Baltimore Evening Sun (25 April 1913): 6.

The Martyr Harry in the sympathetic Hot Towel of this morning:

The F. E. Schneider Paving Company (i e., Padgett, i. e., Harry’s client) ought to be treated just like all other contractors are treated–no better and so worse.

But does the hon. gent. extend the same lofty doctrine to city depostiories? If so, what of the Calvert Bank?

Miss Lind-af-Hageby’s loss of her libel suit against the Pall Mall Gazette, deapite her 56 hours of whooping and spellbinding in court, is a heavy blow to the anti-vivisectionists, for she has been their mother superior and yell-leader for half a dozen years, and her preposterous allegations against medical men have doubtless converted many old maids of both sexes. Some time ago, the Gazette printed an article by Dr. C. W. Saleeby denouncing her as an habitual liar. She brought suit for $50,000 for libel, and it was this action that was tried the other day. The jury brought in a verdict for the defendants in 15 minutes, and the fair Joan of the guinea pigs must now pay about $25,000 in costs.

This disposes of the second of the great rabble-rousers that the cause of anti-vivisection has produced in England. The first of them, the Hon. Stephen Coleridge, came to grief half a dozen years ago, when he printed outrageous accusations against a number of English research workers. One of them sued him for libel and the jury found against him. If I remember rightly, he had to pay $10,000 damages and to apologize for his pious attack upon decent men. He is still heard from occasionally, but his old punch is lacking. Miss Lind-af-Hageby has now suffered the same forensic crippling. She may bawl again, but she will never be the same. The publicity attending her trial has exposed the vacuity of her charges.

In this country the cause of anti-vivisection has not produced any very formidable champions. The anti-vivisection societies, in the main, are made up of credulous and sentimental old women on the one hand and of professors of “medical freedom” on the other–i. e., of gentlemen with something to sell. But in England the campaign has attracted a number of more accomplished spellbinders, with Miss Lind-af-Hageby and the Hon. Mr. Coleridge at their head. The sound walloping that both have received, coupled with the report of the Royal Commission appointed a few years ago, must have the effect of turning the sympathies of the emotional to other and less prosperous crusades.

Many quite worthy persons, of course, have shown more or less interest in the war upon vivisection. That its practice is open to abuses must be obvious to everyone, and that its strict regulation would be proper is scarcely to he denied. But the chief toreadors of the cause have always demanded utter prohibition, and in support of that demand they have not hesitated to circulate brazen lies about honest investigators, nor to deny boldly all the great benefits that expertment upon animals has brought to man. But their very extravagance has defeated their aims. It is impossible to convince the average sane man that such great pathologists as Flexner, Ehrlich and Carrel are scoundrels, and it is equally impossible to convince him that vaccination is murder or that the diphtheria antitoxin is a fraud.

Remark of a mythical “prominent Southern Methodist in Virginia,” quoted with diabolical display and approbation by the Hon. William H. Anderson in the current number of his weekly paper:

I almost envy you the nagging that you get in Besotted Baltimore. Some day let us hope that your city will take a relapse and get sober.

Eloquent testimony to the patriotism and Christian charity of these baying boozehounds and scorpions of virtue.

Boil your drinking water! Cover your garbage can! Help to save Besotted Baltimore!

How prohibition works in Atlanta, Ga., as reported by a Baltimorean just returned from that moral town:

I found that I could get beer in my hotel, but nothing stronger. It was sold as “near-beer,” but it was the real stuff--Schlitz, Pabst, Anheuser-Busch and half a dozen other brands familiar in Baltimore. After trying the awful whisky sold in the fake clubs I stuck to beer. The clubs are all over town, and they will give you anything you want. Any stranger can get a 15-day card, and it’s good all night. Some months ago all the houses of prostitution in the town were closed by vice crusaders. Since then the girls have taken to the streets and have scattered all over town. It was necessary for me to be out on the streets late at night. In the course of two nights four separate attempts were made by young women to pick me up–an experience a stranger would not be likely to have in Baltimore in as many months. I was told on very good authority that social disease had increased about 30 per cent. since the closing of the houses.

How prohibition works in Asheville, N. C., as reported by a traveling Baltimorean:

In the

Hotel they have a private room off the old bar. A guest seats himself at a table in this room, and tells the waiter that he would like a little “cold tea.” The waiter then brings in whisky in a silver tea pot with a little after-dinner coffee cup to drink it out of. A request for “some twenty-three, with suds on top,” will bring you a bottle of Budweiser. The label is taken off

How prohibition works in Charlotte, N. C., as reported by a traveling Baltimorean:

The

Hotel uses this scheme: The head waiter is in charge of the drinkables. If you want whisky or a cocktail in the dining room, he serves it in a coffee cup. If you want beer, it comes in without a label. When yon ask for your bill, he tells you that there is no charge for the drinks, that you are to take them with his compliments. Naturally enough, you make it up in the tip. There is a regular scale. For a drink of whisky or a bottle of beer the tip is 15 cents. For half a pint of whisky it is 40 cents, for a pint 75 cents, and for a quart $1.25. Efforts were once made to strengthen the prohibition law in North Carolina, but the Anti-Saloon League people fought them. The idea was to enforce prohibition strictly for a year or so, and thus exasperate the people and make them repeal it. The same thing was tried in Alabama, and again the drys opposed it.

Don’t look for no gratitude in newspapers! Here Poor Harry put the goose-grease to the News for six months running--and yesterday them ingrates handed him that awful one! It don’t pay none to be kind hardly.--Adv.

From the estimable Kent News of April 14:

The treasurer of Talbot says that he has not a penny to pay county bills and refuses to give checks until some money is received for taxes. Kent is therefore not the only county without funds.

Another proof of the Hon. William H. Anderson’s contention that local option poduces opulence.

Boil your drinking water! Cover your garbage can! Down with the kaifs!