Baltimore Evening Sun (26 March 1913): 6.

The boomers! The boomers! They’re roosting on our chests! And filling us with nitrogen, and burgling our vests!

The Hon. Harold Scarborough, editor and chief scorpion of the Towson Union-News, turns aside from his customary assault upon the Hon. Mr. Fred in his current issue and devotes his sinister talents to whaling the Sunpaper. On March 20, it appears, the Sunpaper printed a letter from the Hon. Joseph A. Phipps, of Govans, praising it for its “fairness and impartiality in printing all sorts of communications”–i. e., from An Old Subscriber, Pro Bono Publico, Mr. Wegg, Dr. Zechla Judd, Clarke d’Arlington, Junius, Eagle Eye and other such amateur Brisbanes. The Sunpaper was obviously tickled by this praise, for it thanked the Hon. Mr. Phipps with many blushes, hailed him as one of the most penetrating critics of modern times and boasted prodigiously of its hospitality to opposition.

Now comes good Harold with the discovery that, on the very day this exchange of goose-grease took place, a correspondent of the Hot Towel was denouncing the Sunpaper for suppressing a letter attacking the Hon. William Luke Marbury! This correspondent was the Hon. John Thomas Bond, an estimable ancient of St. Leonards, Md., and so great was his heat that he reached the following harsh terms:

I am old enough to have known the founder of The Sun even better than I did his sons, who were all born with the instincts of gentlemen and managed The Sun to make it an influential and respectable paper. Under Grasty, the present manager, it is fast losing any right to public respect.

A good joke upon the boastful Sunpaper--but an even better one on Harold. For on the very day that the Venerable Bond was raging and roaring in the Hot Towel about the suppression of his letter, it was actually printing in the Sunpaper! Such are the tricks of fate! Such is the divine spoofing of destiny!

Incidentally, a minor joke upon good Harold is concealed within the greater. That is to say, it appears from the Venerable Bond’s letter that he is an ardent Talbott man! Imagine Harold weeping the sufferings of a Talbott man! Imagine the Union-News going to the rescue of a bravo sworn to Mr. Fred! But, as I have said, the gods have humor. Life is a merry tango a concerto for slapstick, one darn thing after another. Even its tragedies are full of burlerque. The very deaths that most of us die are ridiculous. We grandsons of the rhesus are still the clowns of the universe.

Standing of the clubs in the National Tuberculosis League for the week ended March 1:

Baltimore.........................465 Chicago.........................374 Philadelphia......................457 Pittsburgh......................355 New York.........................409 Cleveland......................329 Boston..............................402 St. Louis........................305

All that remains is for the lithocaputs of the City Council to beg Harry to make the race. It is marvelous, indeed, that they have neglected the business so long. Time was when they seized eagerly every such opportunity for a display of doggishness. Harry had but to clap his hands together and straightway they went leaping through his hoops--uttering ecstatic, ungrammatical snorts and making fools of themselves in general. But of late they show a lamentable falling off in form. A meeting of the City Council is now almost as intelligent and uneventful as a meeting of the Boy Scouts.

Can the leopard change his spots? Can the ass lose his ears? I begin to fear so. And fearing it, I likewise deplore it. For 180 years the City Council of Baltimore has offered a perennial clown show. It has attracted to its historic chamber all of the stupidest men in town–the ward heelers, keepers of growler-houses, petty political contractors, job brokers and other such ignobili. It has stood as a permanent protest against intelligence, an organized opposition to good government. It has delighted all cognoscienti by the daring and originality of its montebankeries, the epic sweep and horsepower of its numskullery.

Is it now to change front in its old age? Is it to go over to sense and dignity, those twin vices of the purse-proud and over-bathed? Is it to abandon its old larks and buffooneries? Certainly I hope not. An intelligent, self-respecting City Council would be too much to bear. Let us have a return, gents, to tradition! Let us have resolutions greasing the super-Mahon! He needs the oil; he complains bitterly of its lack. And on top of them, let us have more resolutions damning the Sunpaper, and more bad English in support of them!

How prohibition works in Montgomery county, as reported by the grand jury there:

We are fully convinced from the evidence brought before us that the illegal barterings of intoxicants and the gatherings caused thereby are in a very large measure responsible for the demoralization and crime in the county. * * *

The Washington Times, commenting on the above, speaks of the sale of “substitutes for liquor that, in many cases, are vastly more vicious in their effects than the most execrable qualities of whisky” and then goes on:

Jamaica ginger, for instance, is a favorite beverage, sold in almost unbelievable quantities by men who know it is sold for drinking, and who know, further, how serious are its effects. It is high in alcoholic content and a good deal worse in its effects than the drinks which are the objects of the law’s prohibition.

Such is the effect of the dry jehad in our own State. Let us extend our dry territory, by all means. Let us drive out the kaif and let in the blind pig. Let us put a ban on beer, with its 4 per cent. of alcohol, and open the door to Jamaica ginger, with its 90 per cent. Let us pave the way, in the name of virtue, for more “demoralization and crime.”

The fundamental theory of democracy is that every man is better able to look out for himself than any other man to able to look out for him. Example of a perfect democrat: The Hon. Calvert Bank Harry.

The day them ex-sheriffs have to loosen up would be a good day for the Factory Site Commission to grab a factory.--Adv.

The boomers! The boomers! They’ve snared us in their nets! Oh, curses on the working girl who uses cigarettes!

Iconoclastic training advice of the Hon. Bob Bogardus, manager of the Dunellen (N. J.) Baseball Club:

There is poison in coffee. It makes a man dopey. Beer has a tendency to inject ginger and clear the head.

Respectfully referred, for investigation and report, to the Hon. Eugene Levering, reviler of brewers and coffee millionaire.