Baltimore Evening Sun (19 July 1912): 6.

Another stupendous victory for the super-Mahon, the contract grabbers and the great and ammoniacal masses of the common people! Another dire and crushing disaster for the decent newspapers!

Writ sarcastic, of course—but let no man underestimate the hostile talents of the super-Mahon. A pertinacious and insatiable fellow, a tireless combatant, a hard boy. Flat on the rosin, with the whole crowd on top of him, he yet fought on and on. Treason and desertion didn’t stop him for a minute. Even when S. S. Field began to wobble, talking pacifically of being good tomorrow, Harry himself kept up the fight. He went down with every gun blazing and every flag flying and his band playing “The Lion of Judah.”

The boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but him had fled;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck
Shone round him o’er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud and godlike form.

Upon his brow he felt the heat;
It singed his waving hair;
And yet he did not move his feet
Nor bellow in despair.

John Hubert plunged into the deep
And Gwinn began to yield,
And Thrift, he took a flying leap,
And so did S. S. Field.

“Speak, Padgett, speak!” he vainly cried,
“If I may yet begone.”
And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the fire rolled on.

The flames crept up in splendor wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And streamed above the virtuous child,
Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound:
The boy—oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strewed the sea.

Fragments that to the zenith riz
And then plunged down in gloom,
And all that mortal was of his
Vice-Presidential boom.

Alas, alas, that one so fair
Should play so sad a part—
For the noblest thing that perished there
Was that old-fashioned heart.

Meanwhile, it is up to the Commissioner for Opening Streets to offer some reasonable explanation of the introduction of that peculiarly loathsome snake. A few days ago the Hot Towel made the official announcement that the two-year clause was invented during the Mahool administration and that the super-Mahon knew nothing about it. But now everyone knows that the said announcement was merely more tallow. Somebody changed the words “at least two years for paving under conditions similar to those existing in Baltimore” into “at least two years in the city of Baltimore,” thus converting a perfectly proper precaution into an unfair and ridiculous advantage for favored contractors. Who did it? Let us find out by all means. And let us also find out why he did it, and by whose orders, and with whose consent.

In this morning’s issue the Hot Towel tries manfully to ride in both band wagons. That is to say, it tallows the super-Mahon, as in duty bound, but also gives a few flirts of the brush to the gentlemen who canned his yesterday. Thus:

It was made plain that both sides were, from their respective standpoints, actuated by a sense of duty.

In a further effort at amelioration and peace-making the Towel argues that the two clauses are in “language practically * * * the same,” a proposition to which every sane man who has read them will undoubtedly agree at once, and with three cheers. But don’t laugh at the poor Towel. The tallow business is getting more difficult every day.

More contributions to the roster of intolerable pests:

The Hon. William H. Anderson has gone into training at Cochran’s roadhouse for his bout with the Hon. Kid Price, of Salisbury. The meeting will take place at the Salisbury Open House on the evening of September 27, and it is expected that sports from all parts of the Eastern Shore will attend. So far, it is reported, the Kid has not attempted any preliminary work. Have a care, Kid; have a care!

Anonymous postcard from a foe to the Hon. Henry Joesting, Jr.:

A cigar store at the corner of Baltimore and Liberty streets lately had this sign posted at the entrance: A WISE PERSON WILL BUY A GOOD THING QUICK. What does [the Hon.] the Free Lance think of a school commissioner who cannot distinguish between an adjective and an adverb?

The answer is simple: the Hon. the Free Lance reveres the Hon. Mr. Joesting as a brave and forthright man. It would be very easy for him to hire a grammarian to edit his signs. There are pundits on the School Board payroll who would jump at the chance. But instead of accepting such help he writes them himself, and in the plain and virile American language. That language may be loose, but it is also lovely, and the Hon. Mr. Joesting deserves praise for sticking to it. A caitiff, pursued by snickers as he has been, would desert it and repudiate it. But a man of courage hangs on.

The betting odds in the Eutaw street poker joints, as reported by the police:

40 to 1 that Doc Wilson makes Harry take a Cabinet job. 50 to 1 that the Orioles gobble the Typhoid League pennant again.

Cablegram received shortly before noon today:

Collect $4.80. Munich, July 18.
Mencken, Sunpaper, Baltimore.
Tell Jake to bring his full dress evening dress suite always wear them here at morgenschoppen grandstand for speechmaking in promenadeplatz begun today twenty ticket- speculators arrested arranging exrursions from wurzburg, nurenburg zurich and innsbruck sophie eloped yesterday with leipzig drummer break news to mac lebe wohl.
Burgomaster Kraus.

Tip for the Maryland Antivivisection Society, the missing, the non est:

At the Nursery and Child Hospital yesterday evening crue ricindotic acid in large quantities was forcibly administered to 28 protesting infants. No anesthetics were used!

Daily thought from “The Physiology of the Human Body and Hygiene,” by Geheimrat Prof. Dr. John Turner, Jr., head of the super-Mahonic medical department:

Anaesthetics generally have the effect of dissolving fat, and so they also keep the nerve particles in a state of solution, consequently they quiet and make drowsy the nerve substance. This is wonderful, if perfectly true. (Page 97.)

Boil your drinking water! Cover your garbage can! Watch for fake Pilsener! Chase the rat!