Baltimore Evening Sun (18 May 1911): 6.

One reason, why Baltimore strains and pitches like a ship beset by head winds:

It shall not be lawful to keep open or use any dancing saloon, opera house, ten-pin alley, barber saloon or ball alley within this State on the Sabbath day, commonly called Sunday, and any person or persons, or body politic or corporate, who shall violate any provision of this section, or cause or knowingly permit the same to be violated by a person or persons in his her, or its employ shall be liable to indictment in any court of this State having criminal jurisdiction, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined a sum not less then fifty dollars nor more than one hundred dollars, in the discretion of the court, for the first offense, and if convicted a second time for a violation of this section, the person or persons, or body politic or corporate, shall be fined a sum not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars; and, if a natural person, shall be imprisoned not less than ten nor more than thirty days in the discretion of the court, and in the case of any conviction or convictions under this section subsequent to the second, such person or persons, body politic or corporate, shall be fined on each occasion a sum at least double that imposed upon him, her, them or it on the [text missing] proceeding conviction; and if a natural person, shall be imprisoned not less than thirty nor more than sixty days in the discretion of the court.

This barbarous statute was passed in 1874, as a sort of extension of the law of 1723, prohibiting “gaming, fishing, fowling or hunting” on Sunday. Let us see what it means.

Suppose that Mr. Bernard Ulrich or some other impresario engages the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or some other great orchestra, to come here on nine successive Sundays to perform the nine symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven, and that, with the aim of interesting all Baltimoreans, rich and poor, in the greatest music ever written, he sets the price of admission at 10 cents. Suppose he further fixes upon 4 P. M. as the time for beginning each concert, so that there shall be no interference whatever with the regular services in the churches. What will the law of Maryland say to him?

It will say to him, in brief, that he a a common rogue, and it will say to him further that, for his gross offense against the public morals, he must pay a minimum fine of $25,560 and roost in jail for a period of 220 days. This, let it be remembered, in the minimum punishment provided by law! Given a judge nearing the end of his term and so suffering from an hysterical passion for virtue, and the poor fellow may be actually fined $127,600 and sent to jail for one year and three months!

Figure it out for yourself. The minimum punishment for a first offense under the law is a fine of $50. That is what it would cost Ulrich to give Beethoven’s First Symphony on a Sunday afternoon—even if he charged but 10 cents admission or gave the concert free. The Second Symphony, being rather more elaborate, would cost him not leas than $100 and not less than 10 days in jail. For the “Eroica,” sticking to minimums, the penalty would be $200 and 30 days; for the Fourth, it would be $400 and 30 days; for the great Fifth, the “Hamlet” of music, $800 and 30 days; for the “Pastoral,” $1,600 and 30 days; for the Seventh, $3,200 and 30 days; for the Eighth, $6,400 and 30 days, and for the stupendous Choral Symphony, $12,900 and 30 days! Supposing the maximum punishment, instead of the minimum, to be meted out, the cost of giving the Fifth would be $4,000 and 60 days in jail, and of the Choral, $64,000 and 60 days in jail!

No wonder the hotels of Baltimore are empty on Sundays! No wonder the word has gone forth that this is the dullest old town in creation! In every other civilized city in the world, even including Washington, concerts are given on Sunday. In New York that is the very day when the great orchestras attract their largest crowds. In the West, as on the Continent of Europe, it is the favorite day for all innocent amusements. But in Baltimore all innocent amusements are unlawful.

There are signs, of course, of a change. In the summer-time the City Band now plays in Druid Hill Park on Sunday afternoons—and complaints are no longer heard. In the trolley parks the Italian bands wake the echoes with the “Anvil Chorus” and the sextet from “Lucia.” Down the road and across the river there is dancing. And at a thousand fishing shores “gaming, fishing and fowling” engage the plain people, despite the act of 1723.

But during our long winters, when decent recreations are few and far between, that greatest and most stimulating of all recreations, music, to wit, is under the ban of a medieval and preposterous law. Why is it moral to play ragtime in Druid Hill Park on a Sunday afternoon in June and immoral to play the Fifth Symphony in the Lyric Theatre on a Sunday afternoon in January? Does the thing that is right when done (however badly) in the summer become wrong when done (however well) in the winter? What is it that makes open-air band music decent and indoor orchestra music indecent?

I here belabor no demon of straw, no mere figment of the unvirtuous imagination. The law of 1874, for all its absurdity, is still far from a dead letter. Two or three years ago, when Mr. Ulrich organized an orchestra to play at the Lyric on Sunday afternoons and engaged Mr. Hemberger to direct it, he was warned by the police that his plans would have to be abandoned. His first impulse was to tell the police to go to the devil and to throw himself upon the common sense of the community, but he quickly discovered that the penalties attending such a course were so staggering that he could not afford to risk them. He was willing to give concerts without profit, and there were men behind him—sincere lovers of music—who were even willing to stand a loss, but they had no yearning to be forced into Bayview by their philanthropy. So after one concert the scheme was abandoned.

Here is a chance for effective work by the self-appointed boomers who now deafen us with their balderdash. It is all well enough to go seeking new Baltimoreans, with a receipted tax bill in one hand and a penny whistle in the other, but why not make life a bit more pleasant for the Baltimoreans already here? The trouble with our fair city is not that it is poor, but that it is dull. The folk of other cities look upon it as a sort of sarcophagus—and as a very uncomfortable sarcophagus at that.

From the Salutatory:

Some mistakes will, no doubt, be made.

The events of the next few minutes, in the Comptroller’s Department encourage the suspicion that this was not foresight at all, but merely hindsight.

An appendix to the dictionary of synonyms for “beard”:

H. L. Mencken