A-“Could you give me a ten-dollar bill for ten ones?” B-“Oh, never mind that $20! I’ve got the right change.” C-An elderly man who had a remarkable lockable purse. D-The stranger protested that the ring was his.
By Gregory Clark, February 11, 1922.
The flim-flammer is the hardest kind of crook to catch, for he neither breaks in nor leaves traces. His victim usually sees him but a moment. He operates like the hawk – out of the blue and back again.
A humble little man in his shirt sleeves and bare head came into a Yonge street drug store. In his hand he carried an envelope stamped and addressed, but not sealed.
To the clerk he said:
“Could you give me a ten-dollar bill for ten ones? I want to mall the money in this letter, but the ones are too bulky.”
“Sure,” said the clerk.
The small man removed a bunch of one dollar bills from the letter and handed them to the clerk. The clerk handed him a ten spot.
Then the clerk counted the bills and found only nine.
“Hold on,” he said. “You’re one short here,”
“Oh,” exclaimed the stranger, taking the ones and counting them. “That’s funny. Too bad.”
And he stuffed the one dollar bills back in the envelope in full view of the clerk. Then he said:
“Here, hold this till I run back and get another dollar.”
And handing the clerk the letter, but keeping the clerk’s ten in his hand, the little man in the bare head and shirt sleeves, left the store – never to return.
But it was not just one dollar he got away with. For when the clerk, after ten minutes had elapsed, examined the letter, he found nothing in it but paper. The flim-flammer had switched envelopes. In some neighboring hotel or shop, he had left his hat and coat. This man worked his game on six stores in three Yonge street blocks in twenty minutes.
Another form of flim-flam recently worked successfully on several stores on Roncesvalles and Queen street is the $20 bill stunt. The crook picks a store where there is a girl in charge. He buys some small ten cent article and hands a $20 bill. After he has got his change, he says:
“Oh. never mind that $20! I’ve got the right change. Just give me back my $20”
The girl hands him the $20, he pays down the ten cents, and before the girl grasps the fact that there is $19.90 coming back to her, the crook is out the door and gone.
It is astonishing how this swindle works. There is a confusion in most people’s minds in money-changing that provides the cover for this particular flim-flam.
Foreigners are particular victims of flim-flammers of their own race. An Italian, who was carrying $3,000 trust funds on him, made the acquaintance of an elderly man who had a remarkable lockable purse. The elder man offered to buy his young friend a similar purse for the safe keeping of his $3.000. He did so. And in St. James Park he presented the purse and locked the $3,000 in it for him.
“Now,” said the elder man, “this is my key. I’ve left yours at the hotel. Meet me at the hotel for lunch, and I’ll give you your key.”
The young Italian, his new purse containing the $3,000 safe in his pocket, was on hand for lunch. But his friend failed to turn up. Growing suspicious, he tore open the locked purse and found some clipped newspapers. The crook had switched purses.
Strangely enough, this young Italian, returning heart-broken to Italy, met his crooked friend on board ship and had him arrested in England. But the Canadian government would not go to the trouble of extraditing him.
One of the oddest swindles, not much removed from the flim-flam yet based on a system by which respected citizens of Toronto have made themselves wealthy, was recently pulled off in New York, with a few Toronto people involved.
Two respectable and well-known financial men went up to Petrolea1, Ont., and bought a tract of land.
Then they went to men with money in New York and put up a novel scheme.
“Give us your money,” they said, “to invest in this oil property. We will dig only one well, and if we don’t strike oil within one year we will give every cent of your money back to you. To safe guard you, we will bank our money in care of a well-known trust company.”
This unusual plan at once attracted money, and the two operators sold in all three million dollars of stock.
This three million they deposited with the trust company.
They then spent ten thousand dollars on sinking a well near Petrolea. And at the end of the year, no oil was struck. So the two financiers returned to New York, drew their three million out of the trust company, and returned every cent to their investors, with the remark that it was a gamble and nothing lost.
But the trust company paid 4 per cent. on that $3,000,000 deposit. which amounted in one year to $120,000!
This the two financiers took for themselves, no mention having been made in the promise to the investors of interest!
A tale is going around about a well-dressed man buying a $500 diamond at a big Toronto Jewelry store, for which he offered his check. The Jewelers asked for references, and the stranger gave the name of the manager of the big hotel at which he was staying. Calling him up, the jewelers were informed that the man was undoubtedly good for the $500.
The stranger then crossed Yonge street to a small jeweler and offered the diamond for $100. This jeweler, sensing something crooked, slipped out his back door on pretence of testing the stone and went across to the big jewelers. When they heard of the offer, they immediately called the police. When the detectives arrested the stranger he protested that the ring was his, and he could do what he pleased with it. But he was taken to headquarters.
Then by telegram the jewelers made enquiry of the stranger’s bank in an American city, and found to their dismay that there was plenty of money to cover the check.
They went up to withdraw their charge and apologize, and the stranger said:
“Gentlemen, this episode will just cost you $1,000.”
The story goes that they paid it.
But the unfortunate part of it is that there appears to be no truth in the story.
Editor’s Note:
Petrolia is a town in Ontario. A little searching around seems to indicate that it was once called Petrolea but the railway companies misspelled it as Petrolia later, and that stuck.. ↩︎
“We wanted to find out if we could borrow some money,” I began. “We want two thousand dollars each.” We turned to our typewriters and worked furiously for a few minutes. “We ought to be able to get some capital,” I said. “I know lots of bankers.”
