Baltimore Evening Sun (26 September 1911): 6.

“Activity at home and publicity abroad”:

[From the Washington Star.]

FRAUDS AROUSE CITY

Baltimore Astounded By Election Disclosures.

GRAND JURY INVESTIGATING

Ballot Boxes May Be Opened And Votes Again Counted.

AFTER THE MEN “HIGHER UP”

Senator Gorman, Democratic Candi- date For Governor, Among Those To Petition For Recount.

Three years 7 months and 19 days more—that is to say, if the May ballot boxes are not opened in the meantime.

The merry jousting of the professional platitudinarians:

No legal technicality should be allowed to stand in the way.–The Hon. Frank A. Furst. If there was fraud in the primary it should be brought to light.–The Hon. Austin L. Crothers. The conditions revealed in South Baltimore are shocking (!)–The Hon. J. Barry Mahool. If the grand jury recount is true, then somebody must be guilty (!!)—The Rev. Henry M. Wharton.

Late remarks by the Hon. J. Albert Hughes, that tragic comedian:

When the ballots are recounted I have no doubt that I will still be ahead, for outside of the Eighth precinct, of the Twenty-third ward, I think everything was perfectly square. * * * I am positive that the members of the organization are innocent of any wrongdoing.

Certainly a man of such abnormal—nay, miraculous—capacity for believing the incredible is a marvel worth paying 10 cents to gape at. Does he also believe that Jonah swallowed the whale?

But hold! Let us dip another bucketful from the burbling brook of the honoroble gentleman’s sapience:

When I heard of the presentments * * * by the grand jury I was amazed. I did not give the matter any attention at first, thinking there was nothing in the accusations made by McNulty; but when the investigation was made and the clerks and judges arrested, I could only explain [lay?] their actions to individual inattention. Probably the day of the primaries had been tedious one for them, and as it drew to a close they become anxious to leave the polls and negligent in their duties.

Don’t laugh, brethren! Rather it is to weep!

Freight seen on on a street car platform:

Two filthy buckets of paperhanger’s paste. Two filthy buckets of paint. A filthy fish basket. A filthy plumber’s furnace. A filthy basket of cat’s meat.

THE CLASSICAL PEN PICTURE OF “SONNY” MAHON’S FRIEND ———— By David Stewart. [In the Sun of March 22, 1911.]

There is not one element in Mr. Preston’s character and not one achievement in his career which could give him the slightest claim to be Mayor of Baltimore. * * * Vindictive, stubborn and conceited and utterly selfish—that’s the man. Among his fellow members of the bar he has no standing as a lawyer. He his never shown learning or ability. * * * Ever since I have known Mr. Preston I have thought of him as a pretender—an empty, decorated paper box, advertising what it might, but does not, contain. And in all these years he has not developed, but only swollen.

The lament of a distinguished ornament of the Old-Fashioned Administration:

My name’s Joesting. Yes; I’m Joesting. The papers have been kidding me.

Be of good cheer, Henry. The experience won’t do you no harm.

Further confidences of the distinguished ornament: They are kidding a man now because his thirty-second cousin runs a book store. He told me a reporter came up to see him the other day, and he was going to kick him heels over appetite down the stairs.

Another hero who changed his mind to time to save himself a good licking.

The Back River resorts are now about to close, even on Sundays, and so the virtuosi of virtue are out of work. But it won’t be for long. In a few weeks the theatres–those furnaces of iniquity—will be in full blast, and the business of censoring plays will once more engage the chemically pure. The process follows a fixed routine. Some humorous manager, eager to pack his house, lets it be known that his play is alkaline—and at once a score of volunteer moralists are on the job. The more they protest the larger grows the crowd. Everyone wants to see the show before the police have disinfected it. At the end of the week the manager departs with $10,000. Without the advertising he would have carried off $1,500.

Still another motto for the Old-Fashioned Administration:

Pride goeth before a fall.

Mr. George N. Numben, who was relieved of the City Collectorship yesterday by Mr. Mahon’s personal friend, has given splendid service to Baltimore in at least three important offices. He is one of the men who helped to make the Hayes administration the best that Baltimore has ever had. He is straightforward, fair, well-balanced, efficient. He has sense. In brief, he is the sort of man for whom there can be no possible place under the Mahon-Padgett-O’Conor ministry.

The lesson for the day is from the First Epistle General of Peter the Apostle, the fourth chapter, the seventh verse.

Another text for the devout Biggs: Proverbs, xxi, 28. Yet another: James, i, 26.

Not a word from Biggs to mellow and illumine the situation! Is that cataract of praises, that gushing geyser of apologies, that awful waterspout of parts of speech dried up at last?

A cheap but clean cigar to any reputable man who will publicly declare, on his word of honor, that he believes Mr. Mahon’s good friend was actually elected in May.