Baltimore Evening Sun (9 January 1912): 6.

The daily thought from “Also sprach Zarathustra,” clawed into the vulgate:

The beauty of the super-Mahon came unto me as a shadow.

When the Legislature gets done with that charter of them boomers you won’t hardly be able to tell it from confetti.

In this place yesterday I printed a communication from an anarchist subscribing himself “Water Rent,” proposing an organization of taxpayers to resist the payment of the extortionate water rents levied upon wide-front houses. This morning I received letters from 34 taxpayers who desire to join the association. These letters have been turned over to “Water Rent.” If the number of volunteers reaches 100 a barrister will be hired and the fight will be on. Says “Water Rent” in a note received today:

I have a lawyer in sight—a man who, like myself, is forced to pay $25 a year water rent on a house of 10 rooms. He stands ready to begin business as soon as 100 names are on the roll. This lawyer is of the opinion that the scheme of determining water rents by the frontage of dwelling houses is clearly unconstitutional. He believes that the court will decide in favor of me in the first round. Even if it doesn’t he knows five or six ways of holding up the collection of rents. He says the case can be drawn out to seven or eight years. He has a lot of new-fangled writs and injunctions up his sleeve—novelties so far unnkown to the majority of Maryland lawyers. He tells me, by the way, that Maryland is way behind most of the other States in this matter of legal wrestling. Pretty good form, he admits, has been shown in the case against the former Sheriffs, which, after three years of jousting, has not yet come to trial. But he gives the credit here, not to the lawyers, but to the judges. I hope you are enjoying the cigars. I got them from my brother-in-law, who is a smuggler.

Cheerful remark by the Right Rev. Mahoni Amicus, partisan of the true, the good and the beautiful:

We hear talk of the degeneracy of the times, but I believe that the world in becoming better.

A belief not shared, it would seem, by those marplots and immoralists who now bawl about their water bills.

Seven cheap but clean cigarros to the Hon. Henry A. McMains, D. O., for etc., etc., etc.

It don’t hardly seem no time since Al Owens was skeerin’ them stuffers half to death, but now Al ain’t doin’ no more skeerin’ no more and them stuffers ain’t showin’ no more skeer no more.

In Baltimore, during 1911, there were 154 deaths from typhoid fever—a rate of 27.5 per 100,000 of population. In Baltimore, during 1910, there were 236 deaths from the disease—a rate of 42.1. In Baltimore, during the last 10 years, there have been 1,923 deaths from the disease—a rate per annum of about 35. The water supply here is contaminated. We have no filtration plant.

Glance now at Cincinnati, an old and sluggish town, much like Baltimore in many respects. In 1905 there were 158 deaths from typhoid fever in Cincinnati. In 1906 there were 230 and in 1907 there were 157. That made an average rate, for the three years, of 53 deaths per 100,000 of population per annum.

In 1906, appalled by the epidemic of that year, the people of Cincinnati began building a filtration plant. In 1907 it was completed. Let us observe what followed. In 1908, instead of 158, or 239, or 157 deaths from typhoid, there were—how many? Just 67. And how many in 1909? Just 45. And how many in 1910? Just 21. The death rate, for the three years preceding the opening of the plant, was 53 per 100,000 of population per annum, as we have seen. For the two years following the opening of the plant it was 16. For 1910 it was 5.7.

In brief, that filtration plant seems to have rescued Cincinnati from a chronic scourge. In 1905 the city’s typhoid rate was even higher than Baltimore’s; in 1910 its typhoid rate was less than one-seventh of Baltimore’s.

Turn now to Albany, N. Y. In 1899 the typhoid rate there was 90; a few years before it had been 115—high-water mark. But in 1900 a filtration plant was constructed, and at once the rate fell to 40. Then it dropped further, to 20 or thereabout. Now it is less than 20.

Binghamton, N. Y. In 1898 its typhoid rate was 70. In 1903, after a filtration had been opened, it fell to 12. Since then it has never gone beyond 20, and has several times dropped to 10.

Paterson, N. J. In the 90's its annual rate fluctuated between 30 and 60. In 1903 a filtration plant was constructed. Since then the rate has fluctuated between 6 and 16.

Cross to Europe. An Old story there. For instance, Hamburg—a great seaport, like Baltimore—a low-lying, much-exposed town. But it has pure water—and its typhoid death rate is 4. A man living in Baltimore is eight times as likely to die of typhoid as a man living in Hamburg. Go to Munich, the town of good beer, but also a town of good water. The typhoid rate in Munich runs from 2 to 3. The Baltimorean’s typhoid risk is 12 or 13 times that of the Municher’s.

But away with all such figures! The man who prints them is a traitor and a rascal! It is the duty of every good citizen not to dwell upon them, not to squeeze a moral out of them, but to deny them, sophisticate them, forget them. We have no time to bother with filtration plants and other such fol-de-rols. More important matters engage the massive minds of our bosses. For instance, the matter of knocking out the new charter, with its hideous child, the merit system. For instance, the matter of tunneling the Patapsco. For instance, the matter of apportioning the city docks among mythical steamboat companies. For instance, the matter of putting down Sunday novel-reading, that cancerous vice.

Such great moral issues inflame and pester our statesmen. They have no time, with vices to put down, with reformers to squelch, with pothouse politics to play, to pay any heed to typhoid. And, besides, paying heed to typhoid would do harm to the boom.

More suggestions for the Hon. the City Council, that stupendous fleet of intellectual Dreadnoughts!

An ordinance appropriating $8,000,000 for extending Hanover street northward to the northern city limits. An ordinance appropriating $100,000 for the purchase of automobiles for the use of City Councilmen.

Boil your drinking water! Cover your garbage can! Hock your overcoat to pay the tax-Mahon! Thank the Lord, the Legislature can last only 90 days!