By Gregory Clark, February 4, 1928.
Charles turned from the telephone, where he had been carrying on a guarded and excited conversation, and his face was flushed with excitement.
“By George!” he exclaimed.
“What’s up?”
“You know that stock? Kaflooey Gold?”
“Yes?”
“I told you about Eddie getting in on it?”
“Yes!”
“Well it’s up forty points!”
“Yes!”
“Do you see what that means?” Charles was flaming with excitement. “Eddie got it at seven cents a share. He bought seven hundred dollars’ worth. He has just cleaned up four thousand dollars!”
We stared at each other in silence.
“What luck!” I murmured.
“Luck nothing!” cried Charles. “It is courage. Daring. Enterprise. The readiness to seize opportunity when it arises.”
I thought of Eddie, a rather down-at-heel acquaintance of ours. It was hard to visualize Eddie with four thousand dollars1. I could not see him in my mind’s eye at all:
“But here’s the point,” said Charles. “Eddie is pyramiding. He is buying another big block of Kaflooey Gold Mine at 47. He expects to make fifty thousand dollars in a month!”
Again we both stared in stunned silence.
“Where is he getting the money to buy the new lot?” I croaked.
“He is using his present stock to borrow the money on.”
“Lucky devil,” we both said together.
“I wish we had some capital,” said Charles. “At this time.”
“We ought to be able to get it,” I said.
“How?”
“From the banks. I know lots of bankers.”
“Do you own your house?” asked Charles in the practical, business-man tone. “Do you own a single bond? Have you any assets whatever that a bank would look at?”
“Oh, banks don’t always want assets.”
“Do you mean to say,” said Charles, “that you don’t possess a single bond in this age of bond owning, when every stenographer from the Atlantic to the Pacific owns a bond?”
“Well, I said apologetically, “I bought bonds when I was in France, but I had to sell them to buy furniture when I got back home.”
“Furniture!” said Charles coldly.
“But banks don’t want bonds,” I said. “There is orfe thing that bank presidents and bank general managers have always impressed on me. And that is that they would rather have character than security. We have no security, out we’ve got plenty of character between us. I mean what you lack, I’ve got.”
Calling on a Banker
Charles adopted the shrewd, executive expression.
“How well do you know a banker?”
“I go fishing with three or four of them.”
“But I mean bankers who would lend you money.”
“I know one.”
“If we went to see him, what would you say?”
“I would tell him that we had some inside dope on a gold mine and we wanted a couple of thousand dollars apiece.”
“What security could you offer?”
“Character.”
“Whose character?”
“We would give him our notes, and I would endorse your note and you would endorse mine. What more could he want?”
Charles gave me a pitying look and returned to his own desk.
During the morning. he was called to the phone four times, and all he said, in these conversations at the phone, was – “Well!” “You don’t say!” “Isn’t that remarkable!”
After the fourth call, he came over to me and said:
“Up ten points more!”
“Look here,” I exclaimed, “we’ve got to do something!”
“Well!”
“If Eddie can get away with this, what fools we are.”
“Agreed.”
“I’m going to see a banker. Will you come?”
“Yes,” said Charles.
So I phoned a bank manager in one of the biggest downtown banks and he said he would see us.
He was sitting easily in his large office when we came in.
“We wanted to find out if we could borrow some money,” I began. “We want two thousand dollars each.”
“What do you want it for?” asked the manager.
“We have a tip on a gold mine, and we want to buy two thousand dollars’ worth of stock in it, each.”
“You have bonds or some other security?”
“No, we have not. We have no security. But Charles is willing to endorse my note and I will gladly endorse his.”
The bank manager looked curiously at me. I thought I saw Charles wink at him.
“Let me see: what gold mine is this?” asked the manager.
“The Kaflooey Gold Mine.”
“Never heard of it.”
“No, it’s not listed. It’s a new one, and it la going up at a tremendous rate. Likely to be listed any old time.”
“Suppose this stock does not go up. Suppose it goes down. How would you pay back the two thousand dollars?”
I looked at Charles. He said:
“I suppose we would have to work.”
I thought this was a good time to put in the remark about character.
“It is an old saying amongst bankers,” I said, “that they would rather have character than security.”
That Character Question
“That is true,” said the manager. “You say that if this stock went down instead of up, you would work for the money and pay it back. Save it, in other words.”
“Yes.”
“And you have not saved anything up to the present?”
“Well, we have no surplus just now.”
“I was merely trying to get at an estimate of your character,” said the manager, mildly.
“Then you would not be satisfied with our notes, each endorsed by the other?”
“If it were my own money, I might,” said the manager. “But bank money is not our own money. It is everybody’s money, entrusted to us to conserve and invest. It is rich men’s money and poor men’s money. It is money earned and saved by hard work and foresight, by labor and genius. We have no right to play with it. To risk it. You may risk your own money. Not other people’s.”
“Then you would not take a chance on two young men’s ability?”
“To guess the mining market?”
He had us.
“Now,” said the manager, “if you were two young men in some manufacturing business and had proven yourselves efficient and displayed promise, and you came to me with a proposition, backed with the orders and support of the trade, we would listen with interest to your demand for a loan. In that case, we would be interested more in your character and less in your security.”
