Baltimore Evening Sun (5 June 1911): 6.

A brief history (that is to say, as brief as possible) of the plan for turning Jones’ falls into a boulevard:

1905.

• July 14—Jones’ Falls Improvement Association formed for the purpose of evolving some plan for the reform of the falls.

1906.

• August 1—Calvin W. Hendrick, chief engineer of the Sewerage Commission, suggests covering it with a boulevard.
• October 3—Improvement Association meets in office of James H. Preston and indorses Hendrick plan. Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association offers its aid.
• October 9—Sewerage Commission decides that it can’t build boulevard without authority of Legislature.
• October 11—Improvement Association meets in rooms of Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association. Speeches. Enthusiasm.

1907.

• October 7—Improvement Association again meets in rooms of Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association. More speeches. More enthusiasm.

1909.

• October 6—Mayor Mahool appoints commission to consider plans.

1910.

• March 16—Bill authorizing $1,000,000 introduced in Legislature.
• March 30—Bill passes.
• June 3—Council authorizes submisstion of loan act.
• November 8—Carried by plurality of 21,130.
• November 12—Mayor appoints new commission.

1911.

• January 6—Commission decides to inspect falls.
• January 7—Commission inspects falls.
• March 7—Commission announces that it is waiting for the Topographical Survey to complete its survey of the falls.
• June 1—Sewerage Commission calls for bids on conduits in bed of falls and announces that when the conduits are completed, work upon the boulevard will begin.

Here history ceases and we must turn to prophecy. Let us venture modestly:

1913.

• July 1—Conduits completed.

1914.

• May 25—Work begins.
• May 26—Work halted by injunctions.
• November 15—Case decided against city.

1915.

• March 12—Argued before Court of Appeals.
• May 22—Court of Appeals decides in favor of city.
• July 30—Work resumed.

1917.

• February 22—Work halted by exhaustion of money.
• October 15—New commission appointed.

1918.

• February 19—Bill authorizing additional loan of $1,500,000 introduced in Legislature.
• March 29—Bill passes.
• May 12—Council authorizes submission of loan act.
• November 7—Loan carried by plurality of 16,745.

1919.

• May 1—Work resumed.

1920.

• October 9—Work completed.
• December 12—Boulevard dedicated.

On January 1, 1910, the people of Buenos Ayres, the capital of the Argentina Republic, decided to construct a fine plaza in the heart of their city. The area to be covered was more than 75,000 square yards, and the land expropriated was worth more than $5,000,000. By March 1 every parcel had been condemned and the buildings had been removed. By May 25 the plaza was thrown open—with spouting fountains, gay flower beds, lawn of several acres and fourscore palm trees 60 feet in height! So much for the land of manana!

The typhoid death roll in good old Baltimore since 1890:

In brief, 4,087 deaths in 21 years, or an average of 192 a year. Lest we forget!

The New York Sun’s ungallant characterization of politicians:

The most conventional and barren pated folks in the world.

In the town of Swainsboro, Georgia, not long ago, a crowd of prominent citizens luyched an Afro-American ecclesiastic. The local paper, in describing the ceremony, referred to the crowd as a mob. Since then it has been filled with protests from old subscribers. What! A mob in Swainsboro? Oh, slander! Oh sinful! What will the world think? What is to be said of a newspaper which so libels the honest, law-abiding folk of his town?

Evidently Swainsboro, too, has its share of the soft-pedalers who curse Baltimore. Evidently there flourishes, in Georgia as well as in Maryland, the doctrine that the best way to correct an evil is to deny that its exists. Don’t knock: boost! Away with muckrakers and muck makers! Let us all sing hallelujah!

A motto for the Brothers of the Soft Pedal:

Don’t knock!—bust!

From best-sellers and the poetry of the Atlantic Monthly school, from women who say “What do you think of Ibsen?” and men who say “What’ll you have?” from barbers who remove the epidermis with the beard and neighbors who keep chickens, from Fletcherism, platonic love and granulated smoking tobacco, from George Bernard Shaw, neuralgia and the uplift magazines—kind fates, deliver us!

Also, from those who, in writing of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, spell his name Nietsche, Neitzshe, Nitse, Nitzky, Nietzshy or Nitzsckie, and from those who, in speaking of him, pronounce it Nisshy, Nitsky, Nitsy or Neatsy.

An anti-vaccinationist is one who, on devoting 10 minutes to a pamphlet filled with facts that are not true, becomes competent to teach medicine to Dr. Welch.

More contributions to the pronouncing dictionary of foreign words and phrases adopted into English:

The street-car platform bill of lading, Baltimore, May 31, 1911:

• Five bottles of milk.
• A bucket of paste.
• Four live chickens tied by the legs.
• A jug of old rye.
• A rose bush.

What has become, by the way, of Arlie Latham? Of Oo-bare Latham? Of Mrs. Lease? Of Gen. Carl Browne? Of George Fred Williams? Of Castro? Of the Mad Mullah? Of “Affinity” Earle? Of Charles Warren Fairbanks? Alas! the old stock company is disbanded. New tragedians stalk the boards. New comiques disport. New faces grin down upon us.