Baltimore Evening Sun (10 October 1912): 6.

THE FREE LANCE

Some scoundrel writes in to suggest that Judge Henry A. Middleton Smith, of South Carolina, now engaged judicially in our midst, be given a transcript of the case against the ex-sheriffs as a souvenir of his visit. An excellent suggestion. The Sheriffs’ case is the glory of our bench, the debauch and passion of our bar. But why give Judge Smith the whole record? It would cost him $200 to ship it home. Why not simply the following extract, inlaid with platinum upon a sheet of gold:

Wanted

A Wet Hope

Who will trot him forth? Who has him under cover, training, mellowing? Does he labor in secret at some Back River roadhouse, punching the bag, pummeling his sparring partner, eating raw beef? Is the Hon. Satan Anderson due for a staggering surprise, a fatal meeting, a homeric whaling? Who will save the Hon. the Rum Demon from that deadliest, most devilish foe? Who will seize Satan by the horns and fling him over the ropes? * * * Or can it be that no such hero exists, that Satan challenges in vain (and knows it), that the cause of Rum is lost?

Alas, how long will the chamberlains of the Demon try to dispose of Satan by calling him names? How long will they send fourth-rate boys against him, to make a dry holiday? Price lasted 15 rounds, but carried off 15 hideous wounds, the least of them 15 inches deep. Speicher left the ring an embalmed and wiser man. And the other little follows, if they ever get up courage to face those hard gloves, will be lucky to escape with their ears.

The call is for a stronger, shiftier slugger--specifically, for an experienced professional, hep to all the tricks of the duello. The Prices and Speichers will not do. They are on the defensive. They carry the handicap of indicted men. And besides they know no more about laryngeal jousting than so many policemen. All they can do is to bawl, weep and swear upon their halidoms. Better gladiators are needed--gladiators not on trial--gladiators not excited--gladiators as cool as mint juleps and as skillful as Anderson himself.

Certainly, there must be more than one such fellow in Baltimore. Anderson, helping his foes, suggests that one be sought in the Inns of Court. A good idea. Baltimore has the subtlest, slickest barristers in Christendom. It is nothing for them to tickle the Constitution under the chin with one hand and remove its liver and lights with the other. That black is white is an elemental axiom of their art. They have lungs of leather, gullets of brass, consciences of onyx and porphyry. Their whoops turn the Courthouse into a boiler factory. Their syllogisms keep Aristotle revolving furiously in his grave, a Greek pinwheel, a tortured turbine. The best of them will take no case with merit in it: such child’s play is for children. Even the worst of them can reduce a judge to enchanted syncopt in 10 minutes by the clock.

Why not hire such a professor to remove the hide of the Hon. Mr. Anderson? Why not murder him at once and have done? If he lasts until the autumn campaign of 1914, the betting odds in favor of the Local Option Bill will go to 10 to 1. He must be slain now--and that man who would slay him must be his equal in paralogy, his peer in sophistry, his fair match in pathos and wind music.

The mad whooping of the platitudinarians:

Good old Doc Schulze, dean and wiskinski of the American College of Mechano-Therapy, at 81 West Randolph street, Chicago, has apparently despaired of getting me on his roll at his cut-rate of $1 down and $3 a month, which he offered on September 22, and so he begins all over again. That is to say, he goes back to his first charge of $100 cash, or $37 down and $23 a month, thinking, no doubt, that a second course of his form letters, with the price gradually lowering again, will soften me and loosen me from my.money.

The doc first tackled me so long ago as July 17, 1911, when he offered to teach me the noble science of mechano-therapy, the foreordained successor of the scoundrelly buffonery taught at Johns Hopkins Medical School, for $100 cash, or $37 down and $23 a month for 3 months, or $24 down and $14.50 a month for 6 months. When I failed to bite he came back, on August 12, with a reduction to $50 cash, or $18.50 down and $11.50 a month for 3 months, or $12 down and $7.25 a month for 6 months. And thereafter, determined to get me, he made further reductions, as follows:

But now, as I say. he goes back to $100 cash, or $37 down and $23 a month for 3 months, or $24 down and $14.50 a month for 6 months. Accompanying this proposal, however, is something new: An offer of 50 per cent. discount “for immediate acceptance.” That is to say, if I fall for it at once, I may send $50 cash instead of $100, or pay $18.50 down and $11.50 a month for 3 months instead of $37 down and $23 a month, or $12 down and $7.25 for 6 months instead of $24 down and $14.50 a month. In brief, his offers of July 17, 1911, and August 12 are amalgamated, as it were, and so the lure of each is doubled.

Nevertheless, I do not send the money. My experience with the doc leads me to suspect that he will come down still further. Medical freedom, of course, is a great boon, but why pay $37 for it when the chances are that it will be going for $1 again by next summer? For all I know, indeed, it may go even lower. The doc is no money grubber, but a true philanthropist. Soon or late, I am convinced, he will offer to teach mechano-therapy for nothing–and maybe he will even offer students $2 or $3 for studying it.