It was nice of him to listen to us and to show us so genially to the door.
“It was a wild goose chase,” said Charles, as we walked back to the office. “I knew beforehand that he would say exactly what he did say.”
“A fellow has got to distinguish,” I said, “between what a banker says in his office and what he says in his annual report.”
“Or in after-dinner speeches,” said Charles.
“Or in his autobiography.”
“Easy come, easy go,” said Charles. “If we could have got that money as easily as that, probably Kaflooey Mines would have dropped as soon as we placed our orders.”
“Personally,” I said, “I’m just as glad we didn’t get the money. I have enough to worry about as it is without taking on a bank loan.”
“In fact,” said Charles, “the only reason I went with you was my absolute certainty that we wouldn’t get it. Because it is against my principles to gamble in mining stocks.”
“They certainly are a risky thing. A man shouldn’t touch them except with surplus money he was going to play with anyway. Eddie had nothing to lose. He was always broke. He will probably lose this in a couple of days.”
“Let’s get him to pay back the fives and tens he owes us before he loses it,” said Charles.
At the office, on our return, there was a message to call Eddie.
“You don’t say!” said Charles, at the phone. “Well, well! Isn’t that astonishing!”
He walked slowly over to my desk.
“Eddie bought all he could get at 58 and sold it all just now at 70. He has made $14,0002.”
“$14,000,” repeated Charles.
“Impossible.”
“That’s what he says. And he says he is through with stock gambling forever.”
“No!”
“And he is going to take a trip to Europe on his $14,000.”
“Europe! Oh, man! He’ll see the Strand again, and maybe go for a bicycle ride along the Arras-Bethune road, and see Cambligneul.”
“And Houdain,” said Charles sadly.
“And St. Pol and maybe Poperinghe.”
“I wonder,” asked Charles, “if there isn’t some way a couple of young fellows could make a few thousand dollars?”
“Well, there’s the stock market.”
The phone rang and it was for Charles.
His conversation was inaudible.
“That was Eddie,” he said. “He just phoned to tell me that Kaflooey Gold had suddenly dropped to 40 and was still descending.”
We turned to our typewriters and worked furiously for a few minutes. Then the phone rang again, for Charles.
“Eddie,” said Charles, after a short conversation. “He says Kaflooey is down to 10.”
“A brief and glorious flight.”
“Yes,” said Charles. “It went up like a skyrocket with enough force to shoot one man clean to Europe!”
Editor’s Notes: This is a good representation of the stock market craze before the start of the Great Depression.
Hanged if City Clerk Littlejohn, who has seen 46 Councils come and go, can tell for a minute whether this is 1920 or 1895.
To the Bewildered Ordinary Citizen It Is Merely a Cacophony of Sounds.
Like a Big Bass Fiddle, the Mayor’s Voice Croons Steadily On Through It All.
By Gregory Clark, January 31, 1920.
Toronto’s brand new City Council is assembled functioning. It had its first business meeting and all went merry as a marriage bell. But it is so like all its predecessors that hanged if City Clerk Littlejohn, who has seen forty-six City Councils come and go, can tell, for a minute, whether this is the year 1920 or 1895. You might say, nothing changes in Toronto’s City Council but the names of its members and the fashion in clothes. And as for the latter, they change but slowly – in Toronto’s City Council.
The one thing that marks this year’s Council, the one bright incident that brings a faint ray of relief to the dreary round of City Clerk Littlejohn, in the ennui bred of nigh half a century of the company of City Fathers, is the presence of Alderwoman Mrs. L. A. Hamilton, the first City Mother1.
In the assembled Council, Mrs. Hamilton sits at the toe of the big horseshoe of benches, directly facing the Mayor’s throne. Should any alderman so far forget himself as to us open up one of those pre-1920 barrages of vituperation, the vain cry of “order, order!” is now reinforced with the presence of a lady. And some of our most irate civic parents have thus had their best teeth pulled.
But City Clerk Littlejohn, whenever the day grows drear and the Council meeting unduly tangled, scrambled and undone, raises his melancholy gaze to the toe of the horseshoe, refreshes his spirit with a glance at the lady member, and returns to his task of keeping the Mayor on the tracks, as one who breathes – “Ah, well! There are signs in the sky! A new day may dawn!”
After the manner of college magazines, we might categorize the new Council as follows:
This year’s Handsomest Man: Either Controller Alf. Maguire or Alderman Brook Sykes. It all depends how your taste runs. Controller Maguire is of the rich, autumnal type of manly beauty; somewhat on the stout side of what is called a man’s prime. His election photos temper justice with mercy. Brook Sykes is the youngest-looking member of the Council; blond, quiet, is alert. One could easily imagine him a movie star of the Doug Fairbanks or Tom Moore type; the manly kind, easy to look at. At any rate, he looks like one apart in that circle of Fathers. He looks like a Civic Son.
Homeliest Man: (Censored).
Youngest Man: Alderman Josephus Singer (who, not being Irish, and therefore not superstitious, occupies Seat No. 13).
Heaviest Man: Alderman Birdsall.
Lightest Man: Alderman Miskelly.
Noisiest Man: His Worship the Mayor.
