Baltimore Evening Sun (12 March 1912): 6.

Less than three weeks more of slobber-gobble at Annapolis! And then each rustic lawmaker spits upon his hands and grasps the horns of the laborious plow!

The easiest way for a man to keep outen the watchhouse these days is to set the grand jury to stick a few indictments onto him.

The standing of the clubs in the National Typhoid League for the week ended February 17:

Baltimore...........................537 Cleveland.........................178
St. Louis.............................290 Philadelphia.....................130
New York...........................212 Chicago............................043
Pittsburgh...........................186 Boston..............................000

Once more in first place! Once more the Birds hit the ball! Courage, Camille!

My solicitors have prepared the following bill and it will be introduced in the House of Delegates in a few days by one of the city members:

An Act to repeal Article 27, Section 95, of the Code of Public General Laws of Maryland, entitled Crimes and Punishments, subtitle Drunkenness and Disorderly Conduct, and to re-enact the same without amendments.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland, That Article 27, Section 95, of the Code of Public General Laws of Maryland, entitled Crimes and Punishments, subtitle Drunkenness and Disorderly Conduct, shall be and the same is hereby repealed, to take effect on the twenty-fourth day of June, 1912, at noon, and that the same shall be and is hereby re-enacted without amendment to take effect twenty-four hours after the adjournment sine die of the Democratic National Convention called for and to begin in the City of Baltimore on the twenty-fifth day of June, 1912.

The professional moralists, of course, will raise their falsetto cackle against this bill, but I have assurances that it will pass nevertheless. The law which it suspends during the convention week provides a fine of from $1 to $25 and imprisonment up to 30 days for being in liquor on the public street–a purely artificial crime and one which, in the case of men who know how to carry their cargoes, causes no injury whatever, either to the streets themselves or to persons using them.

When we invite strangers to Baltimore and promise to entertain them hospitably we must be prepared to allow something for their personal customs and prejudices. It would be an absurdity, for example, to invite a party of Indians here, and then jail them for wearing blankets on the public street. And by the same token, it would be an absurdity to invite the wool-hat Democrats of Arkansas and Georgia and then jail them for practicing their national custom of drinking corn whisky. They have been trained in that habit from infancy; it has entered into their souls; they can’t get along without it. Therefore, as dutiful hosts, we must respect it.

Connoisseurs of drinking, by the way, will probably find much to interest them in the performances of some of the convention visitors. The most talented drinking men of the Mississippi valley always attend a Democratic National Convention--and when such virtuosi get together, then comes the tug of war. At the St. Louis convention, in 1904, I saw an alcoholic athlete from Izard county, Arkansas, put down 5 hummers of old Bourbon in an hour. He practiced a novel and, at first glance, somewhat startling technique. With his left hand he would grasp his nose, and then, with the glass in his right hand, he would throw back his head, neatly hurling the Bourbon into his buccal orifice. The glass never touched his lips, and yet he never spilled a drop.

A friend in Selma, Ala., informs me that the delegates and alternates of that vicinity plan to bring their own drinkables with them. The rye whisky of Baltimore, though justly esteemed, is not to their taste. They prefer the corn usquebaugh of their native hills, and they propose to bring an ample supply. My Selma friend tells me that an express car has been engaged for its transportation and that a volunteer corps of 20 riflemen will guard it en route.

The right way to get money in this world is to go to work and grab it--and then let the lawyers find out some reason why you hadn’t ought to give it up.

Meanwhile, the petering-out of the latest Blue Law crusade is to be sentimentally noted. Accompanied by a hired ruffian, I made a tour along East Baltimore street on Sunday evening, and in the space of three blocks and fifteen minutes, bought the following articles:

A pound of tea.
A box of figs.
A copy of “Hedda Gabler.”
A corn-cob pipe.
A package of chewing gum.
A celluloid collar.

Also, I had my shoes shined four times, and exchanged 15 cents for kopecks in a Russian bank.

The way them saloon-keepers is skeered today by that local option bunk makes you think of the way them stuffers will skeered by Al Owens last October. But nobody never died of skeer.

Boil your drinking water root for Harry cover your garbage can swat the fly!

The betting odds in the Eutaw street poker rooms, as my snooping moralists report them:

100 to 1 that Harry will beat the Second Branch into line this afternoon.
1,000 to 1 that not one of them ex-sheriffs won’t ever give up a darn cent.
1,000,000 to 1 that Bill Broesing ain’t got no hopes of sending no stuffers to no jail.

The City Council costs the taxpayers of Baltimore $68,000 a year. Laugh, suckers, laugh!

Open letter to the Hon. William A. Larkins, Superintendent of Street Cleaning:

Dear Chief:–If you will send a posse of your navvies out to Booth street, between Gilmor and Stricker, and take off enough of its super-soil to enable me to get into my house, I’ll give you a good 10-cent cigar at sight.
H. L. M.

Down with the tax rate! Hip, hip, hurrah! Up go the water rents! And a tigah!

New books that you may read without loss of self-respect:

“The Russian People,” by Maurice Baring.
“Oscar Wilde,” by Arthur Ransome.

The best novel in the current English crop:

“Zuleika Dobson,” by Max Beerbohm.

Late books that should be of interest to all intelligent theatregoers:

“Plays,” by August Strindberg; translated by Edwin Bjorkman.
“Countess Julie,” by August Strindberg.
“Polite Farces,” by Arnold Bennett.
“Yankee Fantasies,” by Percy Mackaye.
“The War God,” by Israel Zangwill.
“Tomorrow,” by Percy Mackaye.