Baltimore Evening Sun (4 December 1912): 6.

The super-Mahon vs. John Walter vs. Young Bill: the Battle at the Barrels.

The Towel and Serviette, of course, will help the super-Mahon to beat John Walter, but suppose he actually does so and Young Bill is his Republican opponent--what then? An interesting situation! No doubt it will be met by greasing both boys.

Art is a cosmopolitan, a mongrel. The blood of all races flows in its veins. The happy thoughts of all nations are imbedded in its gospel. Observe, in proof, the scattered origin of the universal art forms. The sonnet is Italian, the sonata is German, the tragedy is Greek, the mazurka is Polish, the roudeau is French, the mezzotint is Engjish, the mosaic is Byzantine, the csardas is Magyar, the drama of ideas is Scandinavian. And now our own young nation, but lately emerged from mere imitation, comes forward with its offerings. We, too, devise art forms, for all the world to explore and enjoy * * * The crayon portrait, the best seller, the detachable cuff, the “turkey trot,” the comic supplement * * *

Oleaginous remark of the estimable Evening Serviette:

The Mayor * * * realizes that the seat now occupied by Senator John Walter Smith is to be filled, as well as the short or Rayner term.

Another proof of Brains, of that astonishingly acute power of observation, of that sublime deductive faculty!

What has become, by the way, of the League for Medical Freedom, Maryland Branch? Here we behold Dr. Bosley and his ruffians vaccinating niggeroes by the score and gross--and yet not a protest from that camorra of moral Perunists, not a squeal from that bunch of psychic masseuses! A year or so ago the league was all fire and brimstone. Its press agents filled the newspapers with their balderdash. Its rhetoricians bellowed for Mind. But now we hear no more from it than we hear from the tomcats of 1885. Awake, dear hearts! We pine for your bosh!

And the Maryland Antivivisection Society--what of it? All through the summer and autumn of 1911 it held the centre of the stage--manufacturing bogus evidence, “editing” the writings of honest men, proving that dogs and cats had souls, keening over murdered guinea pigs, mourning the galled rhesus, converting she-novelists, theosophists, “fruitarians” and third-rate actors into “eminent” surgeons and “celebrated” pathologists. But no more! The unspeakable Carrel gets the Nobel prize--and the Maryland Antivivisection Society takes the count. Alas, alackaday! What slush we miss! What piffle we must go without!

Meanwhile, the scoundrels of allopathy continue to chop up rabbits, and scratch arms, and slay their trillions of mythical germs. My French secretary, on vacation from the Belvedere kitchen, lays before me a copious translation from the Bulletin de l’Academie de Medecine de Paris of October 8, telling of a cruel inoculation of French soldiers at Avignon. Typhoid broke out in the town and the surgeons offered to inject typhoid vaccine into the arms of all who were willing. Of the 2,053 men of the garrison, 1,366 accepted and 687 refused. Of the 687 who refused, 155 contracted typhoid and 21 died of it. Of the 1,366 who accepted, not one fell ill. Such is villainy! Let the band play the brindisi from “Pelleas et Melisande”!

From the Hot Towel’s report of last night’s meeting of the Baltimore City Medical Society:

Dr. Marshall said the germ of infantile paralysis was in many cases caused by insects, such as flies and mosquitoes.

Put into Towelese, even the commonest phenomena become miracles.

The mad turmoil of the platitudinarians:

All taxes are a burden.–The super-Mahon. Everybody is progressive nowadays.--The Hon. William H. Anderson. Wealth is not always the sign of real progress.–The Rev. Dr. Peter Ainslie.

Forthcoming prizes in the free-for-all platitude contest:

A flitch of Frederick county pfannhase from the famous abattoir of the Hon. Luther Derr. A complete suit of oilskins, tallow and witch hazel proof. The horns of an estimable cow named Holly, lately deceased. A bottle of extra dry Peruna, autographed by Dr. Hartman. A hand-painted oil painting of the Emerson Tower. A card of membership in the Concord Club, entitling the holder to speak to the Hon. Daniel Joseph Loden. A pair of hyenas, trained to chase sinners. A bird in a glided cage.

After all, there is no reason to lament the small deficit of “The World in Baltimore.” That deficit stays in Baltimore, whereas a surplus, it there had been any, would have gone to the heathen elsewhere.

The Havre de Grace deacons, as a thank offering for the moral profits of the summer, have decided to send $17.50 to the heathen.--Adv.

Vacuocaput, n, a subscriber to the super-Mahon’s new paper, a leererkopf, a voidhead.

The ex-sheriffs are now drawing $10 a day for waiting. Such are the rewards of virtue.--Adv.

The Concord Club has decided to charge 15 cents admission every time Col. Jacobus Hook makes a speech. But the Colonel himself will be charged $15.--Adv.

Proposed rubber stamps for the use of the Hon. Aristides Sophocles Goldsborough, editor of the super-Mahon’s new paper:

The. most popular man in Baltimore. A great mayor. A scoundrelly press. Enormous abilities. Undoubted genius. Brains.

From “The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol,” by William J. Locke:

“If he had only taken me with him!” “But, dear Mme. Fleurette, he could not expose you to the hardships of travel. You, who are as fragile as a cobweb, how you go to Patagonia, or Senegal, or Baltimore, those wild places where there are no comforts for women? You must be reasonable.”

Score another victory for the estimable boomers.

Now that Col. Jacobus Hook is vice-president of the Concord Club, he doesn’t care a hoot how often the Old Town Merchants murder him. But he has still got to square himself with a Certain Party for opposing the paving tax.--Adv.

Christmas is a day on which most men are so glad that their Christmas shopping is over that they are willing to forgive their friends for sending them presents.