Baltimore Evening Sun (3 January 1912): 6.

Only 1,231 dava more! Why not count 25 days a week and have it over by the end of 1912?

From an affecting super-Mahoniad in “the only reliable paper”:

Of a Blue law Sunday the Mayor cares little. “We have a good Sunday now and we should not accept any more Puritan ideas,” he said.

Can this be the same gentleman who lately wooed and won the trousered vestals of the Lord’s Day Alliance with a moving philippic against Sunday automobiling and novel reading, those twin debaucheries?

I quote from the article verbatim. Switch the two phrases of the first sentence: “The Mayor cares little of a Blue law Sunday.” This is obviously better than “cares little with,” “cares little from” or “cares little in,” but all the same the thought will not down that “cares little for” would be better, However, I may be wrong. Again, I may be right—and yet unjust to the reporter. It is no easy thing, directly on emerging from the presence of eminence, to compose indubitable English. The eye is dazzled, the hand is palsied, the head swims.

Such articles, by the way, appear at regular intervals in the columns of the Administration apologist and neck-bender. No doubt they will be reprinted later on in a sumptuous volume. Few great men are blest with such diverting Boswells. Through the whole series runs the moral idea that true greatness is democratic and humble. Here is one who is “a thinker, philosopher and man of letters,” and yet his hero is Andrew Jackson and he detests and makes mock of “the so-called blue bloods.” Give ear:

Then the Mayor paid his respects to the common people—the man, as he terms them, who work with the sweat of the brow.

Due credit to a talented phrase-maker. “With the sweat” is obviously more alliterative than “by the sweat.” And yet the purist, the pedant, may raise his crook. Is sweat, then, an actual agent of labor and not a mere accompaniment? An abstruse, a baffling point. Let the physiologists and grammarians row over it. In a great work of biography, a masterpiece of heroic interpretation and psychic massage, a few wabbles may be pardoned. Grammar was made for slaves.

Over the mention of Andrew Jackson one is tempted to linger longer. The last great democrat’s dutiful homage to the next to the last great democrat. It was Jackson who discovered that bankers knew nothing about banking; it was his great successor who discovered that educated men knew nothing about education. It was Jackson who inaugurated the spoils system; it is his great successor who has ratified and improved it. In the careers of the two men the same lofty theory of government is visible—the theory, that is, that the common people know what they want and that they deserve to get it good and hard. Such is the central principle of democracy—not of Democracy, that cloak of aristocracy, that mask of blue bloods, but of democracy with the little “d”—democracy of the wool hat and balderdash—democracy in its character of anti-intelligence—democracy unalloyed and undisinfected.

From the report of the Health Department for 1910:

During the year there were 10,753 deaths, showing a death rate of 17 .41 per 1,000 in an estimated population of 589,000.

Let us se. That is to say, let us divide 589 into 10,753, thus:

589 > 10753 < 18.25+
589
4863
4712
1510
1178
3320
2945
375

Obviously we are wrong here. Our low-brow marplot, woodpeckerian mathematic gives us 18.25, whereas the real rate was 17.41. Another extract from the report:

This total number of deaths was made up of 8,146 deaths of white people (estimated 495,000), or a death rate of 15.60 per 1,000.

Again let us apply the mathematics of gloaters and scoundrels, dividing 8,146 by 495. Observe:

495 > 8146 < 16.45+
495
3196
2970
2260
1980
2800
2475
325

Another error! Another crime of the rascally mathematic. One more extract from the report:

* * * and of 2,607 colored people (estimated 94,000), or a death-rate of 26.90 per 1,000.

Once again we venture upon a woodpeckerian, anti-boggus experiment in long division, dividing 2,607 by 94, thus:

94 > 2607 < 27.73
188
727
658
690
658
320
282
38

Not 26.90, you will observe, but 27.74. Not 15.60, but 16.45. Not 17.41, but 18.25. Can it be that we have here come upon an explanation of a puzzling fact—the fact, to wit, that for 1911, with but 10,404 deaths, the Health Department has announced a death rate of 17.54, while for 1910, with 10,753 deaths, it announced a death rate of but 17.41? But away with all such searches and surmises! To root thus into forbidden matters is the act of a traitor, a villain, a public enemy!

Seven cheap but clean cigars to the Hon., etc., etc., etc.

From the First Branch of the City Council and the Second Branch of the City Council and the Third Branch of the City Council, good Lord, deliver us!

A million dollars for a magnificent concrete bridge to the Brooklyn poolrooms, but not a darn cent for typhoid!

Question for the Eddy-ites and the Emmanuel Movers:

If psychotherapy is so all-fired powerful, why don’t you cure Senator Owen of his delusions?

An anti-vivisectionist is one who gags at a guinea pig and swallows a baby.

Boil your drinking water! Cover your garbage can! Swat the few remaining palsied flies! Save your pennies for the tax-Mahon!