Baltimore Evening Sun (6 January 1912): 6.

Proposed device for a white satin banner to be carried in public procession by anti-vivisectionists:

{illustration}

The following letter from Mr. Satan, received this morning, explains itself:

office of
THE GENERAL MANAGER,
Hell, Jan. 4, 1912.
The Hon. H. L. Mencken,
In care the Sunpaper,
Baltimore, Md.:

My dear Henry--I have to thank you for passing on my complaint about the non-delivery of the Sunpaper. I now get it regularly every morning and the Evening paper in the afternoon, and so I can keep in touch with things in Baltimore. The 13-for-10 proposition is a world-beater. I, of course, take the other Baltimore papers also, but that is only for the sake of the patent medicine advertisements, in which, of course, I am greatly interested. As far as news and refined entertainment are concerned, I get all I want in the two Sunpapers.

The occasional items about the progress of the boom in Baltimore interest me a good deal, for we had a boom a year or so ago here in Hell, and it kept me jumping until the boomers’ money ran out and they shut up shop. The thing started when a report was set afloat that a lot of people were sneaking out of Hell every night and trying to break into Heaven. I had my catchpolls look into the matter as they came back with news that the report was true, though not to the extent commonly believed. That is to say, a few dozen daredevils were running the guards every night and making their way to one of the back entrances or Heaven, where converted head waiters, Salvation Army rabble-rousers and other each dubious fellows are kept in quarantine 60 days before being admitted. Some got in, but more were turned down, and I figured that our net loss was not more than 6 or 8 head a night, or say 2,500 a year.

Naturally, I paid no more attention to the matter, for a loss of 2,500 head a year is scarcely enough to show on our books, and besides, I couldn’t blame some of the poor fellows for trying to get out. But before I knew what was going on the Hell Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association was passing resolutions about it, there was talk of a great massmeeting of school children, various enthusiastic “experts” were proposing various fantastic remedies, and 50 or 100 fussy and credulous old fellows issued a call for the organization of a Greater Hell Committee. That was my cue for turning on the hose, but I foolishly let them yawp away--and pretty soon they were up to all sorts of embarrassing tricks.

One of the first things they did, for example, was to launch what they called a See-Hell-First campaign. Their argument was that the people on the earth had a wrong idea of Hell, that clergymen and other enemies slandered it deliberately and persistently, and that, in consequence, nine men out of ten, when they got ready to depart from earth, tried to graft passes to Heaven. So the Greater Hell Committee adopted “Education!” as its slogan and laid plans to intercept incoming passengers, and, if possible, convert them.

Fully 100 tons of illustrated booklets and folders were printed and sent out, and the local newspapers published hundreds of columns about the charms of Hell and hundreds of portraits of the boomers. Public banquets were held every night, and the noise of orators bawling and pops corking and flashlights going off half-deafened me. One boomer, having got his picture into the local papers 18 times in one week, was given a magnesium loving cup and three cheers.

But all that, of course, was harmless enough. I am no foe of innocent amusements. Life in Hell is monotonous at best, and so every inmate ought to he free to seek recreation as he pleases. But when this Greater Hell Committee began hiring rhetoricians to stand outside the gates of Heaven and woo the ears of immigrants with word pictures and sweet promises then things began to be more exciting. One day a batch of newcomers came in with the announcement that they had been promised five free meals a day, 50 cents spending money and immunity from singeing--all in return for merely consenting to come. On their heels came a batch of 28 icemen--with the news that they had been promised free licenses to do business and receipted tax bills for 40 years. I had these fellows sent down to No. 4 hold and well steamed for their bumptiousness, and you could hear their yells a mile, but all the same the incident annoyed me.

What is worse, I began to got complaints from the Elysian immigration authorities. The Greater Hell Committee’s spellbinders, it appears, pushed their way into the crowds at the very gates, and caused so much excitement and scurrying about that the polite entered a formal protest. And on looking into the matter I discovered (as was quite natural) that the people they were landing were the scum of the crowd--on the one hand icemen, bartenders, pink lemonade butchers and other such undesirables, and on the other hand the loafers and boneheads. So I made up my_mind to call a halt, and as a first measure I stationed 20 experienced vivisectionists at my main entrance, arming them with red-hot irons and instructing them to brand a large “S,” signifying “sucker,” upon the forehead of every newcomer bearing a Greater Hell Committee ticket. The ensuing caterwauling was very amusing. But, fortunately enough, the boom burst before I was forced to harsher measures. The members at the Greater Hell Committee, it appears, had subscribed $1,000,000 for expenses, but when the time came to pay up a large number of them couldn’t be found by process servers, and so the chairman of the committee appointed a sub-committee to chase them. This sub-committee was composed of all the members who had paid at least 20 per cent. of their subscriptions. When it began the arduous work of pursuing derelict subscribers there was no one left to manage the boom save a few professional boomers, all of whom, seeing how the wind was blowing, prudently accepted jobs elsewhere. Not a derelict, of course, was captured--and so the boom ended. I could tell you a lot more about it, but time flies and I have a lot at work ahead. Let me end by asking a favor. Will you please send me, by registered mail, a box of good German E strings? The climate here is extraordinarily destructive to G strings. Yesterday afternoon, while playing Raff’s “Cavatina” during the broiling of 40 barbers en brochette, I broke three and had to put aside my violin and use a B clarinet. Thanks for the circulars describing the fireless cookers. I’ll have my engineers investigate them With regards to all the boys,

Faithfully yours,
Nicholas Satan.
Dict. N. S./J. F.

From moralists who strive to force their own brummagem ideas of virtue down the gullets of civilized white men, good Lord, deliver us!

Only 1,228 days more! Ah, that some benign hook would come sneaking from the wings!