100 years ago in Spokane: Vaudeville acts take center stage

Here are just a few of the vaudeville acts that were entertaining Spokane audiences:

Richard the Great, described by a reviewer as “the most docile, submerged chimpanzee of them all.”

“If ever he had any temperament, disciplined has removed it and he goes through his routine in a serious manner, without a slip, a sound or a display of temper. He eats, drinks, smokes, walks a slack rope, rides a bicycle and travels around on a big ball.”

The reviewer concludes, a trifle judgmentally, that “Richard is a well-trained simian but lacks pep.”

“Hoosier Girl,” described as an “even frothier girl-and-music offering than usual.”

This act featured an “epidemic of hoseless knees, abbreviated raiment and frilly lingerie.”

“The fair maidens have several varieties of raiment, none of it of an expansive nature,” said the reviewer.

Sam Dura and Mickey Feeley, described as tumblers and head balancers. They had some “new comedy notions and heads that seem impervious to clashes with the floor.”

Danny Simmons, described as a “braw Scot in military kilts” and a strong brogue.

“Danny is gray as a badger now, but he does several flips to show the form he is in.”

Also on this date

(From Associated Press)

1930: President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which boosted U.S. tariffs to historically high levels, prompting foreign retaliation.