Today -100: December 12, 1914: Which phrase sounds dirtier: large collection of Whistlers, or queer hysterical hip?

Russia rejects the pope’s proposal for a Christmas truce.

Richard Canfield, the “Prince of Gamblers,” dies at 59, after a fall on the subway steps. Canfield, whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower, owned and ran a series of increasingly upscale gambling parlors, culminating in a luxurious one next to Delmonico’s Restaurant, until the authorities cracked down a few years ago. He was an art collector and a friend of the painter James McNeil Whistler, whose portrait of him (entitled “His Reverence”) is below. He recently sold his large collection of Whistlers for $300,000.

And this is Everett Shinn’s 1912 “The Canfield Gambling House.”

The general manager and another employee of the Dominion Chain Company are arrested by the Canadian military on secret charges, which seem to be that the latter sang a German song at a banquet.

Britain says that the sinking of those German ships at the Falklands assures the peace of the Pacific Ocean.

Headline of the Day -100 (LA Times): “Woman’s Queer Hysterical Hip.” The hip in question belongs to a Mrs. Elizabeth F. Murphy Roos, now suing the Central Fireproof Building Company, in whose elevator she supposedly fell. A doctor testifying for the building says Roos, a serial lawsuit-bringer, is faking disability by dislocating her own hip. She agrees to be examined while unconscious under sedation, and is, but there is still disagreement among the doctors. She is awarded $1,500.

Queer hysterical hip would be a great name for a band.

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