Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore. FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT, CLICK HERE
PART SEVENTEEN: Resuming my look at James Larkin Pearson’s Fool Killer (Or Fool-Killer as he wrote it). In August of 1919 Pearson brought the Fool Killer (I prefer no hyphen) out of his latest hibernation with the words “After resting for two years the Fool-Killer goes on duty again.”
This time around the figure had nationwide exposure and with the enormous number of railroads criss-crossing the country by now he could get around more quickly than ever.
In the previous installment I provided the background information on Pearson and his Fool Killer. This time around we can jump right into the “fools” who were the fictional figure’s August 1919 targets:
*** People still pushing Democrat President Woodrow Wilson’s claim that the World War (1914-1918) was fought to “Make the world safe for Democracy.” The Fool Killer would swing away at such people while pointing out the less-than-democratic nature of some of the Allied Powers governments from the recent conflict, especially England, Italy and Japan.
*** Bloated rich pigs – “plutes” as this Fool Killer called them, short for plutocrats – who try to blame the “class consciousness” of American laborers wanting better working conditions on the fairly new Bolshevik government in the emerging Soviet Union. (An especially idiotic claim by the plutocrats, since American workers had been striking, etc, for decades before the Bolsheviks took power.)
*** A preacher who publicly said that he “almost wishes sometimes that Jesus would come already.” The Fool Killer added a joke wondering how that preacher would feel if he was on a trip and his wife said that she “almost wishes sometimes” that he would come back from his trip already. (Pearson was, sad to say, very religious and often took shots at clergy members he found insufficiently “devout.”)
*** White Russians (The fallen Russian aristocrats and their supporters).
*** Mossbacks (Narrow-minded conservatives. Think of the clueless, stuffy white guys in suits at National Review for just one example.) Continue reading
PART SIXTEEN: James Larkin Pearson, poet and newspaper man, carried on the Fool Killer tradition from 1910 to 1917, then again from 1919 to 1929. Pearson’s fellow North Carolinian Charles Napoleon Bonaparte Evans had written the Fool Killer Letters of the 19th Century so it’s appropriate that another Tar Heel continue the lore for so many years of the 20th Century. 
In August of 1917 Pearson’s nationwide publication called The Fool-Killer changed its title and format because of America’s entry into World War One four months earlier. That change from the hard-hitting satire of Fool Killing was made to show solidarity while the war raged. 
For Flashman Down Under, Flashman in the Opium War & Flashman and the Kings click 
The duo enjoy diving into the darker and more forbidden side of life where sex, booze and other diversions are concerned. Flashman happens to be with Burton in Egypt in early 1853 when the famous explorer begins his journey to Medina and Mecca disguised as a Muslim. 
PART FOURTEEN: FACTS FOR THE FOOL-KILLER (1909) by Ridgway Hill. 
Facts For The Fool-Killer finds the fictional character operating from Buffalo, NY and vicinity. The Fool Killer now wears the blue uniform and tall helmet of a turn-of-the-century policeman and wields a police officer’s billy-club in lieu of his usual club/ walking stick/ cudgel. 
Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore. FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT, CLICK 
PART ELEVEN: MORE MELUNGEON VARIATIONS
PART NINE: This installment draws to a close the opening era of Fool Killer lore but we have much, much more to go after this. (At left is the figure riding a train’s cowcatcher like he often did to get around.)
PART EIGHT: The previous installment dealt with the last surviving Fool Killer Letter by Charles Napoleon Bonaparte Evans, Editor of the Milton Chronicle. That letter was from February of 1879. 
In 1862 the Southern Literary Messenger quoted from a Milton Chronicle Fool Killer Letter, but without an exact date and without the whole context it’s not sufficient to count it as an 8th surviving letter. 
PART SEVEN: The seventh surviving Fool Killer Letter. (See Part One for an explanation.) 
Holmes then set out to snuff the devious old bachelor and also came across another young man who had been played false by the same woman who victimized the wagon driver. This suitor had swum the Hyco River in North Carolina, risking pneumonia at that time of year, just to see the girl. The Fool Killer advised him about the belle’s true nature and gave him a token swat for being suckered in by that designing woman and risking his life for her. 
The trio tried to persuade Butts into joining them in a suicide pact to show their faith before the imminent end. When Charles refused, the three drunken apocalypticists grew hostile and implied they might take him with them against his will. The Fool Killer intervened with his club/ walking stick/cudgel and his set of Bowie knives and slew the three loons. 
Time for another look at how fascist Democrats have distorted the “educational system” (LMAO) and transformed colleges and universities into churches of irrational thought and political intolerance. 
“Postcolonialism posits that all of the problems in societies around the world today are the result of the relatively short Western imperial dominance and colonization. For example, British imperialism is blamed for what are in fact indigenous cultures, such as the 
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