Baltimore Evening Sun (24 February 1912): 6.

What is a democrat? The answer is simplicity itself. A democrat is a man who believes that the opinion of those who know nothing whatever about a given question is always more accurate than the opinion of those who understand it.

ATTENTION! Drinking Men!

The Prominent Baltimoreans threaten to go to Annapolis and argue against the Local Option bill. If they do so, it will be Carried practically unanimously! The result will be disastrous to the commerce of Maryland and to the liberty of every man who knows how to take care of himself, and needs no help from chemical purists. Now is the time to head off the threatened blight. Two plans are proposed, viz:

1. To bribe the Prominent Baltimoreans to keep away from Annapolis.

2. To keep them away by physical force.

Let every man who thinks that prohibition is a farce send in his name and indicate his choice. If the first plan is adopted, an assessment of $60 a head will be levied. If the second plan is adopted, rifles and machine guns will be borrowed from the militia, earthworks will be thrown up at the Severn Bridge, and the cars bearing the Prominent Baltimoreans will be attacked as they heave in sight. No saloon-keepers, ward heelers, todsauefer, beer-wagon drivers or converted drunkards wanted! This movement is for self-respecting, intelligent users of alcohol only—for men who drink when they want to and stop when they have enough. Time is flying; be quick! THE COMMITTEE.

Contribution of the Hon. Jacobus Hook to a current controversy:

To my mind Mayor Preston is the ideal Democrat.

Say what you will against old Jake, you can’t deny that he is always there with the discreet tickle. No more assiduous artist ever wielded the grateful feather.

Boil your drinking water! Root for Harry! Cover your garbage can! Watch for the daffodils! Swat the fly!

Only 35 days more of low comedy and tin-pot melodrama at Annapolis! And then—a rest for 21 months!

Tips for the Maryland Anti-Vivisection Society, the ardent, the amusing:

The Johns Hopkins Medical School has just purchased 10 cigar clippers for cutting off the tails of rats. Dr. Herman Schnitzel, of the University of Maryland, yesterday forced a free patient there to eat 12 live oysters.

Nobody don’t seem to be sayin’ nothin’ no more about lockin’ Murray up in no watchhouse no more. Another lemon for them bum reformers to suck on!

Solemn warning from the Committee on Vivisection of the Anti-Saloon League:

The Mayor would not have been involved in this [local option] controversy if he had not dipped in and dictated the Speakership of the House. He put Mr. Trippe in the chair, and he will be held responsible for what Mr. Trippe does.

All of which must be extremely soothing to the vanity of the Right Hon. James McC. Trippe.

The betting odds in the downtown kaifs, as reported by my circulating liquor-drinkers:

1,000 to 1 that Bob don’t lose nothing. 1 to 1,000 that Harry gets the nomination.

The third and last reading of the model and bullet-proof divorce law:

AN ACT to repeal Section 36 of Article 16 of the Code of Public General Laws of Maryland, entitled “Chancery,” subtitle “Divorce,” and to re-enact the said section with amendments.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland, That Section 36 of Article 16 of The Code of Public General Laws, entitled “Chancery,” subtitle “Divorce,” be and the same is hereny repealed and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

36. Upon the hearing of any blll for a divorce, the Court may decree a divorce a vinculo matrimonii whenever It shall be established, by competent testimony, that the parties to the action have lived apart, and not as man and wife, for a period of at least three years next preceding the date of the application for such divrorce, whether by the wish and act of one party alone or of both or them.

36a. No other cause or causes shall he sufficient for the grant of a divorce a vinculo matrimonii, nor shall it be lawful for any court of equity or referee, in the course of a hearing of an application for a divorce a vinculo matrimonii, to admit any evidence as to the conduct of either of the parties, either before or during the period of separation provided for in Section 36, nor any evidence as to the financial arrangements or transactions between the parties before or during the said period of separation, nor any other evidence tending to explain or account for the said separation, or the causes thereof.

36b. After a divorce a vinculo matrimonii has been granted by the terms of sections 36 and 36a. of this Acticle, it shall be unlawful for either party to the action, whether plaintiff or defendant, to marry either the other party or any other person during the period of three years next following.

36c. Nothing in this Act shall ne accept as repealing or amending Sections 14 and 15 of Article 16 of the Public General Laws, entitled “Chancery,” subtitle “Alimony,” or Sections 35, 37, 38 and 39 of Article 16 of the Pulblic General Laws, entitled “Chancery,” subtitle “Divorce.” Section 2. And be it further enacted, That this Act shall take effect from the date of its passage.

NATIONAL REFORM PARTY For President: The Hon. Cole L. Blease, of South Carolina, For Vice-President: The Right Hon. the Super-Mahon, of Maryland. Official Bellow: To Hell with the Newspapers!

Which recalls the fact that good old Joesting has never come forward with the name of that blood-sweating school commissioner who “was going” to throw a reporter out of his office—but changed his mind in time to cheat the coroner.

My spies bring me news that the resort-kespers at Back River are already preparing for the summer season. A few jobs for extra bartenders, for Sunday work only, are still open.

The low horse-power of the City Council’s radiations continues to give joy and comfort to the community. Can it be that the intellectual giants of that superb sanhedrin have reformed—that the threat of enforced disinfection in the Quarles-Dickey charter has done a benign work? If so, let us apologize to Bishop Quarles and the Hon. Mr. Dickey for scorning them.