"Two men had been voting for themselves at 10 cents a vote in a contest to decide which was the handsomest man in Sheepshead Bay."

In the August 20, 1893 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, there was a particularly disquieting item about sheer dandyism. A couple of vain men caused a disturbance when they used fisticuffs to try to settle a disagreement over which one was the handsomer. Such ugly behavior from such angel-faced fops. An excerpt:

“Two men had been voting for themselves at 10 cents a vote in a contest to decide which was the handsomest man in Sheepshead Bay. The money was to go to Father Hoffman’s church. The young men were evidently jealous of each other for, although in this contest money talked rather than looks, each accused the other of looking worse than the accuser, and he shortly proceeded to make his statement good by pushing the other one’s face against the back of his head. As a result, neither of these young men is fair to look upon to-day, and their good priest has brought the brawlers to book from his pulpit.

In future contests of this kind a man ought to be debarred from voting for himself. There are no good-looking men any-way, but if the girls think there are, it is their place to vote for them, not the men. Men are conceited creatures, and they ought not to be allowed to make such exhibitions of their conceit. Next time restrict the beauty contests to the girls. They may call each other mean things, but they will not use their fists and nails to wrest a prize.”