Baltimore Evening Sun (20 May 1911): 6.

The Puritan conception of Sunday has made the day of rest from toil a very dreary one, and has deprived the poor of the means of acquiring a healthy variety of tastes.—W. E. H. Lecky.

But it has not stood in the way of endowing them with an unhealthy variety of tastes. Consider, for example, the practical effect of the outrageous blue laws of Baltimore. It must be plain, at the start, that they make it next to impossible for a workingman to enjoy himself in any rational manner on a Sunday afternoon in summer. He may walk in the parks, true enough, but walking in the parks, after a time, ceases to be stimulating. In but one park does a band play, and there the crowd is commonly so large that listening is far from comfortable. The athletic fields and baseball grounds are guarded by policeman. Baseball on the open lots is forbidden. Downtown the theatres are closed: it is a serious crime to give a concert. Even the moving-picture parlors are shut tight.

What is the result? Simply that the Baltimore proletarian, having no automobile, boards a trolley car and goes across the river or down the road. There he can listen to a band, there he can dance with his girl, there he can play baseball, there he can see vaudeville shows—and there he must drink to pay his way! The shows are free; but in every direction the visitor sees this sign:

Gents Occupying Tables
Are Expected
To Patronize The Waiters.

Well, the gents occupying tables do that very thing. Along toward midnight you can see them coming home. The miasma that arises from them is an eloquent testimonial to the good sense of blue laws.

More examples of the American language:

• You never seen nothing like it.
• When I arrove there I was sorry I had came.
• I use’n’t to like olives, but my wife learned me how to eat ’em.

Also that reminds me of a tale told by Henry Edward Warner. He went into one of those bathroom eating houses and ordered a mess of chicken pie. “We ain’t got no more chicken pie,” said the waitress, and then, immediately correcting herself: “My, but ain’t that bad grammar! I meant to say we haven’t got none left.”

My spies bring me news that the floral display in the Council chambers on Thursday afternoon broke all previous records for hideous magnificence. The new lawmakers, sweating copiously in their Sunday clothes, were fairly deluged with wreaths, ladders, broken columns, stars, crescents and gates-ajar. Every moment a breathless blackamoor arrived with some fresh masterpiece of the florist’s art.

King Bill Garland, for his high services to human freedom, received a full-rigged ship of 200 pounds gross tonnage, and a horseshoe large enough to shoe a mastodon. The latter, it appears, provoked the huzzahs of all beholders. From it, we are told, floated “a delicate pink lace streamer” (sic) bearing, in gold letters, the affecting legend “The Garland of All Nations.” In the centre was a large portrait of “Bill” himself, surrounded by all the flags of Christendom. Then there was a big figure “S” of red carnations all compact. And forget not the “413,” also in carnations, a delicate reminder of “Bill’s” majority.

Every time a new Council is led to the trough there is just such an outpouring of floral absurdities. Some of the things sent by enthusiastic ward clubs are of almost unbelievable size and ugliness. Nine or ten years ago one new Councilman got a ship so large that its framework had to be made of thin steel rods. The awful thing was hoisted to a fine old mohogany table in the First Branch chamber, and when, a few days afterward, wreckers took it to pieces, it was found that it had made a groove in the table-top six feet long and half an inch deep. It cost the city $45 to have that table-top planed and revarnished.

The Councilmen, as a rule, are vastly proud of such “floral tributes.” It is even whispered that many of them pay the bills themselves. Certainly it is not unusual for a debutante to receive a huge and costly gates-ajar from a follower whose own pocketbook is notoriously empty. Not only the Councilmen, but also their servants—to wit, the doorkeepers and pages—are commonly “remembered.” The sight is one for the gods—and the scent is one for men with strong stomachs.

From the secretary to the learned Mr. Wegg:

Did you notice that touching incident at the opening of the Southern Baptist Convention, when the presiding minister “made a special supplication that press representatives might be guided in reporting the convention?” Apropos of your recent observation that it was almost an unknown thing for reporters to cover a religious convention and retain their religion, did you ever know a religious convention to retain its religion intact after reading the reports of its proceedings reported by the aforesaid reporters?

No.

Contributions to a new thesaurus of platitudes:

Baltimore depends on Maryland and Maryland depends on Baltimore.—The Hon. Edwin Quarles.

It is no misdemeanor to be a Democrat, nor a crime to be a Republican.—The Hon. Augustus Cæsar Binswanger.

Et tu, Gus!

Time has been called upon the dictionary of poetic synonyms for “beard,” but still a few frenzied contributors continue to send in new and old ones. For instance:

From all amateur lexicographers, etymologists and philologists who devote themselves to such vicious recreations—good Lord, deliver us!

More freight seen on street-car platforms:

Say what you will against Col. Jerome H. Joyce, you cannot deny that he is a fine figure of a man. Leading that Fourth of July parade, he will do himself credit and the parade credit. In the past we have had too many parades led by men who looked more like fugitives from justice than warriors. One such procession, a few years ago, had a grand marshal in spectacles and side whiskers. From such appalling sights protect us! Colonel Joyce is the man for the job.

H. L. Mencken