Most Silent Man: This is a race, of apparently, between Aldermen Winnett and F. W. Johnston, with Alderman Cowan running up. Alderman Cowan’s ordinary speech consists of an ejaculation. A sentence is good going. Two sentences is his limit.
This Year’s Prophet: Mrs. Hamilton. The male members are regarding her as a sort of Mrs. Elijah. They are waiting for her to wave her mantle and hurl the challenge magnificent.
Most Serious Man: Alderman Plewman. He engages not in argument or vain clamor. When he sees his chance he points his order paper confoundingly at the assemblage, and says his say.
This Year’s Poet: Alderman Donald MacGregor.
The Most Aggressive Man: Controller Cameron, who in spite of his recent illness. still dominates the meeting, whenever he feels like it, with his Celtic fire.
At any rate, he looks like one apart in that circle of fathers.
Now, the plain citizen might regard with some awe and not a little sneaking veneration the assembling of the City Fathers. One would expect of them, dignity, precision, ease.
Let us attend a Council meeting and see.
The meeting is called for two-thirty, o’clock in the afternoon.
At 2.20, we peek into the Members’ Room: a nice, comfortable room furnished with leather chairs and cigar-fumes.
The City Fathers are already gathering. A dozen of them are draped in easy attitudes over the leather chairs and benches. All are smoking either cigars or pipes.
“Hello, Bill!” yells one City Father to another across the room. “Did ye get yer house yet?”
“Sure,” replies the other in the same prevailing tone, “bet yer hide I did.”
“Well, well!” cries another, “if it ain’t my old friend Henry!”
“Yep. Large as life and twice ‘s natural!”
I quote thus to show the easy air of friendly banter, airy badinage, that relieves the lighter moments of the City Father’s life.
The members continue to arrive. The air becomes thick with cigar smoke. Alderman Mrs. Hamilton enters, gently pressing her kerchief to her nose.
Just before 2.30, in stalks the spectacled and solemn Mr. Littlejohn, City Clerk. Several of the older aldermen attempt pleasantries with him. He seems, however, to be thinking of other things.
He sizes up the assemblage, never relaxing his dignified aloofness. Then he disappears for a moment. He has gone to see if his Worship the Mayor is ready. He is.
A loud bell rings in the Members’ Room. City Clerk Littlejohn takes the up his position at the door and stands looking in upon the members with an air of menace.
The members file blithely into the Council Chamber.
Let’s also go there.
The Council Chamber is high, but none too large for the twenty-eight members of the Council. The horseshoe row of little desks is drawn up facing the Mayor’s throne. There is an empty throne on each side of the Mayor’s. These are for visiting potentates. The Mayor’s dais is guarded by the banners of the 180th Sportsmen’s Battalion, one of the unfortunately broken-up.
The members take their seats behind their little desks. Eighteen citizens and two policemen in the steep little gallery lean eagerly forward to see.
“Order gentlemen!” booms a solemn voice from the door beside the throne. It is City Clerk Littlejohn again.
Then, with long strides, cutaway coat-tails flapping, in flies his Worship, the Mayor. The members rise to their feet. It’s a sort of “Parade, ‘Shun!” affair.
Now comes the startling part of our adventure.
Our eyes have scarce left the flying figure of the Mayor to note the rising members, the members are just in the act of sitting down, when a sudden, droning, nasal and unintelligible voice begins-
“Controller Maguire the minutes of last meeting be taken as read, seconded, carried!”
In the rustle and confusion of all the roomful getting seated, we fail at first, to locate the sound. Just as the last syllable is sung, we trace it to his Worship, the Mayor.
Yes, sir! He started his incantation as his foot touched the dais; and just as his coat tails brushed throne, he had got through the first item on the program.
Thereafter that strange, droning monotone was the motif of the whole piece.
For there is only one way to describe a City Council meeting: it is a symphony in jazz.
To be sure, the various members, officials, clerks, etc., seem to enter everything that is being said or done. But to the bewildered, ordinary citizen, it is merely a cacophony of sounds, a human jazz symphony of the cubist school.
The aldermen talk to each other. Four aldermen make at once. The City Clerk and the Mayor’s amanuensis, Mr. James Somers are both explaining something to the Mayor, while the Mayor, in his low cello-jazz voice, is reading a bill and Controller Alf. Maguire, as the chairman of the Council, is on his feet, twiddling his watch-chain and serenely explaining to the Council the meaning of the bill the Mayor is reading.
It’s a sort of mild pandemonium.
Now and then, as in all good jazz music, there is a pause, and somebody with a voice like a piccolo or a melancholy saxophone (one of the aldermen), picks up a new theme, plays it lucidly, daintily, musically, and then with a crash, fortissimo down come fiddle and drums, trombone, cymbals and bazoo; and they jazz that theme to ribbons and run. And like the oom-oom of the bass fiddles, the Mayor’s voice croons steadily on through it all.
And when it’s all over and you buy a copy of the sporting extra, you are astounded to see, all set out, the items of business done.
It’s a miracle, that’s all! A spectacle de jazz.
One thing we did catch, however, Alderman MacGregor (whose mythical voice corresponded to the fiddle in that mad symphony), rose a couple of times to a point of order and found he was just a couple of jumps ahead of the party on the order paper. His musical protestations were rudely stilled by several members.
One alderman, levelling a withering glance at Alderman MacGregor muttered:
“Fer heaven’s sake, sing!”
