Baltimore Evening Sun (6 January 1913): 6.

Headline from the oleomaniacal Hot Towel:

MAYOR LAUGHS AT CRITICS.

A palpable improvement upon the hon. gent’s old plan of trying to scare them to death by making faces at them. Besides, it promotes harmony: the critics themselves have been laughing for two years.

BILL GETS IN LINE.

In my opinion suffrage for women is bound to come. There are many arguments against it, but no reasous.—The Hon. William Dean Howells.

That suffragette who sent me a scurrilous letter on December 31 has one more day of grace. I gave her seven days in which to celebrate the New Year and take leave of her friends. Tomorrow I shall set in motion the sharp, cruel wheels of Chapter III, Section 3893, of the Revised Statutes of the United States, and so start her for the Federal Calaboose at Atlanta. The penalty for her crime against civilization is a fine of “not less than $100 nor more than $5,000, or imprisonment at hard labor for not less than one year nor more than ten years, or both, in the discretion of the court.”

I lament the sad fate confronting this suffragette, but how can I help it? It is my plain duty, as a good citizen, to aid in the enforcement of the laws. As it is, I am running some risk by giving her seven days’ grace. When I call upon the Postoffice inspecters tomorrow, they may jug me for compounding a felony. Such things have happened. And yet I take the chance, if only to prove that I have a heart. The suffragette in question, whatever her own crimes, at least comes from a respectable family, and I want to put off the shock to it as long as possible.

Incidentally, my legal advisers tell me that the Federal Courts are very severe upon violators of Section 3893. The percentage of convitions in such cases is 96.75, and the sentences meted out are usually very severe. During ten years past, for example, the average fine in those cases in which no imprisonment was imposed has been no less than $1,850. During the same time the average sentence in imprisonment cases has been six years and four months. And the average penalty in cases of mixed punishment has been $660 fine and one year and eleven months in prison. In but four cases out of 356 have there been suspensions of sentence, and in but one case has the President exercised executive clemency.

Thus it appears that my suffragette correspondent is up against it. I have four handwriting experts standing ready to identify her handwriting, and the legend upon her letter to me was palpably scurrilous The very same words, indeed, have already sent at least one offender to prison, as you will find in 67 U. S. Reports, VI, 6. In this case the judge imposed a sentence of but $1,000 fine and one year at Atlanta, but such mercy is rare. The Federal bench tends to become more and more bilious. Its obvious aim is to put down immorality by making all punishments “shocking.”

The ex-Sheriffs are thinking of buying State bonds with the money. Thus the State will have the use of its own cash at a very moderate rate of interest.—Adv.

The Hon. E. L. Taylor on my crimes and misdemeanors in today’s Letter Column:

It isn’t in very good taste, it seems to me, to be eternally impugning the motives of those, etc., etc.

In other words, blue is blue. Would a man of good taste work for a newspaper? Let the Hon. Mr. Taylor abate his rage. Next he will be arguing solemnly that all lawyers are liars. Or that all dogs have fleas. Or that cows have no wings.

The hon. gent’s further allegation, that I am “the champion of all the questionable resorts, occupations and practices in the city,” is equally nonsensical. Of the questionable resorts that I am against I need mention only the City Hall. Of the questionable occupations, that of moral snouter. Of the questionable practices, that of promoting prostitution by dispersion. Here are a few examples. If the pifflish Mr. Taylor craves a complete list, I shall be glad to print it.

New books of plays that you had better not miss:

Dramas, by Gerhart Hauptmann, tr. by Ludwig Lewisohn, Vol. I—Before Sunrise, The Beaver Coat, The Weavers, The Congregation. (Huebsch,) Plays, by August Strindberg, tr. by Edward Bjoerkman, Vol. IV—Creditors, Pariah. (Scribner.) Rutherford & Son, by Githa Sowerby. (Doran.) The Middle Class, by J. Rosett. (Phœnix Press.)

New novels that rise above the common level of balderdash:

The Royal Road, by Alfred Ollivant. (Houghton-Mifflin.) Atlantis, by Gerhart Hauptmann. (Huebsch.)

From the current issue of the Democratic Telegram, the Hon. the super-Mahon’s false whiskers:

Seldom in the history of the city has the demand for a man to be a candidate for public office been greater than that whch has developed throughout Baltimore for Mayor James H. Preston to run for the United States Senate. Without any effort on his part, Democrats during the last few days have taken up the Mayor as a candidate, and have really started a fight for him.

A good five-cent cigar for the name and address of one such flaming volunteer. City contractors and old-fashioned jobholders barred.

Boil your drinking water! Boil your milk! Boil your children!

Every member of the Concord Club has received one of the Old Town Bank’s charming little memorandum books from the Hon. Jacobus Hook. But it is pathetic to see them standing up to write in them.—Adv.

Advice to old-fashioned jobholders: Get out your Harry buttons and begin wearing ’em again.

The kicking lady in front of the Empire Theatre kicks 17 times a minute, and every time she kicks she lands on the crazy-bone of the Hon. Samuel E. Pentz, C. P.

Still, the Hon. Mr. Pentz is not the only moral martyr. I myself suffer too. Every time I pass the Central Young Men’s Christian Association, and look in at that scandalous Naked Shoulder, I blush as red as the tiles on the Hansa Haus roof and am carried fainting to the Rennert bar.

The betting odds in the Eutaw street pool-rooms, as reported by the Society for the Suppression of Vice:

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1 that the Hon. Lon Miles is not asked to nominate Harry for the Senate.