Baltimore Evening Sun (9 May 1911): 6.

The Chicago Evening Post turns aside from the considerations of grave matters of political economy and international polity to marvel upon the richness of the English language. Even for such an humble thing as a beard, it says, there are no fewer than six names in common usage, to wit:

The Post, alas, tells but half of the tale—perhaps but a tenth or a hundredth of it. Many other esteemed substantives indicate that disappearing fabric of hair. For instance:

And the end is not yet. The English language, like some magic mine, yields illimitable gold. Its riches are never exhausted. Its synonyms are as the sands of the seashore.

A gentleman is one who never strikes a woman—without provocation.

Dr. Ronald T. Abercrombie’s discovery that Baltimore’s Coroner system is obsolete is itself somewhat behind the times. We have nine coroners, at $1,000 a year each, to do the work that one coroner, at $3,000 a year, might do far better. Coroners who, like Dr. Abercrombie, take their work seriously and actually try to earn their honorariums are rather rare. The average coroner is a more light-hearted fellow. Sometimes it takes the police 12 hours to find him. Meanwhile, the gentleman who demands his attention reposes at the morgue.

But after all, that is an evil which most of us can bear. The corpse doesn’t care; his relatives, as a rule, are not over-eager to bury him; and as for the police, hunting people is their regular trade. The chief objection to the present system, indeed, is an objection against wasting money. Why pay $9,000 a year for work that might be done for $3,000–or even less?

There are, I should say, about 200 coroners’ cases in Baltimore every year. Why not let the police magistrates hold inquests, with the aid of a coroner’s physician? That coroner’s physician might be paid $5 a case for his services. Nine times out of ten only the most elementary sort of professional skill is demanded. Did the man die of sunstroke or of a mule’s kick? A second-year medical student, if sober, could answer—and he’d be glad to do it for $5, or even for $2.

Under the present system the coroners never tackle knotty problems. Whenever there is any actual doubt about the cause of death they call in the medical examiner, an entirely distinct officer, and put it up to him. The medical examiner, I believe, gets $1,500 a year, and he has an assistant, who probably gets $1,000 or so. The present medical examiner is Dr. N. G. Keirle, an extremely conscientious and efficient man. When Dr. Keirle appears in a case the truth comes out. Unlike certain coroners of the past, he does not ascribe all unaccountable deaths to “heart trouble,” whatever that may be.

A coroner’s jury consists or 12 men, but most coroners summon 18 or 20 in order to have enough left in case some of those summoned die or take to drink before the inquest. The summoning is done on the public street, and is without ceremony.

Say a man is killed in an elevator. The coroner, dragged to the scene by the police, views the body, decides that an inquest is necessary, and then, accompanied by a catchpoll in uniform, steps to the sidewalk and lays his hand upon the first 18 or 20 men that happen to come down the street. When the jury is complete it is taken in to view the body—a proceeding often disastrous to delicate nerves. Then it is dismissed, to meet at the district station house that night and hear evidence. The jury must actually see the body, and if it is at the morgue a journey there is necessary. The jurymen get nothing whatever for their service.

The law provides that the body of a man killed on the streets shall be handed over to his relatives or to any friend who agrees to bury it. Any person who knew the man during life may qualify as a friend. In case no claimant appears the body is sent to the morgue and there it is held for “a reasonable time.” Then the Anatomy Board is notified. If the deceased is a likely-looking fellow, he goes to the cold-storage room at the Johns Hopkins Medical School. If not, he is buried in the potter’s field. The law provides that his funeral must be of extreme simplicity. The limit of expense, in fact, is fixed at $7. Several years ago attention was called to the fact that the graves in the potter’s field were so shallow that—

But let us not go into that matter.

Let the coroners alone. We can stand them. By the time a man comes before them officially he has lost all interest in reforms. But the Baltimore ambulance system really needs attention. Suppose you are run over by a trolley car and your leg is cut off. Well, you will lie in the gutter, guarded by a policeman, until the patrol wagon from the nearest police station reaches you, and then you will be dumped into it—by policemen—and hauled to the nearest hospital, where a couple of young doctors, one year out of college, will exercise their art upon you. On the way to the hospital you will probably bleed to death. Patrol wagons carry no surgeons.

In all other civilized cities those who are injured or taken ill on the streets are picked up, not by patrol wagons, but by ambulances, and in each ambulance there is a surgeon. He may be a youngster, but he is at least able to tie up an artery. In Baltimore the police do their best. Far be it from me to attack them: I may be in their hands before these lines are in type. But it must be obvious that when it comes to dealing with a spouting artery or a case of sunstroke, even the most virtuous policeman has limitations.

But who cares a hoot? We go on our simple, barbarian way, straining at gnats and swallowing camels. It is a felony in Baltimore to perform Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on Sunday afternoon—or at least a misdemeanor. But it is perfectly lawful to let a citizen bleed to death, or to keep stinking chickens, or to have typhoid at home and infect the whole household, or to keep a dog that makes sleep impossible within 100 yards, or to be a boomer and torture the public ear with balderdash.

After all is said and done, how many victuals are genuinely and constantly appetizing as pigs’ feet in jelly?

Blackamoors smear the tree trunks with whitewash and elegant Neapolitans, laying aside the razor and the pushcart, practice fearful cadenzas upon the E flat clarinet. In brief, the summer parks prepare for trade. Three weeks will see them all open. A heavy miasma from singeing popcorn and hot frankfurters. Barkers barking. The sextet from “Lucia.” Young devils ogling the girls. Babies bawling. The crowded trolley. Comedians.

Even the serious Germans, it appears, have a rich and racy slang. Here are some examples that I lately clawed out of a German dictionary:

• Bierfisch (beer fish), the little bits of cork that sometimes float in beer.
• Bierrede (beer harangue), a speech made at a banquet.
• Bierbass (beer bass), a heavy, unmelodious masculine voice.
• Bierbruder (beer brother), a barroom acquaintance.
• Biereifer (beer zeal), extraordinary and absurd enthusiasm.

H. L. Mencken