“For Heaven’s Sake, Sing!”
Editor’s Notes:
Mrs. Hamilton was the first-ever female city councillor elected in Ontario. ↩︎
New! Starting in 2025, I’ve decided to expand the scope from the self-imposed timeline of only posting the work of Greg and Jim from 1919-1948. This will include Jim’s comics from his start in 1910-1918 (where there are more editorial comics), and Greg’s work from 1913-1918, as well as his later work after Jim’s death. This will include Montreal Standard work from 1948-1950 and his Weekend Magazine work until his death in 1977.
The above comic appeared in the Calgary “Morning Albertan” and references locals discussing war strategy from World War 1. Lord Kitchener was British Secretary of State for War at the time. It originally appeared in the Star Weekly on January 16, 1915. It looks a little better in that printing and maintains his signature.
EVERY PASSENGER SHIP that sets out from Canada or Great Britain has stewardesses aboard, taking their chances along with the crew and passengers of being torpedoed, bombed or mined. War has increased their work as well as their danger for into their capable care have come hundreds of babies and young schoolchildren en route from Britain to America.
By Gregory Clark, January 18, 1941.
The Sea Might of Britain – instantly there springs to mind the thought of great gray ships, of captains and tars, of the navy trailing its smoke across the tumbling seas of all the earth.
But in our vision of the sea might of Britain we never remember the women who go down to the sea in ships: So this is to be some little account of the women, most of them in their 30’s up, who at this hour, all over the world, through every danger zone where men go, through submarine-infested zones, facing the same dread perils that the bravest of our navy seamen face, are serving the empire by carrying their share of the great sea tradition.
They are the stewardesses. Every passenger ship that sails the seas these days – and there are a great many of them and nearly all British – has its quota of stewardesses aboard. A good standard 20,000 tonner will carry 25 stewardesses even in these times. To the witless passenger, these women are maidservants in white. To the seasick, they are nurses. To the sea-frightened, they are companions and confidantes. To the discerning, they are a class of women unique in the world of women, and rank, in actual training and character, somewhere near the universally respected sisterhood of nurses. In peacetime, they are looked upon by the world at large as some kind of upper-class servant. But in wartime, when you see them as I have seen them on Canada-bound ships carrying hundreds of children, the rating of a stewardess rises somewhere in the direction of Florence Nightingale herself. Before this war is over, and when stories can be told, there will unquestionably be added to the sea saga of Britain the names of many women.
So far, no outstanding story of a seawoman’s heroism has been reported out of the war. But since every passenger ship that has been torpedoed or lost has had aboard its staff of stewardesses, it requires little imagination to picture the part they have played. Because naturally, the women now serving in the greatly reduced passenger traffic of the seas are the pick of their profession.
In my two crossings of the Atlantic in this war so far, the majority of the stewardesses I encountered were women of Lancashire and the West of England. They were also the wives, daughters, sisters, and in many cases, the widows of seafaring men. In all shipping companies, it is normal practice that when a man in their service dies, especially at sea, the widow is given preferment when she applies for a job as stewardess. A great many of the stewardesses you see on a ship are mothers of families.
In the Submarine Zone
On one crossing of the war Atlantic last winter, I talked with a stewardess of nearly 60 years of age whose entire family. was at sea. She came of a sea-going Liverpool family that had been in ships longer than the family records went. Her husband was lost at sea when she was a young woman of 27 with four children. She at once got a job as stewardess and supported the home while her mother raised the children. At the time I talked with this valiant woman who was trying to suppress her true age for fear of having to retire from the sea, she had two sons in the navy, one son a steward at sea and her only daughter a stewardess, also now at sea, whose husband was in the navy.
And talking to this magnificent, capable and kindly woman made me ashamed of the fears I felt as we plowed through the submarine zone. In two crossings of the Atlantic and no fewer than eight crossings of the English Channel during this war, I must confess that the greatest fear I have felt was on these ships – two days out from Britain either coming or going; and of course every minute of the time spent on the channel. The blitzkrieg in France in May never roused in me a single minute of the tension that grips every nerve for hours and days aboard a ship. German bombers, without any interception by British or French fighters, came and lobbed their terror all about. But the unseen terror that lurks in the sea has me ever on edge. Yet every day, every hour, there are ships plodding those seas around Britain. And in those ships, women, on duty.
In wartime, there is, according to three great steamship companies I have talked to, not the slightest difficulty getting stewardesses for whatever distance the voyage may be, or through whatever war zone.
“In Liverpool and Glasgow,” stated one company executive who outfits the ships, “and in almost every seaport in Britain, there are hundreds and possibly thousands of experienced stewardesses not merely with their names down on the steamship company lists, but calling every few days to try and get themselves aboard. There is no difference between the men and the women of the British navy and merchant marine. Did it ever strike you as funny that we should have no difficulty manning every ship that Britain can build? Then it should not strike you as odd that we should have trouble fending off these women trying to get jobs at sea.”
“A woman’s nervous system,” I submitted, is not as ruggedly wired as a man’s.”
“Rubbish,” said the company man who had one time been a chief steward on ships. “There are no nerves at sea.”
And that is probably right. On one of my crossings, I came on a ship that carried 1,200 passengers and crew, 400 of whom were children. Most of them unaccompanied children or, if accompanied, part of far too large a party for the sole exhausted individual woman or man who had undertaken the task. Little children, most of them, at the most helpless and help-demanding age.
