Strange Times 90: Give Children Ether

Today brings three short items on oversupplied onions, overdrugged children, and the oversupervised flappers of Shanghai.

March 31, 1921

• While his nephew Charles humiliates himself with a failed coup in Austria, the impoverished Hapsburg Archduke Leopold Ferdinand brings shame upon his family by stooping to appear in a poorly-received cabaret.

• In Westchester, an ersatz lawyer is charged with selling forged divorce papers, causing dozens or possibly hundreds of people to become unwitting bigamists.

• Following the operation to remove the bullet from his brain, Sing Sing convict Roman Leondowski shows no signs of the hallucinations or violent fits that have plagued him since being shot.

• The trial for the accused murderers of 11 black Georgia farmhands will begin Monday.

• The Weather: Cloudy and warmer today, probably showers; Friday, fair and cooler; fresh south winds.

“Eat your darn onions, because we have too many onions, and if you don’t eat your onions you will be punished by a continued surplus of onions,” says the government. It’s enough to bring a tear to your eye.

WASHINGTON, March 30.—“Eat onions” was the advice given to the American people today by the Department of Agriculture. Unless there is increased consumption of the vegetable, the department says, there will be a great waste of the old crop, of which there is now an estimated carry-over of 2,500 cars. Failure to consume this surplus will mean also a large surplus in the Spring crop, which was reported to be from two to four weeks earlier this year than usual.

“If the price to the grower is high enough to warrant shipments under present conditions,” the department says, “probably 5,000 cars of the new stocks will move. Otherwise, not only will there be a large surplus of old onions, but a surplus of the new stock as well.”

In case you are wondering, no, this is not good parenting. Although when my kid starts screaming at me during bedtime tonight, you’ll forgive me for being tempted to reach for one of the ether-soaked sugar cubes I just happen to have on hand.

WESTFIELD, Mass., March 30.—As the result of investigation by the school authorities, who learned that young children are receiving sugar lumps, soaked in ether, to reduce their appetites, Superintendent Chester D. Stiles took the matter up today with State educational and health authorities.

Ether may be bought in any quantity by a child in any drug store. Children, when questioned, said that the ether was given to them by their parents to lower the cost of living and also to [word illegible, possibly says “quiet”] those who got boisterous.

It is extremely 1921 that in a list of prohibitions that includes a restriction on a girl’s right to marry, the ban on bobbed hair is listed first.

SHANGHAI, March 30.—The Chinese Ministry of Education, fearing the spread of modern ideas among girls of tender age, has issued a set of regulations governing their conduct.

Among the things the Chinese “flapper” may not do are the following: They cannot bob their hair. No girl student may be married without her parents’ consent. There will be no leaves of absence except for good reason, and no girls over 14 will be permitted to attend coeducational schools.