Baltimore Evening Sun (26 June 1913): 6.

Outstanding virtues of the estimable Hot Towel:

1. It does not pass the plate for sentimental charities.
2. It is against prohibition, the vice crusade and all other such moral field sports.
3. It is against progressivism in all its perunish and donkeyish forms.

4. It is in favor of the tax on bachelors.

Warning to the Hon. William H. Anderson: Look out for the Hon. Ed. Hirsch! He is hatching something! Pass’ auf! A DAILY THOUGHT. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.–Matthew vii, 15.

The one sound objection to the proposed income tax is that it will not be collected by the genial and ingratiating Col. Jacobus Hook, the most virtuous publican since Levi.—Adv.

The Hon. William H. Anderson’s protest in yesterday’s Letter Column against anonymous attacks upon his “good faith and moral nicety” must needs have the support of every professor of the punctilio, for the hon. gent., whatever his wickedness otherwise, at least does all of his own reviling in the open, and without the use of wigs, false whiskers or “coats to goe invisibal.” What is more, he accepts the natural consequences of that technique with a cheerful heart, and is even now bearing the marks of battle without complaint. Even when, as in the case of his paid advertisements in the immoral Sunpaper, he signs the name of a committee of his accusations, he is always ready to take the full responsibility for them, and to meet all objectors on the stump, in the halls of legislation, before the Eureka Athletic and Literary Club, or in open Sunday-school. Stimulating my association centres to the utmost, I cannot recall any occasion when the hon. gent. has ever been right, but by the same token I cannot recall any occasion when he has been concealed behind the arras.

In view of this forthright habit, it is certainly not unnatural that he should grow impatient under anonymous attack, particularly when that attack takes the form of gross denials of his common decency. It is difficult enough, at best, for a man to meet such charges: the very fact that he is on trial is embarrassing evidence against him. But it becomes downright impossible when his accusers do not come into open court, but discharge their projectiles at him through the Courthouse windows. He has no way of forcing the hands of these prudent gladiators. He has no way of shaking them up by striking back. If he tries to dispose of their accusations, they overwhelm him with new ones, and if he stands silent, he seems to confess.

I join in his protest against this injustice, not because I have suffered from like crimes myself, but because I fear that it will react eventually in the hon. gent’s favor. This bombardment by disappearing guns will delight a few donkeys, but it will arouse the disgust of all fair men, and the result will be the creation of a sympathetic attitude toward him, and toward his extraordinarily nonsensical arguments no less. This is a consummation devoutly not to be wished. It is of the first importance that the people of Maryland regard the Hon. Mr. Anderson with calm, judicial and fishy eye—that they penetrate the essential inaccuracy of his statistics, that they harbor a proper distrust of his moral witnesses, they they be aware of his chicaneries, that they shiver with virtuous horror over his reckless and baseless accusations, and over his studied browbeating of public officials, and over his outrageous effort to debauch and degrade the clergy. To achieve this end, the discussion of his case must be kept on the plane of reason, without any admixture of emotion. But who will keep out emotion when a martyr gyrates in the ring, flapping his pathetic chemise and dodging a hail of foul pseudonymous arrows?

If you don’t read the Democratic Telegram, you miss the most hunkerous, persuasive, solarophobic, immoral, unreliable, sagacious, independent and entertaining weekly paper in Maryland.—Adv.

The melodromatic resignation of the Hon. John L. McNab makes it certain that the trial of the Hon. M. M. Caminetti and Diggs will now be pushed with the utmost diligence and ferocity, and so the betting odds in the kaifs have advanced to 100 to 1 on their prompt conviction. Such are the ways of justice under a moral democracy. The so-called white slave act, under which the prosecutions are proceeding, is one of the loveliest triumphs of our national morality. Under it any man who aids a woman of defective virtue to cross a State line, however innocently, is liable to four years’ imprisonment as a white slave trader. So snoutish and absurd is the law, indeed, that it is now actually dangerous to vice crusaders themselves. If one of them, for example, rescues a girl from a disorderly house in Maryland and sends her to a moral stockade in some other State, and she later escapes and resumes her old profession, her rescuer stands in peril of imprisonment. This, remember, is not my own bilious interpretation of the law: I quote almost exactly from one of the magazines run by vice crusaders. The editor of that magazine, a moralist of national eminence, was warning a young disciple against helping reformed prostitutes to go home.

The Hon. MM. Caminetti and Diggs, unless I am incorrectly informed, are accused of having made a morganatic journey into Nevada with two young women of Sacramento. The young women were of discreet age and considerable education, and they went with the utmost willingness. The crime actually committed by the two men is punished here in Maryland by a maximum penalty of $10 fine. But because the line between California and Nevada was crossed in the course of the voyage, the two stand now accused of the abominable offense of trading in women, and in view of the artful way in which the public passions have been inflamed, it seems very likely that they will be convicted. The clank of the jail gates upon them will be sweet, sweet music to many a moral ear. It is thus that respect for the laws of the land is propagated by our secular archangels.

Ten cents for the name and address of any anti-suffragist who will say on her honor that she would rather wash the dinner dishes than make a speech.—Adv.

The Rum Demon, having made his will, is entering upon the stage of Cheyne-Stokes breathing.—Adv.