thrown for a goal? … They say that George Zeller will be appointed head of the Bordentown prison farm … Steve McKiernan, buddy of the escaped prisoner who blew out his brains rather than be captured alive was not implicated in that Trenton jailbreak because he’s been in “The Hole” … That being penitentiary vernacular for solitary imprisonment … Because he tried a getaway several weeks ago… Or so a little birdie would have us believe … What Haddon Avenue traffic light does not work? … And we wonder if the police have found out yet who stole the stool from one of the police traffic booths?

by JIMINY

When the trial of Harry J. Green and James A. Toland was postponed for the fourth time yesterday, Prosecutor Baldwin declared that the two men were trying to avoid their day in court. Whereas to us it appeared that yesterday was their day in court.

* * *

FIRE CHIEF Harry F. Breder, of Egg Harbor, had an unusual experience yesterday. A fire broke out in his house, and he sounded an alarm for his volunteer company to come to his aid.

But when the fire laddies got to the fire house, it was locked. They couldn’t get out the apparatus until someone found the keys. By the time they got to the fire chief’s home he had extinguished the blaze himself.

We wonder what Chief Breder thinks of his fire company now?

* * *

It is quite possible that after election, there will be more voting precincts added in Camden and various municipalities in this county. The law provides that just so many votes, 600, we believe, shall be in one district. If there are enough over that, then a new district is made. At present, there are some 69 precincts with more than 600 eligible voters in Camden city and county.

But what we started out to say is that each member of each local election board gets $25 for his election day’s work in counting ballots, etc. This is regardless of the size of the precinct. Thus, for instance, an election officer in Tavistock receives $25 for counting 25 votes. As there are four such officers, it costs $4 to handle and count a vote there.

On the other hand, an election officer in, say, the first precinct in Pennsauken gets only $25 a day. There are 134.5 registered voters in that district, so that its officers have more than 110 times as much work to do for the same money.

* * *

YOU’VE probably had a drink there yourself. We mean at that public fountain in Independence Square, Philadelphia. The fountain gives off chilled water from ice tanks below the pavement. The fountain was originally placed in Fairmount Park as part of the Centennial Exposition in 1876 by the Sons of Temperance who still take care of it.

Which is of some interest, as the temperance fountain is but a few feet from the Liberty Hall.

* * *

Judge Pancoast calls to our attention to the fact that on the road from Hammonton to Tuckahoe is a sign post, on one hand of which is the legend “Three Miles to Dorothy” and on the other “Five Miles to Pancoast” … The judge’s daughter is Dorothy Pancoast … Speaking of fire departments, as we were a few paragraphs ago, there is a certain gentleman living in the suburbs who, when there was a fire alarm for the volunteer firefighters, would turn over and keep on sleeping … But he has since been named traffic director or something while there is a fire going on… Maybe the appointment was his reward … And now Einstein says there may be a fifth dimension … When most folks would like to have a meal with two dimensions … Square … A fan writes in to say that he reads this pillar with much disgust … So that there is still some hope, as he reads it, anyway … By the by, we once more reiterate that whoever the shoe fits should wear it … Which is why we often leave out names … That is the reason why two chiefs of police in South Jersey are sore on us … We said there is a chief who not only holds out robberies from reporters, but doesn’t even tell his own men about it … The two who are angry now are the one whom we meant and another who thinks we meant him … How do you like the City Hall tower in its new lighting effects!

by JIMINY

The reason the wolf keeps away from the door is because the front step is congested with writ servers.

* * *

A most gullible soul is Justice-of-the-Peace ————, oh well, we won’t reveal his name in consideration for his feelings. Suffice it to say that he is a squire somewhere in Camden County.

About two months ago, more or less, a resident of Lawnside was haled before him on a charge of violating the motor vehicle traffic code. The jaypee fined the motorist $2. The driver admitted that he did not have that sum but that if he were not jailed, he would pay whenever he worked and got the money.

“Okay, I’ll trust you,” nodded the gentle-hearted squire.

A month passed, but no fine was paid. Then one day the motorist strolled into the squire’s office.

