Baltimore Evening Sun (19 September 1912): 6.

What will be the tax ratio if the sewer rental plan is rejected? Here are the guesses offered to date:

So far as I can judge, five perfectly sincere estimates. But not one of them, I suppose, is correct. Why doesn’t some undoubted expert come forward with the real figures?

Possible headline from the Sunpaper of day after tomorrow:

HOT RACE AGAINST VICE

Prof. Dr. Bingo, C. P., Dragged
From Bed To Save Baltimore.

SPECIAL TRAIN FROM BOSTON

Eminent Specialist, Found in Maine
Woods, Answers Call For Help.
Crowds Cheer Him Along Route.

Standing of the clubs in the National Typhoid League, for the week ended August 24:

Obviously, the pennant in safe again. The Orioles’ percentage is 489 points higher than the percentages of all the other clubs taken together.

Nevertheless, Dr. Bosley argues on his latest report to the Mayor, that typhoid is on the decline. Here are the figures upon which he bases that theory:

Unluckily, these figures, while not without their promise and hope, certainly offer no safe ground for jubilation. The number of deaths down to September 1, it will be noted, was but one less this year than in 1910--and 1910, as everyone knows, was the worst typhoid year we had had for a good while. In 1911, with 68 deaths to September 1, we had 154 deaths during the whole 12 months. This year, if the death rate to September 1 is maintained proportionately, we will have 181.

The cases reported, of course, show a considerable decrease, but it is extremely dangerous to figure upon a basis of cases reported. If, for example, we accept Dr. Bosley’s returns as correct and complete, they show a rise in the typhoid death rate from 10.4 per cent. in 1910 to 10.9 per cent. in 1911 and to 16 per cent. in 1912. Surely it is highly improbable that any such increase in virulence has actually occurred. It is far more likely that some of the local doctors, inflamed by ideas of boomery, have grown conservative in their reporting of cases.

The deaths reported, true enough, work against us unfairly, because they include the deaths of strangers dying in our hospitals. But this unfairness, let it be remembered, is nothing new. The burden it lays upon the returns is about the same year by year. What is more, it is a burden borne by all large cities, not only in this country, but also in Europe. Therefore, we cannot blame it for our relatively high typhoid rate.

Meanwhile, however, there is no excuse for pessimism. That the use of calcium hypochlorite in the water supply has had much effect is very doubtful, but the increasing use of typhoid vaccine is bound to reduce the typhoid death rate before long. Since last March the Health Department has been supplying the vaccine free of charge to all physicians applying for it. The incomplete reports at hand show that the weekly applications have averaged less than 50, but no doubt there has been a vastly greater use of the vaccine among pay patients. So far, according to one physician’s estimate, more than 6,000 Baltimoreans have been immunized. When that number grows to 50,000, the effect upon typhoid will begin to be evident.

From the estimable New York Sunpaper:

While four of the seven $17,500 a year General Sessions Judges have been enjoying cool breezes * * * on vacations ranging from one to four months, public records kept in the Homicide Bureau * * * show that 21 prisoners charged with manslaughter and theoretically innocent have sweltering in the Tombs prison waiting for trial.

Don’t boast! Baltimore goes New York one better. Here, unless I err, but one judge is on duty in summer, and he sits without a jury, so that the prisoner who desires to get out of jail when the temperature reaches 90° must surrender his constitutioual right to a jury trial. If, on the contrary, he desires to be tried by his peers, he must sweat in his cell until the other judges get back, and then wait his turn at the October term. Theoretically, of course, he is innocent. and actually he is acquitted four times out of nine. But all the same he must spend from one to four months in jail.

Such fellows, to be sure, deserve no consideration. They are poor men. If they had any money, they would pay a bondsman and get out. Let them roast! The law is not for the poor.

Kid Price, who is training hard at Young Bellais’ roadhouse for his coming bout with Young Anderson, added several experienced boys to his staff of handlers yesterday. Among them one observes Battling Carey, of East Berlin, Md., an old-time gladiator of them parts; Kid Zihlman, of Allegany; Charlie Andrew, of Harford, and Young Cook. Young Bellais will be in charge of the Kid’s corner, with Kid Benson holding the chronometer. The gloves will be examined in the ring, just before the boys put them on. Some time ago the managers of Young Anderson proposed that they be examined at 6 P. M., when the boys weigh in, and then locked up in a safe deposit box until fight time. But Young Bellais got a tip that Anderson planned to fill his mitts with plaster of paris, soft when examined, but gradually hardening to the consistency of porphyry, and so he said nay. Many sports now at Havre de Grace say that they will stay over for the match.

Anyhow, you can say one thing about this typhoid fever: it gives the man who had it a chance to blow about how bad he had it.

The Gayety and Empire may show more ankles, but the City Coucil has got ’em faded on comedians.--Adv.