Baltimore Evening Sun (22 December 1911): 6.

Only 1,243 days more! But time enough to reclaim 1,243 acres of land to build 1,243 new tax-free factories and to raise the water rent upon 1,243 houses to $12.43 a year!

If them stuffers ain’t bothered no worse in 1912 than what they have been in 1911, then you won’t be able to scare nobody no more with no grand jury indictments.

Five cheap but clean cigars to the Hon. Henry J. McMains for each and every name of an undoubted M. D. who belongs to the League for Medical “Freedom,” Maryland branch.

From the swan-song of the Hon. Isaac Lobe Straus, retiring Attorney-General of Maryland:

The newspapers, the main oracles of the public mind and feeling. * * *

More specifically, of the public prejudice and stupidity, of the public credulity and folly, of the public hysteria and hallucination.

From one stewing in the hot juices of uncertainty:

Is it proper for a man to call his wife “my dear” in the presence of others?

Not only proper, but highly judicious and refined. Let him reserve the more accurate and satisfying terms of invective for their hours of private disputation. No gentleman calls his wife names in the presence of others.

TO SMOKERS!

The United Railways Company is slowly extending its new-fangled pay-as-you-enter cars to all of its lines—slowly but insidiously. It started with the Green line, then it put them on the Gilmor street line, now it has them on the old Blue line. Soon they will be on all lines! ! ! ! ! ! These pay-as-you-enter cars have merits. They are roomy. They are sightly. They probably decrease accidents by fully 1 per cent. But they have no accommodations for smokers. If you would enter one of them you must throw away your cigar—perhaps a young one, just lighted—perhaps a genuine Intimidad. Already you know that harsh order, that horror. Already you have lost comfortable smokes, good cigars. Already you steer clear at the Green line, the Blue line, the Gilmor street line. ! ! ! ! ! But what are you going to do when the new cars are on all lines? Give up smoking—or walk? Have you paused to consider that dilemma? If not, pause and consider it now. The day to is far distant when not a single street car in Baltimore will admit you. What are you going to do about it? Sit still and suffer—or raise your yell while it is yet time? ! ! ! ! ! Why not raise your yell? There are 100,000 smokers in Baltimore. All of them yelling at once would make a deuce of a noise. Well, yell! It is not too late. Yell—and write to your Legislatureman! Yell—and write to your City Councilman! Yell—and write to the Hon. William A. House! ! ! ! ! ! Is the custom smoking on street-car platforms, in good repute in Baltimore for 50 years, to be proscribed by simple corporation fiat? No! Are we in Russia? No! Are we slaves? NO! But if we don’t yell at once we will be slaves! Verbum non amplius addam! The Comittee.

The high duties and prerogatives of the Hon. the Narrenverein:

1. To get Jobs for ward heelers.

2. To assault and batter the English language.

3. To combat and nullify all intelligent schemes of public improvement.

4. To approve and execute all unintelligent schemes of public improvement.

Why not a public monument in Baltimore to the Hon. Joseph Gans, lately deceased? The Hon. Mr. Gans was a native of this town and one who carried its glory to far places. He made the name of Baltimore familiar to all newspaper readers from Cape Town to Sitka. He was modest, but he was a boomer. A member, by inheritance, of the Ethiop, or, more accurately, the Xanthous race, he displayed, throughout his life, a true dignity of demeanor. He was in the absolute sense of the word, a gentleman—one who never obtruded himself upon the notice of those disinclined to deal with him, a blackamoor entirely unbumptious. In and out of the ring he did honor to his ancient profession and to his oppressed nation.

We have monuments in this Monumental City to fraternal order magnates, to poets, to soldiers and to men of business. Why not a monument to Joseph Gans, perhaps the greatest Baltimorean that ever lived? I anticipate, of course, the opposition of niggerophobes. We have a lot of them in Baltimore: they are almost as plentiful and fully as tedious as Prominent Baltimoreans. But the merits of the present cause are not to be obscured by their jejune snarling. Let those of us who knew the Hon. Mr. Gans during his lifetime and revered him an a gladiator and a man now raise a shaft to his memory. It gives me pleasure to start the subscription with $100, payable, according to the plan of the Greater Baltimore Committee, at the rate of $5 a year. Who will be second? The Hon. A———m, L———n, H———d? You, Judge? You, Danny?

The more you hear about what them boomers is goin’ to do the more you don’t hear about what they have went to work and did.

Contributions toward a new and accurate dictionary of the English language:

Suffragette, n., The only sound objection to the extension of the suffrage.

Moralist, n., One who envies his follow men their healthy vices.

A considerable decrease in typhold is reported by the Health Department—no doubt the psychotherapeutic effect of the use of hypochlorite. Let us live in hope. Perhaps typhoid will eventually decline so far in Baltimore that the case rate per 100,000 of population will not be more than twice, or, at most, three times as large as the case rate in the next most pestiferous American city of the first class.

The formation of the Suckers Mutual Benefit Association is announced. All Baltimore taxpayers are eligible.

Boil your drinking water! Beat the children! Swat the fly! Cover your garbage can! Be glad that Christmas will soon be over!