Baltimore Evening Sun (10 July 1911): 6.

A large blue book entitled “A Quarter Century of Moral Legislation” comes from the studio of the International Reform Bureau at Washington. Opening it at random I find, on page 145, the following important contribution to human knowledge:

Any physician who cares to take the time will tell you that among the dreadful results of beer drinking are lockjaw and erysipeias.

The difficulty, of course, is in finding a physician who will take the time.

An attempt at a road map of the New Thought and its branches:

[This diagram is a reoriented and redrawn version of the tree diagram in the original article.]

This, of course, is merely a sketch map, and, like all sketch maps, it is rough. Perhaps some gentleman in the house will kindly favor me with suggestions for its improvement.

A glance at Variety, the organ of the vaudevillians, offers pleasant entertainment to the connoisseur of American idiom and slang. The fashionable term for Shakespeare’s “palpable hit,” it appears, is now “clean-up.” A performer who gets more applause than any other performer on the bill is said to “clean up the show.” Contrariwise, a performer who takes the booby prize is said to be “lost” or “smothered.” One member of a “duo” may be “smothered” by the other member. A performer who is habitually “smothered” becomes known to the managers as a “citron” and it takes a lot of eloquence to make them book him. But a performer given to “cleaning-up” is called “the goods” and the managers are very polite to him.

To play in the first-class vaudeville houses, such as the Maryland Theatre, is to do “the big time,” while to play in the lesser houses, such as the Victoria and the New Theatre, is to do “the small time.” The difference between the big and the small time is chiefly a matter of admission charges. The big time houses charge from 25 cents to $1 for seats, while the little time houses are content with from 10 to 30 cents. There is, however, a movement on foot to advance the little time scale. Next season, on the Poli circuit, the maximum will be 50 cents, and some managers are even talking of going to 75 cents.

The witticisms of a vaudeville comedian make up what is called his “patter” or “chatter.” If he appears before a flat drop curtain and not in a room-setting, it is “sidewalk patter.” If he appears alone, he is a “monologist” or “single.” If his remarks are in what he regards as negro, Irish, German or Yiddish dialect, he is a “dialectician.” If he uses ordinary American, he is “straight.” To tempt applause with jocosity which borders on obscenity is to use “the blue material.” Such material is also called “raw stuff” or “the off-color.” “No one,” says the critic of Variety sagely, “ever made the big time through blue material.” Vaudeville audiences, in fact, are excessively moral. Jests that would bring down the house at Ford’s or the Academy of Music would cause a scandal at the New Theatre.

An acrobette act is commonly called a “strong arm” act, and its value is measured by its “speed.” The superlative of “speedy” is “snappy.” An acrobat who stands on the stage and catches his whirling partner is called an “understander.” The fellow who does the actual jumping is a “flier.” An Irish comedian to a “harp.” A musical director is a “professor.” A scene-shifter is a “grip.” An acrobat who does not venture into space is a “ground tumbler.” The plot of a vaudeville sketch is its “frame-up.” Buffoonery is “the eccentric stuff.” An act which begins well and then proceeds to grow dull is said to “slide backward.”

Vaudeville performers, following George Ade’s Zoroaster and Zendavesta, show great partiality for fantastic stage names. A glance down the “artists’ routes” column in Variety reveals the following: Keno, Zanzig, Zouboulaki, Rapolo, Surazai, Zeno, Nadja, Mermaido, Groog, Miramba, Mardo, Lebaron, Osterlu, Fonda, Mahimby, Outbank, Montambo, Ro-Nero, Pero, Prosit, Ozay, Titmarsh, Sevengala, Scintella, Tambo, Zeda, Zanfrella, Vedmar and Sytz.

Female performers seem to be to French and pseudo-French names—De Vegg, De Milt, De Grace, De Marlo, De Oesch, De Velde, De Clainville, De Frates, La Moines, La Noile, La Ponte, La Vine, La Vette, L’Arrivee, Le Hart, Le Dent, Le Pearle, La Centra and other such absurdities.