Baltimore Evening Sun (9 August 1912): 6.

Let Philadelphia be our model! Philadelphia by all means! Give us Philadelphia politics!

The following wireless dispatch reached The Evening Sun office at 1.42 o’clock this afternoon:

S. S. Krpn. Cecile,
Off the Grand Banks, Aug. 9.

Colonel hook the life of the ship gave away eight boxes cigars yesterday addressed first-class passengers in saloon last evening beginning seven thirty ending one twenty-five will address second cabin this afternoon beginning three fifteen and running ad lib now giving away preston buttons appeared at lunch today in new full dress evening dress suite to applause of whole ships company.
Collect $17.28.

Anyhow, them ex-sheriffs got more interest on the money than what the State woudda gotten.

None doubts, of course, the good faith of the committee told off by Governor Goldsborough to investigate the penitentiary, nor the good faith of the Governor himself, nor that of the Evening News, which presented the matter to his attention, but all the same it must strike many a man as somewhat unfortunate that the Hon. John P. Weyler, the retired warden, should be put in the position of one on trial for his life at this late day, after the definite close of his quarter century of service.

During that quarter century the penitentiary was inspected by more than 70 separate grand juries, by 12 committees of the Legislature, and by innumerable penological experts from far and near, and, in addition, it was under the constant surveillance of the various penitentiary boards, of the police and of the persons who devote themselves to helping convicts. In all that time, so far as I know, no impartial person ever accused Warden Weyler of either dishonesty or inefficiency. On the contrary, his administration of the prison was repeatedly and specifically indorsed by all of the investigators named, official and volunteer, and many of them, beginning by holding the warden in frank suspiclon. ended as his enthusiastic advocates.

But now the tune suddenly changes. The man who won over, not only impartial investigators, but also a host of extremely hostile enemies, is confronted, after all these years, with a long list of charges, direct and indirect. And who supports those charges? On the one hand former employes, and on the other hand former convicts. Are we to put much faith in such evidence? I think not. If the former employes saw abuses while they were in the service, why didn’t they speak out at once? One of them, I believe, did—and the warden survived the assault. But how about the others? Is their frenzy for justice as respectable now as it would have been when it would have cost them something?

As for the former convicts, the essential dubiousness of their testimony must be obvious to any one. A large proportion of them, I daresay, will be forced to admit grievances on cross-examination. In brief, they are the men who ran afoul of the warden’s discipline while they were behind his bars, and now yearn for revenge. Admittedly, it was a severe discipline, but is a penitentiary the place for coddling and temporizing with rebels? Imagine how bad the worst man in such a crowd must be, how vicious, how intractable, how utterly exasperating! And imagine what would happen to the warden who showed weakness in dealing with them!

Besides, there is the contrary testimony of the better sort of prisonors—testimony, it may be mentioned in passing, not easy to bring forward now, for the man who, with prison behind him, is trying to lead a decent life, is damaged seriously by appearing publicly in the role of a former convict. I have talked, however, to more than one such man, and I have always made it a point to ask them about the management of the institution. One and all they have declared the warden a fair and square man—not a Pecksniff, not a milksop, not an easy boss, but one quick to recognize good will and eager to help the unfortunate.

In view of all this, the committee of investigation will do well to proceed warily. It may be perfectly true, as is alleged, that the shop system at the penitentiary is all wrong, and it may be true, too, that Warden Weyler’s administration was grounded on fundamental errors, but it is well, meanwhile, to remember the practically unanimous testimony to his good intentions. The thing we have to fight against in our public servants is not error, but bad faith: A good man’s mistakes, in the long run, do little harm; it is the deliberate chicaneries of a bad man—often so beneficent in outer aspect!—that we must keep a constant guard against.

Boil your drinking water! Cover your garbage-can! Look out for Mr. Burns!

Apropos of nothing, let me advise every gentleman in the house to read Hillaire Belloc’s article “The Human Charlatan,” in the New York Times Book Review of last Sunday, page 487. It deals with the most brazen and successful of modern mountebanks, the late Cesare Lombroso, patron of psychical research and darling of the yellow journals, and it disposes of the gentleman in a fashion that must give delight to every connoisseur.

New novels that do not insult the intelligence:

The Barmecide’s Feast, by John Gore (Lane).
The Actor Manager, by Leonard Merrick (Kennerley).

New novels that give the intelligence a terrible jar:

Elsie Lindtner, by Karla Michael (Lane).
The White Waterfall, by James Francis Dwyer (Doubleday Page).

New books that are well worth serious reading:

Henrik Ibsen, by Otto Heller (Houghton-Mifflin),
The Mechanistic Conception of Life, by Jacques Loeb (University of Chicago Press).

New books of poetry that might be a lot worse:

The Stranger at the Gate, by John G. Neihardt (Kennerley).
First Love, by Louis Untermeyer (Sherman-French).

New books of interest to the civilized theatre-goer:

The Works of John Millington Synge, 4 volumes (Luce).
Such Is Life, by Frank Wedekind, translated by Francis J. Ziegler (Brown).