At It Early and Late
Those of us who had travelled the sea knew the capacity of our ship’s boats. We knew, the first hour aboard before we left the pier, just what was fated if we should come to any grief. This crowded ship was no place for any man who was anxious about his own future.
One aisle of six cabins on that ship will forever remain in a picture in my memory. The stewardess who served it and the next adjoining aisle of six cabins was a tall, handsome woman of about 40, with auburn hair. She had bright, humorous, observing eyes. Her whole bearing was that of a spirited woman.
In this row of six cabins were – a young, terribly frightened, thin little woman with two babies, one about two years old, the other an infant of two months. Next cabin, two aged ladies who hardly left their cabin for eight days. Next, a very tidy, masterful, tweedy woman, accustomed to bossing people about, with two very tidy, tweedy, haughty little sons of about eight and ten.
Opposite side, a young woman, possibly a school teacher or governess, a gaunt, startled, doe-eyed little woman of 35 who occupied two cabins with seven children she was shepherding across to Canada. The seven were the most lawless youngsters imaginable, ranging in age from four to about nine. The last of the six cabins was occupied by two government men, technical men, in visiting whom I got my daily picture of that corridor full of riot and grief.
I wish I could tell you what sort of people occupied the adjoining corridor of six cabins that this one stewardess had to attend. It was doubtless much the same.
Let us call the stewardess Baxter. On a little sign in your cabin is given the names of your steward and stewardess. The smart thing, of course, among us upper classes who travel the sea, is to call both the stewardess and the steward by their last name, without prefix. But some of us are green and stay green all our lives, and we always call our stewardess Miss Baxter, much to her amusement. If you just call her Baxter, she can see through you and knows you’re a snob. And if you call her Miss Baxter, you’re a snob also. But since she’s a snob too, and since we’re all snobs, what’s the difference?
So it was a great pleasure to observe Miss Baxter, whose name was probably Mrs., and doubtless had sons in the navy, proving for eight days that at sea there are no nerves.
In the first cabin, when the tiny infant wasn’t squalling in that curious steam whistle tone of a new baby, the two-year-old was bellowing, and the poor, terrified little mother was popping in and out of the cabin every two minutes, carrying things, changing things, heating things, cooling things. Then she took seasick and stayed seasick six days. Miss Baxter took charge.
The two elderly ladies were seasick before they boarded ship. Ever little while you would catch a glimpse of a haggard elderly lady peering from behind the green cabin curtain, weakly crying, “Stewardess, stewardess,” and there were times when everybody, including both the elderly ladies, wished they were dead.
The tweedy woman, the competent, the accustomed, knew how to wring the most out of a stewardess. And she was also, as is characteristic of the feline tribe, anxious to teach her two haughty little boys how to wring the most out of stewardesses. One must become accustomed young, mustn’t one? That woman’s cool, level but excruciatingly penetrating voice cutting through the riot of that aisle will linger in my memory forever. Probably I will grow a prejudice as big as a piano against all women with that kind of voice.
But the spirited Miss Baxter never lost a twig of her red hair. Even her alive, darting eyes never showed sparks. “Yes, me lady,” she would say. And only she and the two government technicians and I shared the joke of that. A deep, smooth “Yes, me lady.” And me lady purred like a cat. And her two little boys thought up some more rude questions to ask Miss Baxter.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, right through the week and the day we were at sea, Miss Baxter never rested. Up at five in the morning and to bed whenever at last she could leave the situation to the elderly, stubborn and plodding night stewardess who was supposed to tend the wants of five or six aisles of cabins. I would be very surprised if Miss Baxter got to bed before midnight any night. But I know she was up at 5. Making tea for the two old ladies. Sweeping, arranging, swabbing, preparing, with the help of the steward on duty for the same series of cabins, for another day of riot.
The woman with the seven children, the governess, was of course completely helpless in two or three days at most. But Miss Baxter seemed to be doing as much for her as for any of the others.
I think she got £1 from the tweedy lady. The government men told me the transaction was very publicly and regally done. What the young woman with the two babies, what the governess or the two elderly women forked over, might have been 10 shillings or what have they? But if Miss Baxter got $1,000 for the trip from the company and gifts of precious gold from her passengers she would have been ill paid.
In Time of Emergency
In case of emergency, the duty of a stewardess is to go at once to the cabins to which she is appointed and see that her passengers are warned and assisted. When the seven blasts of the ship’s whistle – or the thud of explosion causes that anguished instant of silence on a ship, you will see the stewardesses, in their white uniforms and caps, suddenly and very swiftly appearing from every direction.
No running, no uplifted hands in feminine flutter. They set down the tray or whatever they are carrying. They pause to consider which of their charges should come first, in the ever-shifting conditions of the hours of the day at sea.
First they must see that every cabin is warned. If the lights have gone out, they must have their torches. If anybody acts silly they must quiet them.
“And the best trick of all,” admitted one stewardess, “is to ask the panicky one to help you.”
What a feminine trick! When every cabin has been visited and no one left asleep, or helpless with either illness, fear or actual injury, the next thing is to help them get properly clothed and carrying their life-belts.
“Many women,” said another stewardess, “instinctively will not obey the order to wear their heaviest clothes. They always, instinctively, grab for their newest or most fancied clothes. I’ve seen a woman head for the boat deck in her nightgown, clutching the evening gown she had worn that evening to dinner.”
