PERSIFLAGE AND FURBELOWS

Old Timey cartoonist Frederick Burr Opper on the birth of Happy Hooligan:

"It happened that they wanted a new series of comics, and I set about inventing one. I thought of a tramp. Tramps were not so very new; there had been all kinds of tramps, so I decided to make him a little different by putting a can on his head. What gave me the idea was that at that time all the saloons put their empty kegs in the streets for the breweries to pick up and refill. The tramps would hang empty tomato cans around their necks, go to these kegs and tip the remains of the beer from the empty barrel into their cans."