“Squire,” quoth he, “I have not been able to get that money, but I think I will be able to soon. However, I’ve had my car down in a garage and the bill is $2. I haven’t got the $2 and can’t get the car unless I pay. You haven’t…, you couldn’t…”

“Sure thing” smiled the squire without hesitation. “Here’s two bucks.”

“I’ll pay you back sure,” the motorist promised.

The squire began to wonder if his trust in mankind in general and in a Lawnside gentleman in particular had been misplaced. He was shy $4, of which $2 was from his own pocket and the other $2 also likely to come from his pocket if the fine were not paid and the records straightened out.

One day his heart leaped as the motorist drove up to his office, descended from the car and entered. The driver shook his head mournfully, and the Squire’s heart fell.

“I have not been able to get that $2 yet,” the driver said ruefully. “so I thought I had better come and see if I can’t work it out.”

After a moment’s thought, the squire nodded agreement, feeling that if he could get his cellar whitewashed, the accounts would be squared. The motorist descended into the cellar, looked over his prospective task and then said to the squire:

“I don’t think it will take long to do that. I can get the materials down the road for about $1, if you will give it to me.”

This the squire readily did and the motorist departed. He must have declared a moratorium on debt and work, for he has never returned.

* * *

Workers and business men in the vicinity of Broadway and Federal Street can now sympathize with those whose offices or establishments are near Fourth and Market Streets, for both have to put up with a good deal of noise. At Fourth and Market the rap-rap-rap of rivet guns is almost deafening, but is, of course, necessary.

About the other, though, we aren’t so sure. We refer to the unearthly shrieks emanating from the traffic signal at Broadway and Federal. A siren has been attached to the signal, perhaps as an experiment, perhaps as a permanent adornment. It blows every time the light is changed to and from amber. When the light is red, it will blow as it is changed to amber and then again when going to green.

The idea is okay, warning motorists of the changing lights. But it also warns everyone else within the radius of a block. Nowadays the employees in the nearby municipal buildings hear the siren and stretch, yawn and rub their eyes, like you and we do when the alarm clock rings.

Too, the purpose of the amber light is voided, as the noise is such that the cops on duty there make the change so quickly as they can, because aspirins cost dough.

* * *

Corporal Joe Camp, of the state police barracks at Haddon Heights, is now a daddy … Daddy-Long-Legs, in fact … Some of the Philadelphia banks have asked firms having deposits there to pay their employees in cash instead of by check … Thus doing away with a lot of work at the banks, thereby curtailing expenses. But that plan may not be so good, inasmuch as a man who is paid by check generally cashes it at a bank and is more likely to deposit some of it there than the man who gets cash from his employer and doesn’t have to go to the bank … The skids are being prepared for what police official in South Jersey? … Wonder who the prosecutor referred to when he said “unsavory persons” congregating at a county inn? … Does he mean some of those who congregate almost nightly in a suburban apartment house? … And there are some pretty tough characters who gather regularly on a couple of the best-lighted street corners in the city… Only they can’t close up corners. Nor can they always lock up the loungers, because lots of times you’ll find a cop lounging too.

by JIMINY

Leon Mickelman calls our attention to this week’s Lucky Strike advertisement in which Loretta Young, movie star, endorses that brand. The ad says she has been smoking Lucky Strikes for four years… She started young as she is only 18 years old.

* * *

ANOTHER friend (it’s lucky for us that we have some left or there’d be no column some days) tells us that a moving van on its way to New York passed through a certain South Jersey town the other day. As it drew opposite a church, it caught fire.

The driver jumped off the truck and ran to the firehouse to sound the alarm. With a great ado, the firemen arrived at the scene and then helplessly stood by, watching the truck burn. Finally, when the truck had been almost totally destroyed, a woman asked one of the firemen:

“What’s the matter with the booster tank? It has 100 gallons of water in it. Where is it?”

“Oh,” said the fireman. “We forgot we had it!”

* * *

In the Laurel-Hardy film, replete with wise cracks, is one that doubles you up. Coming—

Professor: “What is a comet!”

Student: “A star with a tail on it.”

Professor: “Correct. Now one of you name one!”

Another Student: “Sure, Rin-tin-tin!”

