Baltimore Evening Sun (5 February 1913): 6.

Once more the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is entertaining the vulgar with refined vaudeville; once more the protection of dumb brutes is forgotten in the excitement of whooping and hair-pulling. This time a rivsl society, the Animal Refuge Association, takes a hand in the slugging; the thing resolves itself again into a frank struggle for supremacy.

What most persons do not know is that the continuous clowning of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is partly supported at the public expense and that the society has certain valuable rights under the law. Whenever anyone is fined for cruelty to animals in Baltimore, one-half of the fine goes to it. And to it, again, has been delegated some measure of the police power, so that it exercises an almost governmental authority over the property of citizens, and even over their personal acts and safety.

Is there any evidence, in the character and habits of its bosses, that such rights and powers are wisely bestowed? I doubt it. Would it be sound or sane for the State to give public money to the suffragettes, the vice crusaders or any other such camorra of bruisers and press agents? Of course it wouldn’t. The common sense of the community would revolt against the very suggestion. Then why should the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, with its bickerings, its bellowing and its devotion to climbing, be granted such favors?

Let those in authority look into this matter. It is evil in principle and practice to delegate the expenditure of public money and the exercise of public power to a private organization, and it is vastly more evil when that organization belongs palpably to low comedy. Why can’t the Police Department enforce the laws against cruelty to animals without the aid of irresponsible and overassertive women? Why can’t the city take care of stray dogs without becoming a party to this eternal cat-fight?

THE MERIT SYSTEM

We say frankly that we stand for the organization. If a man has not the backing of the organization, he cannot get a job. We will take care of the men who voted for us. They are our first care.—The Hon. McCay McCoy, C. E.

Public remark of a member of the estimable Paint and Powder Club:

On behalf of the board of governors I offer [the Hon.] Mr. Mencken a leading part in the forthcoming production of “Florodora.” He may do Dolores if he can.

Respectfully declined, but with all due appreciation of the honor. I fear for the safety of Albaugh’s Theatre if the Hon. Charles McCann and I should start carrying on together. We are of a heft. Our beauty is chiefly equatorial. One of us on a single stage, or even in a single field, is enough. But it is a great pleasure to offer the Hon. S. Anderson as a substitute. He has length as well as breadth. His eyebrows brush the eternal stars. He is a parallel of longitude.

From the learned and accurate Maryland Reporter of January 16, 1913 (Vol. I, No. 13, page 132):

Circuit Court of Baltimore City. Wagner vs. Leser. Judge Bond. October Term. John H. Richardson, Geo. Wash. Williams and Niles and Wolff for complainants. Honorable S. S. Field, City Solicitor, for respondents. ——— A pointed and staggering rebuke to the licentious Democratic Telegram, which has long insisted that the Hon. Mr. Field is not an authentic Hon., despite my eloquent pleas, arguments and curses. Let it now recant, apologize and strive to sin no more. The Maryland Reporter is an authority beyond dispute. It stands at the very head and forefront of all our legal publications. It never makes a mistake. ——— Letter from a resident of moral Belair in The Evening Sun of January 30:

There are many citizens who * * * actually dare to believe that Belair would be more prosperous, better-behaved, quieter and more temperate under a strict and enforcible high-license law than with the present disgraceful and demoralizing regime of negro speak-easies and bootleggers.

Are we to have no comment upon this from the learned Archdeacon Wegg, sound moralist and honest sport? I was in hopes that he would step up at once and tell us all about it. But he lingers, hesitates, stays dumb. Therefore, I now solemnly summons him to the stand. Let him give us an accurate picture of his cathedral city as it is under Prohibition, illumining the scene with all his gift for racy utterance and all his enthusiasm for a prudently denaturized ethic.

The pious Lord’s Day Alliance continues its holy war upon the kaif-keepers of Highlandtown, not forgetting, I dare say, to collect its share of the informer’s fees. Meanwhile, Sin stalks at large in dear old Baltimore and the Sabbath is debauched by a thousand deviltries. On East Balttmore street, last Sunday night, I bought a curl of servelatswurst over the counter of a wide-open delicatessen store and ate it on the street corner in full view of a sergeant and two cops. Across the street a scoundrel tempted innocent children with taffy-on-a-stick, and next door a druggist sold chewing gum without a blush, flaunting his shame in the faces of virtuous passersby. To such depths of depravity have we descended! In such foul ways do we facilitate the collection of war funds from the confessedly pure in heart!

Bugle call in the current Maryland Suffrage News:

If segregation has been condemned by the Chicago and Minneapolis vice commissions, need we hold our peace on the subject until the Maryland Vice Commission follows suit? A thousand times no!

Nor, indeed, upon any other subject. Free speech upon all subjects, however difficult, is the high boon and privilege of the suffragettes. The air sweats and staggers beneath their din. They are lovely orchestrations, amiable ophicleides, charming calliopes. As an humble practitioner of vociferation, an amateur of shrill, preposterous utterance, I offer them my obeisance on bended knuckle.

The kaif-keepers at Back River are whitewashing their trees, looking out for sharp waiters and laying bitulithic pathways to their bars. On May 1 they will give their annual reception and clam-bake to the sleuths and wiskinskis of the Lord’s Day Alliance.

Ten thousand dollars cash for any argument, not palpably satirical, against the extension of the suffrage to women. All reference to the local suffragettes barred.—Adv.