The stewardess has been allotted the same lifeboat as the passengers she is assigned to. After getting them all on their way to the boat deck and their muster stations, she is supposed to follow along and see that they don’t try to dart back for something forgotten. She is supposed to check them over, when she, too, reaches her station, and if any are missing to do what she can to locate them.
They are the last women into the boats.
And when in the boats their duty as stewardess does not finish; it just begins. For they must lend aid, help, comfort and care to the women in the lifeboat and set an example of calmness and courage.
THANKS TO the ship’s stewardess, this little war guest arrives happy and smiling in Canada. Her parents in Britain could not have given her better care on the voyage than did the stewardess in whose care she was placed.
So on the ship I refer to, with the 400 children aboard, you can figure with what sort of courage the 25 stewardesses left their own homes and kissed their own children good-by for just another crossing…
On one of the Canadian passenger liners is the stewardess, Mrs. Riley. I do not know where in England she lives, or any detail of her family. She was at sea when I garnered this story, and the steamship officials did not know her domestic particulars.
But from Mrs. R. Code, of 512 Rideau Rd., Calgary, Alberta, there came to the offices of the steamship company at Montreal a letter addressed as follows:
“To the stewardess who looked after the Tredennick children when crossing on the Duchess of…
“Dear Stewardess:
“Do you remember Joy, Mary and Christopher Tredennick? They have mentioned you many times, and we realize what good care you took of them on board the ship. They got off at Winnipeg, where I met them. They stayed with me for 10 days and then I brought them to Calgary, where my daughter lives and where they are to make their home.
“When Joy reached Winnipeg she was so upset because she had forgotten her purse, but I told her it might be in Calgary, and that is where we found it. Thank you so much for seeing about it. The crossings with all those little people running about must be very trying. I marvel at how you manage at all.
“The children look much better; they are getting so brown and their appetites have quite returned. It will soon be time for the little girls to go to school. They have settled in very well and are very happy in their new home. My daughter never had any children, but she and her husband are very fond of them.
“We all wanted you to know how much we appreciated your care of the children; they send their thanks too.
“Joy wondered whether you knew anything about the bottom part of one of Christopher’s pyjama suits. It is a gray flannelette. I mention this only in case you may be wondering to whom they belong. You must have found it very difficult keeping track of their belongings, and we think you managed it very well. “I remain,
“Very sincerely.
“(Sgd.) G. C. Code
“Mrs. R. Code.”
The steamship company looked up the passenger list and found what cabin the Tredennick children had occupied. Then they checked the duty list and found it was Mrs. Riley. And they sent the letter off to Mrs. Riley, somewhere at sea or in England or Canada-bound; and also kept a copy for me and you.
Then they looked up the parcel of “lost articles” which is always sent ashore to the offices when a ship docks. And sure enough, among the lost articles, was a small pair of gray flannelette pyjama pants.
And they had been all neatly washed and pressed with an iron by Mrs. Riley before she sent them ashore.
So the pyjama pants were sent on to Calgary by the steamship company, and there is Christopher, all safe and sound in Canada, even to the bottom of his pyjamas.
And there is Mrs. Riley, complete with as nice a letter as ever came to an anonymous person. I don’t know, but that letter to Mrs. Riley and what happened in and around it somehow carries a better story of what a stewardess is and does than all my story.
When the ship docks, there is a good day or two days’ work for the stewardesses in attending to the ship’s laundry and cleaning everything up in preparation for the arrival of the passengers for the return trip. But the stewardesses come ashore and usually visit friends. You might be surprised how many Liverpool or Glasgow homes there are in New York or Montreal. Doubtless many a stewardess and many a steward has set up house in a foreign land when he tired of the sea. But they have all got friends to visit and stay with in the few days “off” between voyages. Certain hotels – not the big fashionable ones, but those pleasant, home-like hotels you find in all seaports are favorite hangouts for the stewardesses who have no friends to visit.
One odd thing about stewardesses is this, that they have to present very good credentials and must pass a strict examination before being admitted to the service of the company. With this remarkable result!
“I have never, in 40 years’ experience,” said the official of a steamship company, “known of a stewardess who got a job and made only two or three trips. When they join, they remain for a long period of years.”
Which may explain in some measure the fact that all over the perilous war seas today are British women following the sea and upholding the ancient tradition of our race’s maritime genius.
This illustration accompanied a story by Fred Griffin about the homeless sleeping at the police station to stay warm. This was before the Great Depression when “hobos” were less common. The “better ‘ole” is in reference to Bruce Bairnsfather’s famous “Better ‘Ole” comic from World War 1.
Once upon a time there were three wise men living in a hole in the ground.
The hole was deep and dark and cold. In the light of one guttering candle the walls of the hole shone wet. And down the steep, rotting, stairway ran little streams of icy water of melted snow. For it was winter, up above this hole in the ground.
In fact, it was Christmas Eve.
And the three wise men crouched close to an old tin pail, which was punched full of holes to be a brazier, and in it burned a feeble fire.
“Cold!” said the first wise man who was wise in the matter of bombs and knobkerries1 and of killing men in the dark.
“Bitter!” said the second, whose wisdom was of maps and places and distances: a man who was never known to be lost in the blackest night In Noman’s Land.