* * *

“WHEN nothing of note happens around here, we resort to the wires for material. So we come up with this one:

Up in Peabody, Mass., a number of couples who parked and sparked were robbed by bandits recently. Many of the victims did not report the thefts for obvious reasons. Others did.

Finally, Chief of Police Edward F. Pierce offered to supply police rifles and plenty of ammunition to anyone who wished to park in lonely sections of Peabody at night but were afraid to do so because of the holdup men.

Yesterday, there were 22 applications for rifles.

Two of them were from girls!

* * *

If some South Jersey police official would make a similar offer and some women applied for rifles maybe a lot of husbands would toe the mark.

* * *

Someone opened all the fireplugs on Westfield Avenue the other night to clear them of rust, we suppose… East Camden looked like Johnstown … And the auto drivers cussed as their cars skidded around … What bachelors’ club was recently closed by a South Jersey mayor? And what new nightclub has just opened? The dry’s feel quite elated because three of the biggest breweries in the state are now under padlock … And what beer drop raided in New Jersey recently was connected by a pipeline to a big brewery which the federal agents cannot touch because it is protected by a federal court injunction? Some news stands in Camden are again displaying magazines whose front covers are adorned with women who are not adorned with clothing … What well-known local bachelor really ran out of gas late at night recently? And when he said, “We’ll have to get out and walk because I’ve run out of gas,” his companion slapped him down … Got enough?

by JIMINY

It’s about time that all newspaper editors get together and adopt a resolution not to print anything about Capt. Frank Hawks except when he does not hop off to break a speed record.

* * *

DOWN in Haddon Heights, the Male Chorus is going to entertain the Schuylkill Falls Chorus at a Halloween party. The chorus has stipulated that no one come masked. Maybe they’re afraid a crooner would sneak in on them!

***

Fred Allen says he went into a restaurant one day, and upon being handed a menu card, said he wouldn’t want much to eat “before the race.” He ordered a fruit cup, and when he had finished that said:

“We’ll do away with the soup, and get right down to the meal. Let’s have a small steak, because it won’t be long before the race begins.”

The waiter raised his eyebrows but did as he was told. When Allen finished the steak, he was again handed the menu. He smiled wryly.

“I guess I won’t have dessert, waiter. There isn’t time before the race.”

“May I ask,” the waiter inquired, “what is this race you’re talking about?”

“Sure,” agreed Allen, rising from the table and reaching for his hat. “The race is starting right now between you and me for the door.”

***

AND then a contributor tells of a South Jersey couple’s recent elopement. The prospective bridegroom, fearful of the quick temper of his future father-in-law, gave the One Girl a rope ladder so that she could get out of the house without disturbing anyone.

That night he waited under the window, and down came one end of the ladder. A couple of suitcases followed, and then the One Girl descended.

“Dear,” the swain whispered, “hadn’t we better hide this ladder so that it won’t attract attention?”

“Don’t bother,” replied the gal, “father told me he’d pull it back so that even if you change your mind, I can’t come back!”

***

They tell us that the depression has hit the high school and prep school football stars … Because colleges are cutting down on scholarships … Until he went on a diet, the whole year around is Halloween for our fellow columnist, Charley Humes… One of the contributors, Harry Beck, says that’s because Charley was always a-goblin … Figure that one out … When he isn’t writing politics, Lou Gale makes pretty good bowler … Which he proved to (Funnies) Fitz the other night … That newspaperman who was tossed by a horse the other night while playing polo, is a former cavalryman … Since then he’s played another game and this time didn’t fall … He says he scored two goals, one of which the horse kicked in … What prominent official was at a Republican rally the other night and spoke in behalf of Mr. Baird? … And a couple of days later appeared at a Democratic rally and spoke for Mr. Moore? … A hundred percent American as it were … If only we could write lots of things we hear along the political front … But we can speak of that prohibitionist candidate’s sign, which reads: “If You Want Prohibition, Vote for Soandso” … And under it, someone scribbled: “What’s It Like?”

by JIMINY

THE FIREMEN of that particular town are plenty bothered about it all. We refer to that incident the other day when a field fire threatened several homes. A woman telephoned, not the firemen, but the police department of the adjacent town. The police then called the cops of the town in which the fire was burning, but merely said that “there’s some trouble over there.” An officer was sent to investigate, and then he called the firemen.

