Baltimore Evening Sun (28 April 1913): 6.

From the assiduous Hot Towel of Saturday:

His fighting spirit aroused, and determined to get to the bottom of the real facts in connection with the paving situation, Mayor Preston announced last night that he proposed to make a searching and sweeping investigation. * * * The Mayor * * * said that he was trying to give the people of Baltimore an honest and upright administration.

From the same able and dutiful journal of yesterday:

City officials who saw the Mayor yesterday espressed astonishment at his strong expressions and emphatic demeanor. * * * They have begun to realize that he is a natural born fighter when once aroused. They expect to see the fur fly when the city executive commences his investigation. * * *

Let every true Baltimorean give thanks to God that the inquiry is in the hands of so ardent, fearless and upright a judge. His passion for good government, suddenly aroused to the point of frenzy, sweeps away all lesser emotions. He will forget that he was once the Hon. Mr. Padgett’s attorney, privy councillor and friend; that he was publicly defending Mr. Padgett against these very charges no longer ago than last month; that he went to Philadelphia to help the Quaker City Padgetts against the unspeakable Blankenburg ten days ago; that he has been trying for three years to bully and intimidate the newspapers which object to Padgett; that he has constantly consulted with Padgett about the distribution of jobs, including jobs in the City Engineer’s department; that he has courted Padgett, deferred to Padgett, favored Padgett, fought for Padgett.

Certainly, it would be difficult to imagine better equipment and training for a judical officer. In the Federal courts, as everyone knows, the constant effort is to assign judges to cases in which they are personally interested. The ideal is a judge who was until lately attorney for the defendant, who has publicly expressed his belief in the defendant’s innocence, who has publicly denounced the plaintiffs as liars and scoundrels, who was elevated to the bench through the defendant’s effort, who has permitted the defendant to appoint most of the court officers, and who will lose even more than the defendant if the verdict is one of guilty.

Some mellow anti-vivisectionist, characteristically anonymous, tackles me in today’s Letter Column for alleging that Miss Lind-af-Hageby and the Hon. Stephen Coleridge, the two Pankhursts of the anti-vivisection cause in England, are habitual liars and public nuisances. The defense of Miss Lind-af-Hageby, it appears, is that she is a lady, and that of the Hon. Mr. Coleridge is that the high costs of his greatest lie were met by sympathizing sentimentalists.

Unluckily, I am not greatly impressed by either defense. Many so-called ladies, I believe, are skillful and eager liars, and not a few of the most accomplished seem to be identified with the anti-vivisection jehad. That jehad, indeed, is almost wholly grounded upon organized mendacity. Its matadors devote themselves frankly and enthusiastically to “proving” that experiment upon animals has brought no good to suffering man. The only way to “prove” this is to lie about it--which is exactly what the said matadors do. That some of them are ladies has nothing to do with the question. A lie told by a lady is still a lie, and no idle bosh about “chivalry” will ever conceal the fact.

As for the Hon. Mr. Coleridge, the fact that his costs in the Bayliss case were paid by sentimentalists is only proof that senimentalists have no sense. The hon. gent. made abominably false charges against Dr. Bayliss, he was tried for the offense by a jury of his peers, and he was mulcted in $10,000 damages and ordered to pay $15,000 costs. He had his day in court; he had his chance to prove his charges; he was defended by able counsel. That he and his friends now try to make it appear that he didn’t get a square deal is no more than fresh evidence of their incurable talent for false statement, their irresistible impulse to lie.

Incidently, I note that the cloaked performer in today’s Letter Column brings in an old friend as a witness. This is Dr. Edward Bedloe. Bedloe is one of the wheel-horses of the anti- vivisection campaign of misrepresentation and balderdash. He is always introduced in such manner as to make it appear that he is a celebrated medical man. As a matter of fact, he is nothing of the sort. On the contrary, he is a mooney old fellow who has devoted most of his life to organizing Browning societies. Scientifically, he is exactly on a par with Dr. Arabella Kenealy, author of “A Semi-Detached Marriage” and “Some Men Are Such Gentlemen.”

The Hon. Aristides Sophocles Goldsborough, literary scorpion to the Hon. the Archangel Harry, in the current issue of the Municipal Journal:

Some pen and ink funny men are paid to perform the antics of literary clowns. * * * Fetching the giggle for others is what fetches the pay for himself. Nor is it necessary for him to have the least regard for facts, logic or things that are sensible. Half of his buffoonery is nothing more than a grotesque distortion of truth and common sense.

Is this to be taken as a chapter of pessimistic autobiography, or as a bilious fling at the rival literati of the Hot Towel?

The Hon. William H. Anderson is after the hide of the Evening News, which is after the hide of the Hon. John T. Stone, who is after the hide of the Back River kaifists, who are after the hide of the Hon. Mr. Anderson. Thus the moral ring-around-the-rosey!

The Hon. ex-Sheriff Padgett to the Hon. Paving Bob Padgett: Take it into court, Bob, and give them the laugh.

From an anonymous Letter to the Editor in this morning’s Sun:

The criticism in your paper of April 23 on the concert given by the Woman’s Philharmonic Society the night previous was most unjust. * * *

Why is it that such a letter almost invariably follows a concert by the Woman’s Philharmonic Society? And why is it that a similar letter almost invariably follows a concert by the Oratorio Society? The two societies, if I make no mistake, have many members in common. Can it be that among these members there is an amateur critic who knows more about music than the professionals? If so, it is a pity that the public is deprived of his regular services. I, for one, should like to profit by his teaching. And to that end I offer to give him all the space he wants. Whenever either the Oratorio Society or the Woman’s Philharmonic Society gives a concert in future, this column will be open to him. The one condition I impose is that he sign his name.