Baltimore Evening Sun (5 June 1912): 6.

Threat of a change of policy by The Elementary Teacher, organ of the old-fashioned schoolmarms:

There is place and power waiting * * * for an educational publication which speaks the truth. Why not The Elementary Teacher?

Editorial note from that same great journal:

Dr. Strayer, in his attack upon the Baltimore schools printed in the November Educational Review, speaks of “maintaining an efficient system of public education under professional control.” Why “professional control” more than political control?

Why, indeed? After all, it probably takes just as much talent and effort to flatter the super-Mahon without laughing as to pass an examination.

The standing of the clubs in the National Typhoid League for the week ending May 11:

Cleveland.........................355 Philadelphia........................064
Pittsburgh........................186 Boston................................000
Chicago...........................138 St. Louis.............................000
New York........................084 Baltimore..........................000

Horrors! Can it be that the Orioles have gone to pieces–and with the Democratic National Convention but three weeks ahead? Is the hated Cleveland team to steal our honor and our glory?

Courage, Camille! Be of good cheer! The figures above are based upon deaths reported and show a merely accidental slump. Taking cases reported as a basis, the Orioles return at once to their ancient, their hereditary, their illustrious position, viz:

Baltimore........................1,792 St. Louis.........................873
Boston..............................1,348 Cleveland.......................714
Philadelphia.....................1,226 New York......................608
Pittsburgh.........................1,107 Chicago.........................596

The excellent Dr. F. S. Tinthoff, camerlengo of the American College of Mechano-Therapy, of 81 West Randolph street, Chicago, continues to pursue me with his soft blandishments. In his last and most eloquent letter he intimates almost brutally that I must either begin the study of mechano-therapy at once or stand forever placarded as one blind to his opportunities and neglectful of his grandchildren unborn. In support of which he cites the experience of Dr. E. L. Stout, a graduate of the college, in Dr. Stout’s own words:

I now get patients from four different States and often make as high as $25 to $30 per day WITHOUT ADVERTISING.

Whereupon Dr. Tinthoff asks if I “know of any trade a man can learn or any profession that you can take up in a few months where you can make $25 to $30 per day and work seven days a week.” Alas, I don’t. True enough, I once made $50 in two days writing patent medicine testimonials, but that was in the old days: today the patent medicine game is played out: Before cash registers were invented, bartenders sometimes made $100 a day—but no more. Lawyers are lucky if they average $150 a week, preachers seldom get to $100, ordinary physicians—the “medical grafters”of Dr.Tinthoff’s philippics—are glad to take $82 cash for a $1,500 week, and even prize fighters do not average much more, taking one year with another. This exhausts the learned professions.

Meanwhile, Dr. Tinthoff offers his sure cure for financial embarrassmant. Study mechano-therapy and you will never go victualless. The whole course, including “eight grouped anatomical and physiological charts, each lithographed in several colors and 22½ by 36 inches in size, containing 5,400 inches of the finest lithography,” is now to be had for $25 cash, or $3 down and $3 a mouth for eight months–a considerable reduction from the regular price, as the following offers of the estimable Dr. Tinthoff show:

July 17—$100 cash, or $37 cash and $23 a month for three months, or $24 cash aud $14.50 a month for six months.
September 9—$50 cash, or $18.50 cash and $11.50 a month for three months, or $12 cash and $7.25 a month for six months.
October 9—$47 cash, or $4 cash and $6 a month for eight months.
November 9—$25 cash, oe $5 cash and $5 a month for five months.
Today–$25 cash, or $3 cash and $3 a month for eight months.

Certainly the man who still neglects the boons and usufructs of medical, freedom, in the face of such seductive cut rates, is a hunker and a sucker. Accordingly, I shall send good Tinthoff my first $3 at once and labor hard over his “5,400 inches of the finest lithography.” And on attaining to the learned degree of M. D., cum grano salis, I shall at once apply for membership in the estimable League for Medical Freedom, Maryland Branch, and run for the press agency against dear old McMains. An eloquent and charming fellow, true enough, but the principle of rotation in office rises superior to individuals.

Current attractions in the plaza de toros:

• Boardman vs. Virtue.
• Anderson vs. the American Munich.
• Toner vs. Hook.
• The super-Mahon vs. a licentious press.

The direct primary—the Dr. Green’s Nervura of politics.

With the Back Basin, the City Council and the School Board all in session together, the summer at least promises enchantment for a sense too little wooed by art.

Some kind friend sends me a copy of a new edition of “Baltimore: a Brief Budget for the Busy Bee,” issued with. the impeint of the. Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association. In this curious publication the “present mortality rate” of Baltimore is still given as “16 per 1,000 population per annum.” Accordingly, I renew my public offer of last summer, to wit: to give a can of sardines to each and every member of the Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association who will come forward with proof that the death rate in Baltimore is, or ever has been, less than 18 per 1,000 of population per annum. If two or more members come forward with such proof a single can will not be divided between them, but each and every one will get a whole can. Going further, I shall be happy and proud to make the presentation, diverting afterward by jumping head first from the boudoir of the association in the Katzenjammer Tower.

From a respectable colored man comes a protest against my recent comparison of the average intelligence of the First Branch City Council to that of Pullman car porters. Says he:

Many Pullman car porters are graduates of high schools. You never hear one of them saying “I would have went.” They have to be able to read and write clearly to get their job, snad some of them are really very intelligent.

Very well: I offer amends and apologies. For “Pullman car porter” substitute “old-fashioned school teacher.”

What has become, by the way, of the Maryland Anti-Vivisection Society? Have its rhetoricians lost their cunning?