So that just 12 minutes elapsed from the time the woman called until the firemen arrived, because of the roundabout way of giving the alarm and the crossed reports of what was wrong. Therefore, the woman soundly upbraided the firemen for being so tardy.

The firemen feel that this was unjust, particularly when they learned, they allege, that the fire was started by the son of the woman who called the cops.

* * *

There was quite some speculation in our own fair city, where the cops are now on their toes. A truck driver left his vehicle almost in the center of the street while he went into a restaurant to grab a bite to eat. A cop gave him a ticket, and rightly so, because the truck hindered traffic.

However, while the cop was handing out tickets, he might have given one to the driver of that beer truck which was parked in front of a nearby fireplug and facing in the wrong direction. But he didn’t.

* * *

If O. O. McIntyre can do it, what’s to stop us? We mean mentioning the name of a town or city, and then writing the first thing that pops into our mind in association with the burg’s name.

For instance, whenever the town of Hopewell is mentioned, we’ll always think of the Lindbergh kidnapping. If the city of Trenton is mentioned, the first associated word that comes to us is “speakeasies.” Atlantic City reminds us of sunburn and Mickey Duffy murdered, and so on. Let’s go:

Camden, beer; Collingswood, Sunday Blue Laws; Clementon, open Sunday; Maple Shade, whoopee parlors; Lakewood, gambling; Marlton, harvest home fetes; Blenheim, Mary McClyment and the bouncing bullet; Bellmawr, roadhouse paradise; Magnolia, the former beer garden grove; Somerdale, apple cider; Laurel Springs, watercress; Mt. Holly, Ellis H. Parker; Lindenwold, cinder jabs; Kirkwood, old Lakeside Park; Pine Hill, weekend parties; go slow, state police barracks; Juliustown, a real country general store; Medford, the Vaughns and the Klines; Wrightstown, soldiers; Bordentown, a dry spot; Roebling, bootleggers; Moorestown, aristocracy and tough on speeders; Jobstown, Sinclair stables;

Pitman, where South Jersey’s second best checker played lives; Masonville, plenty of Masons; Pine Valley, where a golf club is a borough; Rancocas, the rum barge scandal; Chatsworth, Emilio Carranza killed in plane crash; Atsion, Rider murder case; Lakehurst, dirigibles; Hainesport, liquor parties; Pennsauken, political battles; Gravel Switch, snake hunting; Ong’s Hat, one-house town;

Millville, grown-up mosquitoes; Vineland, poultry and the Lilliendahl case; Ship Bottom, rough surf; Beach Haven, clam treading; Tabernacle, cranberries; Haddonfield, tree cutting; Merchantville, chicken dinners and scrapple breakfasts; Long Branch, Stanford White; Rumson, millionaire’s homes; Atlantic Highlands, rum ships; Pemberton, one-man regime; Riverton, investigations; Palmyra, beer drop; Fortescue, fishing; Turnersville, the former fining mill; Chews Landing, Woods’ murder; Barnegat, light-house; Mt. Ephraim, where if they fire a cop there would be no police force; Williamstown, smoked ham; Haddon township, Jack the Hugger; Cape May, swell beach; Pennsgrove, man-sized fires; New Brunswick, Hall-Mills; Blackwood, bungalow parties;

Elizabeth, federal agent murdered in brewery raid; New York, swell floor show at the Hollywood, plenty of bright lights and whole reams of paragraphs; Ashland, where firemen were late for a blaze because somebody stole the gas out of the fire engine; Glendale, Walt Whitman’s former home; Toms River, Hattie Evans’ trial; Bridgeton, rum scandal; Ocean City, tent city; Woodbury, Rose Sarlo case; Pedricktown, enough explosives to blow South Jersey off the map; Gloucester, saloons and old race track.

And now watch a lot of Chambers of Commerce burn up.

by JIMINY

by JIMINY

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by JIMINY

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by JIMINY

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by JIMINY