Baltimore Evening Sun (12 December 1912): 6.

The next picture to appear upon the screen, ladies and gents, will show the Archangel Harry issuing out of a window at the City Hall--and throwing kisses in the direction of the News Building.

The estimable Hot Towel on former Sheriff Bill Green’s latest bout with the Constitution of Maryland:

Should Judge Dawkins grant a new trial in the case it will again be tried in the lower court. Should a new trial be refused the case will undoubtedly be taken to the Court of Appeals. * * * Even should a new trial be granted the case will ultimately find its way to the higher tribunal. * * *

In other words, no matter what happens, Bill will hang on to the money. A practical application, supported by the courts, of the Hon. Cole L. Blease’s racy theory of the Constitution.

Send five cents to the Just Government League, 817 North Charles street, for the current, or Vice Number of the Maryland Suffrage News. In it you will find the full program of the vice crusaders. If it convinces you that the said crusaders are wise, or even that they are reasonably intelligent, then I retire abashed from the scene of controversy and leave you to join the jehad.

A body don’t hear hardly nothing no more about them stuffers no more, and even more less about Tom McNulty.

Proposed subject for a public debate at the Fifth Regiment Armory:

Resolved, That the Society for the Suppression of Vice is even more bogus than the Lord’s Day Alliance.

The wintry whistle of the platitudes:

The physical man cannot live without air.–The Rev. Dr. Polemus H. Swift. He who hesitates is lost.--The Hon. Robert J. McCuen.

Inquiry from a highly respectable subscriber:

Who got last week’s platitude prize?

Answer: Nobody. During the whole week but three platitudes worth printing were submitted, and only one of them showed any positive merit. This was the following, the composition of the Hon. the super-Mahon:

All taxes are a burden.

But the committee of judges, having hitherto awarded the hon. gent. no less than three prizes, refused flatly to give him a fourth, and so the week’s contest was called off. Accordingly, the prize is carried over into this week. It is a copy of a pamphlet proving that dogs and cats have souls, issued with the imprimatur of the Maryland Anti-Vivisection Society, that great camorra of logicians. Next week’s prize will be a bottle of extra dry Peruna, autographed by Dr. Hartman himself. The week following: A complete suit of oilskins, tallow and witch-hazel proof.

Every connoisseur of platitudinizing must lament the recent decay of the art in Baltimore. Time was when the Merchants and Manufacturers’ Association met twice a week and passed resolutions so rich with platitudes that every single “whereas” was snapped up eagerly by collectors. The great platitude collection of the British Museum is full of specimens from Baltimore and most of them are from the famous Hopkins place ateliers of yesteryear. But now the Honorary Pallbearers devote themselves exclusively to banquetting, and so the soughing of their platitudes is heard no more.

Yet again, Baltimore used to have a noble squad of pulpit platitudinizers, but it has been reduced, by the fortunes of war, to a few brave veterans. These gentlemen, true enough, do their best, and now and then they show pretty good form, but they are not the equals of the old masters. Even the moralists degenerate in talent. During the last three months, for example, the Hon. William H. Anderson has produced but one platitude, and this one was anæmic, moth-eaten and withered at the root.

So with the political platitudinarians. The Hon. the super-Mahon is the only practitioner among them who is worthy of respect, and the judges, as I have said, tire of him. The Hon. Augustus Cæsar Binswanger, I do not forget, won the prize a few weeks ago, but it was with a platitude lifted from the late John Milton. If the judges had been familiar with English literature they would not have been stung. As for the Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte, he not only steers clear of decent platitudes, but actually addresses the public with such vigor and resourcefulness that I have had a hard time finding sophistries in answer to him.

The Hon. the super-Mahon to the ladies of the Women’s Civic League:

I * * * determined that no public servant should be discharged because another wanted his place.

Respectfully referred to the Hon. Jacobus Hook, pallbearer to the murdered tax bailiffs, for investigation and report.

Capricaput, n, a taxpayer under an old-fashioned administration, a repeater on the tax books, a goat.

From the usually veracious Towel of this morning:

For the seventh time in the last two months, Col. Robert T. MrCuen, Superintendent of Lamps and Lighting, received an offer of marriage yesterday.

With all due respect, Bosh! The Hon. Mr. McCuen has received, not seven proposals in two months, but 50 in a week. Year in and year out he averages at least eight a day. One widow alone has offered to marry him three times a week for the last four years, and at last accounts she had offered to settle 300, 000 upon him if he would consent.

But do not fear: the honorable gentleman will never yield. He is one of the few absolutely trustworthy bachelors in Christendom. Nearly all the rest are fakes. Ninety − nine per cent. of them would wed tomorrow if they could see any worldl yprofit in it. But not Mr. McCuen.  So sure am I of his courage and bona fides, that I hereby publicly promise to cut my throat, the day he faces the baleful parson.

Read the Maryland Suffrage News and get cured of the suffrage habit.—Medical Adv.

Prof. Dr. Bob Padgett, rector of the Municipal College for Paving Inspectors,  announced that the college will move to the Philippine sunless the people of Baltimore come across with 1,000,000.—Adv.

The Democratic Telegram, after collecting $7.25, has abandoned its campaign for a statue to the late Joe Gans, and Opportunity now knocks at the door of the Towel.