Advertising -- Fiction; Bank employees -- Fiction; Labor unions -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Satire
They therefore removed their engagement-rings during business hours.
In Thursday's papers were printed the facsimile of a certified check for
ten thousand dollars signed by H. R. It was a sample prize. All checks
would be exchanged for cash before the Hunger Feast began.
_Save your coupons!_
This was already the commercial slogan of a great nation.
On Friday H. R., knowing that even perfectly beautiful girls cannot hold
the attentive interest of New York unless infractions of the Seventh
Commandment are provided in relays, gave out a statement for the
newspapers. The newspapers not only printed it, but featured it.
Heretofore [said H. R.] when charitable folks have given
money to organized charity they have never been able to feel
certain that the money went to the right people. Organized
charity has been compelled to be careful. While the merits
of the case were under investigation it has frequently
happened that the case has died of starvation. Now, genuine
destitution needs not life-insurance examination, but common
sense and ordinary Christianity on the jump. We have
undertaken to feed the hungry who have no money to buy food
with. If anybody out of the thousands who will be fed by us
is proven to be an undeserving object of our charity I will
give one hundred thousand dollars par value in gilt-edged
securities to any organized charity approved by Mr. George
G. Goodchild, president of the Ketcham National Bank, who,
being my prospective father-in-law against his wishes, will
be glad to have me lose the money.
Modern methods of efficiency have been applied to charity
for the first time. Hence this meal, scientifically studied,
artistically concocted, digestible, delicious, and filling.
There will be no graft, no throwing away of the public's
nobly given money, no dietetic fads, no scientific sawdust,
no waste, no salaries, no fraudulent hungers, no inhumanity,
no maudlin sentiment, nothing but common sense now first
applied to charity by New York. The Mammoth Hunger Feast,
marking an era in the life of the great metropolis, will
begin at 8.30 P.M. in order to give time for all
ticket-holders to dine at home. Well-fed New-Yorkers will
therefore be able to see with their own eyes how starving
people eat--people who have no money to buy food with.
Before each ticket-holder takes the seat to which he is
entitled he, or more probably she, will receive ten thousand
dollars in cash, by simply using brains. Let us see if
New-Yorkers are as clever as they are charitable. Also, I
shall marry Grace Goodchild in June.
[Signed] H. R.
A great many people announce an epoch-making idea and expect the world
to remember it ever thereafter. H. R. knew that, living in a republic,
he must iterate, reiterate, repeat, and sign every time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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