The American Credo Part 17

--297

That whenever a negro is educated he refuses to work and becomes a criminal.

--298

That whenever an Italian begins to dress like an American and to drive a Dodge car, it is a sign he has taken to black-handing or has acquired an interest in the white-slave trust.

--299

That, in the days when there were breweries, the men who drove beer-wagons drank 65 gla.s.ses of beer a head a day, and that it didn't hurt them because it came direct from the wood.

--300

That, until the time of American intervention, the people of the Philippines were all cannibals, and displayed the heads of their fallen enemies on poles in front of their houses.

--301

That whenever a crowd of boys goes camping in summer two or three of them are drowned, and the rest come home suffering from poison ivy.

--302

That whenever a will case gets into the courts, the lawyers gobble all the money, and the heirs come out penniless.

--303

That every female moving-picture star carries on an intrigue with her leading man, and will marry him as soon as he can get rid of his poor first wife, who took in was.h.i.+ng in order to pay for his education in the art of acting.

--304

That all theatrical managers are Jews, and that most of them can scarcely speak English.

--305

That a great many of women's serious diseases are due to high French heels.

--306

That if one does not scratch a mosquito bite, it will stop itching.

--307

That when a girl gives a man a pen-knife for a present, their friends.h.i.+p will come to an unhappy end unless he exercises the precaution to ward off bad luck by giving her a penny.

--308

That whenever one takes an umbrella with one, it doesn't rain.

--309

That the cloth used in suits made in England is so good that it never wears out.

--310

That cinnamon drops are coloured red with a dye-stuff manufactured out of the dried bodies of cochineal insects.

--311

That the missionaries in China and Africa make fortunes robbing the natives they are sent out to convert.

--312

That there is a revolution in Central America every morning before breakfast, and that the sole object of all the revolutionary chiefs is to seize the money in the public treasury and make off to Paris.

--313

That whenever there is a funeral in an Irish family the mourners all get drunk and proceed to a.s.sault one another with clubs.

--314

That all immigrants come to America in search of liberty, and that when they attempt to exercise it they should be immediately sent back.

--315

That whenever a rich American girl marries a foreign n.o.bleman, he at once gets hold of all her money, then beats her and then runs away with an actress.

--316

That if one begins eating peanuts one cannot stop.