Baltimore Evening Sun (17 June 1911): 6.

Expressions of opinion regarding the efficacy of the new typhoid vaccine:

J. J. Flapdoodle, M. D.–It has yet to be shown that vaccination is of any practical value in typhoid fever. I have been too busy to read all that has been written about it of late, but I am inclined to be very conservative. The majority of human beings are vaccinated early in life, and yet many of them have typhoid. Judge Alonzo Bumpus, D. C. S.–Typhoid is a delusion of mortal mind. Vaccination is an error. An error cannot exist. Nothing can exist, save in the all. Mental chemicalization follows the explanation of truth. Hidden sin is spiritual wickedness. Science is ignorance. Sensation is sensationless. Thought makes the face pallid. Miss Dorcas Snooks, Secretary of the Society for Exposing the Evils of Vaccination—All forms of vaccination are filthy, disgusting and useless. Vaccination is legalized murder. Of the 12,000 American soldiers who have been inoculated since January 1, 6,000 will die of cancer, 7,000 of leprosy, 8,000 of smallpox, 9,000 of locomotor ataxia and 10,000 of the boll weevil. The most distinguished living pathologists, including Dr. Lizzie Sweeney and Prof. J. Harry Flubdub, denounce vaccination as a delusion and a crime.

New novels worth taking with you on your summer holiday:

“The New Machiavelli,” by H. G. Wells. “Queed,” by Henry Sydnor Harrison. “The Grain of Dust,” by David Graham Phillips. “Conrad in Quest of His Youth,” by Leonard Merrick. “Panther’s Club,” by Agnes and Egerton Castle. “Fortunata,” by Marjorie Patterson. “The Patrician,” by John Galsworthy. “The Early History of Jacob Stahl,” by J. E. Beresford. “Brazenhead the Great,” by Maurice Hewlett.

Older novels that you ought to read if you have not done so already:

“The Hungry Heart,” by David Graham Phillips. “Tonk-Bungay,” by H. G. Wells. “Typhoon,” by Joseph Conrad. “The History of Mr. Polly,” by H. G. Wells. “Evelyn Innes,” by Georhe Moore. “Germinal,” by Emile Zola. “The Seven Who Were Hanged,” by Leonid Andreizeff. “Sister Carrie,” by Theodore Dreiser. “The Power of a Lie,” by Johan Bojer.

Six books of short stories—each in its way a collection of masterpieces:

“Falk,” by Joseph Conrad. “Youth,” by Joseph Conrad. “To Babel,” by George Ade. “The Monster,” by Stephen Crane. “Memoirs of My Dead Life,” by George Moore. “Potash and Perlmutter,” by Montague Glass.

The last two, no doubt, will make the judicious grieve, and perhaps even shriek, for Moore’s book purports to be genuine autobiography, and Glass’ book is full of low comedy. But the Moore stories, whatever their content of reality, are always works of art first and personal records second. A glorious imagination is in them: they are as full of beauty as so many Beethoven quartets. No more poetic story than “The Loversof Orelay” is to be found in English. Every professional Puritan should be forced to read it, on penalty of the bastinado.

As for Glass, I prophesy that, once he lives down his reputation as a merry andrew, he will acquire a high reputation as a literary artist. No man now writing short stories in America (or in Europe, for that matter) has a finer grip upon character; no man shows more acute observation; no man is better blessed with that high type of humor which caresses while it pricks. Potash and Perlmutter are as completely alive as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. And the lesser personages of the stories—Henry D. Feldman, the lawyer; One-Eye Felgenbaum and the rest—all are little masterpieces of characterization.

Only the man who has tried to write short stories himself can quite measure the technical skill of Glass. He stands head and shoulders above the late Sidney Porter (O. Henry), his predecessor in popular regard, for Porter, whatever his accomplishments otherwise, was utterly unable to create lifelike characters. His South American revolutionists, his New York toughs, and his Western cowboys all talked the same impossible Porterese. That Porterese was funny, perhaps, but it was not art.

Besides, the structure of a Glass story is always more sound than that of an O. Henry story. Porter constantly put his trust in cheap tricks—in improbable surprises, mechanical complications, mere verbal brilliance. There was something of Scribe in him and a little bit of Bill Nye. He was always a clever fellow, but never a psychologist. The figures he manufactured appeared to him, as they did to the reader, as wooden marionettes. He forgot to give them human emotions. They moved, not by internal compulsion, but by external compulsion, like chessmen on a board.

Glass is a far more skillful fictioneer. Into the sayings and doings of Abe Potash and Maurice Perlmutter he always manages to get an element of what may be called inevitableness. One feels that they could not meet a given situation otherwise than as they do—that they are not mere creatures of the author, but real human beings. To give the reader this feeling is an enormously difficult thing. Even the man who has actually done it is unable to explain how it is done. But whatever the secret Glass has mastered it.

The present mad-dog scare has inspired the anti-vivisectionists to make their annual and solemu announcement that hydrophobia is a purely imaginary disease, and, as usual, they support that theory with quotations from the dunciads of Professor Balderdash and Dr. Flapdoodle. The hot eloquence of these crusaiders would be a great deal more impressive if one of them would back it up by submitting to inoculation with Dr. Keirle’s cultures.

What is the population of Roland Park? I have heard it estimated at 5,000, 7,000, even 10,000. According to the Roland Park Company, which should know, it is actually but 2,650. Here is a little table showing how it has grown in seven years:

The Roland Park census, it appears, is always taken on December 31. The present area of the Park is 775 acres, or 103 acres greater than that of Druid Hill. Allowing half an acre to a house, there is thus room for 1,550 houses, or about 1,000 more than are standing at present. The ultimate population of the Park will thus be about 8,500.