Baltimore Evening Sun (21 February 1913): 6.

THE FREE LANCE

Proposed personnel of the commission to pursue and eradicate the licentious cigarette:

—Down with the cigarette!—

The cigarette is the father and mother of sin. All cigarette smokers succumb to rum, and all users of rum are criminals. Abolish the cigarette, and you would also abolish, and at one stroke, arson, wife-beating, simony, bribery, tobacco-chewing, Sabbath-breaking, gambling, vaudeville, seduction, saloon-keeping, the tango, graft, burglary, kidnapping, rapine, opium eating, piracy, flirting, musical comedy, horse-stealing, barratry and the white slave trade.

—The curse of man!—

This is no time to hold back. The criminal cigarette must go! Let every moralist send in his name and his subscription. He who dailies is a dastard, and he who doubts is damned!

—Crime’s handmaiden!—

THE WOMAN HUNT

I believe that it is much better for everyone concerned that segregation should be tolerated. I do not mean to say that police officials or other authorities should place the stamp of approval on houses of ill-fame, but I do think it is far better to have such houses allowed to run in isolated districts and kept under proper police surveillance than it would be to have them forced out of such districts and scattered about various sections of the city and lodged in houses where respectable people are living, which naturally and necessarily contaminates respectable young girls.--Henry D. Cowles, Chief of Police of New Haven, Conn.

—It poisons the mind!—

New and stimulating slanders of the Hon. Satan Anderson, that victim of the viper’s tongue:

In the year 1889, at Tiffin, Ohio, he played Marguerite Gautier in a church choir performance of “Camille.” In the year 1894, under the name of Kid Sweeney, he toured the United States as sparring partner of Jake Kilrain.—It makes the crazy crazier!—Kiss projected by the Hon. the super-Mahon from Hot Springs, Ark., to the Munsey Building:

Baltimore, with its preponderating interests in the business of the State, in the tariff, in shipping, in commerce, should be allowed one of these seats in the United States Senate. Will the State allow Baltimore city to have out seat, and will the News help Baltimore to get one?

—The coffin nail!—

The lion purrs; the volcano switches from lava to goose grease; the hero climbs down from his charger and offers to shake hands. But do not be deceived. This softness is but temporary—the enervating effect of the Ozark ozone, the thermal baths, the effete atmosphere of the curhaus. Once the hon. gent. Is back in Baltimore, he will resume business with his slap- stick, his seltzer siphon, his machete, his syringe of sewage. Once more the fearful bellow, the devastating yowl, the hysterical scream.

—It fills our jails!—

Meanwhile, so my spies tell me, the Hon. Aristides Sophocles Goldsborough, writer to the signet, is preparing the final draft of the great harangue of acceptance. An easy task, particularly for one so gifted. A few changes here and there, and the historic speech of July 2, unheard in the turmoils of that fatal night, will answer quite well.

—It causes typhoid!—Solemn charge of the Hon. R. L. French in the Letter Column February 17:

Mr. Mencken has stated that the chiefs of police in several cities favor segregation. * * * May I suggest that this is of dubious value? The chief sources of graft in many cities are these houses of prostitution, receivers of benefits would not argue for their discontinuance.

—It makes murderers!—

A shining example of that intolerable wildness of statement which marks all militant moralists. If these words mean anything at all, they mean that the chiefs of police who favor segregation do so because they share in the profits of prostitutes. Is it decent for any man to make such an abominable charge against another, entirely without evidence? Personally, I think not, but I shall be glad to hear any moral argument in favor of it, either from the Hon. Mr. French himself or other specialist in virtue. What does Dr. Straton think of it? And the infallible Dr. Janney? And the angelic Dr. Hooker? Let us examine the law and hear the prophets.

—It ruins the digestion!—

Warning of the moralists to the cigarette-fiends: Smoke, and you die! Reply of the cigarette fiends: Die, and you smoke!

—It stains the fingers!—

The Hon. Dan Loden will go to the Concord Club’s bal masque wearing two gallons of diamonds and a dollar watch. Such is genuine democracy!--Adv.

—Small but fatal!—

Forget your drinking water! The fly be darned! Fix hatpins for the Vice Crusade!

—One leads to another!—

The boomers! The boomers! I hear their vernal twitters! Say what you will ag’tn them, they cert’ny ain’t no quitters!

—Beware the cigarette!—

A quart of lima beans to the Hon. Satan Anderson for any proof, not palpably bogus, that Rum makes more murderers than the licentious Cigarette.—Adv.

—The badge of sin!—

CORRECTION Readers are requested to call attention to any errors appearing is the columns of The Free Lance.

In pleading the other day for the courteous treatment of the suffragette hikers on Maryland soil, I alluded incidentally to the reports of hostile greetings at Princeton and Philadelphia. I am now informed by a polite member of Princeton University that the “rough reception” encountered by the suffragettes there was entirely imaginary, and the creation of mendacious newspaper reporters. There was crowding, true enough, for the students all wanted to see the visitors, but the latter were not injured in the slightest. On the contrary, they were accorded every politeness, including three cheers.

It is a pleasure to apologize for this unwitting slander of the Princeton boys. It is also a pleasure to denounce the scoundrelly authors of the slander. Let them send out such a foul story from Maryland, and they will be flogged at the cart-tail by the public hangman.