“Cold as Christmas!” added the third, who was wise in the way of food, who had never let himself or his comrades go hungry, but could always find food, no matter how bright the day or how watchful the eyes of quartermasters or French peasants.
“Christmas!” exclaimed the first. “Why, let’s see! Why, to-morrow is Christmas. To-night, boys, is Christmas Eve.”
And the three wise men stared across the brazier silently at each other; so that only the crackle of the feeble fire and the trickle of the icy water down the stairway could be heard.
They stared and stared. Strange expressions came and went in their eyes. Tender expressions. Hard, determined expressions.
“Right now,” said the first man, finally, “my girl will be putting my two little kiddies to bed. And a hard time she is having. They want to stay down stairs to see what all the mysterious bustle is about.”
He paused to put his hands over the little glow of coals. Then added:
“I sent the boy one of them blue French caps, and the girl a doll I got in Aubigny2–“
The second, who had been staring into the glow intently, said softly:
“I haven’t any kids, but my mother will be hanging up one of my old black cashmere socks to-night. She’ll probably fill it with candies and raisins, and send it in my next box. She’s probably now sitting in the red rocking chair, with my picture resting on her knee, humming the way she used to–“
The third wise man, whose eyes were hard and bright, probably thinking of the Christmas dinners he had eaten of old, drew a sharp breath, stared about him at the wet earth walls, at the rotting stairway and the water and filth all around him.
“Christmas!” he cried, in a strained voice. “Think of it! Peace on earth, good will towards men. And here we are, like beasts in our cave, killers, man-hunters, crouching here in this vile, frozen hole until the word is passed and we go out into the night to creep and slay!”
“Steady,” admonished the first.
For the sound of someone slowly descending the rotting wet stairway could be heard.
And into the hole in the ground came a Stranger. He was dressed in plain and mud-spattered uniform. He wore no rank badges or badges of any kind. In fact, he had neither arms nor equipment, which was odd, to say the least, in the forward trenches.
“I heard you talking of Christmas,” he said, “so I just dropped in to wish you the compliments of the season.”
When he removed his helmet, they saw he was fine looking man with kindly face, but pale and weary.
“Thanks,” said the first, moving over. “Edge up to the fire. It ain’t much, but it’s warm, what there is–“
“What unit are you?” asked the second, as the Stranger knelt by the brazier.
“Oh, no particular unit,” replied the Stranger. “I just visit up and down.”
“A padre?” asked the third, respectfully but doubtfully, as he eyed the Stranger’s uniform, which was a private’s, and his fine, gentle face.
“Yes, something of the sort,” replied the Stranger. “You boys were talking about Christmas and home. Go on. Don’t stop for me. I love to hear that sort of thing, once in a while.”
And as he said it, he drew a breath as if in pain; and his face grew whiter.
“Here,” exclaimed the first wise man. “Let me give you a drop of tea. You’re all in.”
And he placed on the brazier his mess tin to warm over a little tea he had left.
“And eat a little, of this,” said the second wise man, handing the stranger a hard army biscuit. “Dry, but it’ll take away that faint feeling.”
“Say, here’s an orange,” said the third, producing a golden fruit from his side pocket. “The last of my loot, but you’re welcome to it.”
The Stranger accepted these gifts with a smile that touched the hearts of the three.
“I am hungry,” he admitted. “And weary. And sick, too, I expect.”
And as he ate and drank, the three wise men continued, with a somewhat more restraint, their talk of Christmas. The Stranger listened eagerly, drinking in each word, each bashful, chuckle of the three.
And at last, the third, reverting defiantly to his original theme, exclaimed:
“But think of it! Christmas, peace on earth; and here we are like wolves in our den! How can we be here, and yet celebrate Christmas? It is unthinkable. What do you say, sir?
And the Stranger, with an expression of pain and a light on his countenance replied:
“The ways of God are hidden from us. But remember this: out of all this suffering, by every divine law, good must come. On Christmases still to be, you men must recall to-night, so that the sacrifice be not forgotten, and a mocking world again betray those who died for ideals.”
The Stranger rose abruptly.
“I must be on my way,” he said. “I have a long way to go to-night.”
And he handed the first wise man the mess tin.
“Hello,” said the first, remarking an ugly scar on the Stranger’s hand. “I see you’ve been wounded.”
“A long time ago,” said the Stranger.
“On the head, too,” observed the second wise man, eyeing a series of small scars on the Stranger’s brow.
“My helmet,” replied the Stranger, “presses heavily.”
And he bade the three good-night.
But as he stepped up the rotting stairway, the three were staring speechless at one another.
“An hungered and ye gave me meat!3” whispered the first. “A stranger, and ye took me in!”
And the three leaped to the foot of the stairway.
But the Stranger had gone.
Editor’s Notes: This is an earlier version of the story published on December 23, 1939, The White Hand.
A knobkerrie is form of wooden club, used mainly in Southern Africa and Eastern Africa. ↩︎
This is from Matthew 25:35 in the Bible. The New International Version has it as: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.” I’m not sure what version has it as “an hungered”. ↩︎
The above image is a card that would be handed out by Toronto Star Carriers to their subscribers. The red “V” on the carrier’s box would be for “Victory” so this card is likely from World War 2.
Below is a sample of one created by Jim for the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).