Baltimore Evening Sun (28 June 1913): 6.

Tip to the Hon. William H. Anderson: Dr. Zechla Judd is the false whiskers of the Hon. Ed. Hirsch.

A member of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, quoted in the Sunpaper, on the proposed denaturization of the Western Tenderloin:

The appalling task which is confronting Captain Cole is that of preventing the women who are leaving the district from inhabiting boarding or furnished room houses in the same vicinity. In three blocks in the district there are 455 furnished-room dwellings. In a radius of three blocks from Fayette and Fremont streets there are 100 placas selling liquor. Captain Cole’s men will have to be wide awake.

The true charm of Captain Cole’s job is shown by the fact that his total force, including himself, numbers but 94 men. Of these, 20 are day patrolmen and 39 are night patrolmen. The rest are sargeants (12), round sergeants (2) and lieutenants (2). The lieutenants never leave the station house, save in cases of great emergency, and some of the patrolmen are also on duty there. Even with the aid of “flying squads,” spies from other districts, policewomen, private detectives and volunteer snouters, Captain Cole’s force will not exceed 150 sabres. Each of these sleuths will have three furnished-room houses to watch, besides doing ordinary patrol duty.

News item from the inaccurate and immoral New York Evening Journal:

20 Cups A Day Crazes Woman Coffee Fiend Yonkers, June 25.--Miss Penelope Corey, of 65 Glenwood avenue, required two policemen to restrain her while temporarily crazed from drinking too much coffee. She had been in the habit of drinking 20 cups a day. Judge Beall offered to send her to a hospital, but at her request she is free today and on her way to the mountains for a rest. She promised to try to rid herself of the coffee habit.

Respectfully referred, etc., to the Hon., etc., etc., etc.

The Hon. Charles G. Mason, writing in today’s Letter Column, argues that my compositions are unfit reading for the young on the ground that I lately “condoned the acts of four moral reprobates,” to wit, the Hon. MM. Caminetti and Diggs, of Sacramento, Cal., and the two “white slave” they are accused of having lured to destruction. Let the Hon. Mr. Mason now give us his view of the more sweeping condonation described in the eighth chapter of the Gospel According to St. John. And let him also tell us what the Author of that condonation would have said of those bogus followers who presume to serve Him today by flinging cobblestones, not only at all persons “taken” in sin, but also, and more especially, at all persons merely accused of sin.

The bachelor’s tax! The bachelor’s tax! Oh, lead us to that soft, sweet ax!

If the Hon. William L. Marbury is really the Federal job agent in Maryland, as the Hon. Dashing Harry says he is, and if he is open to suggestions from the outer darkness, then let me whisper the hint that he recommend the Hon. Jacobus Hook, K. T., for the lofty and distinguished post of Collector of the Federal Income Tax. It is no more than simple justice to Colonel Hook to say that he is the greatest living tax collector, and by greatest I mean the most successful and the most popular. His incomparable gift revealed itself the moment he was appointed, and since then he has broken all records. He is the only tax collector in Christendom who has ever collected more than 100 per cent. of taxes in any year. He is the only tax collector who is so genial and persuasive that taxpayers invite him to banquets after they have paid their taxes. He is the only one who gives away a genuine Vuelta Abajo cigarro, warranted sterile, with every receipt.

Ever since the days of Levi, tax collectors have belonged to an abhorred and pariah class, along with insurance solicitors, newspaper reporters, Anti-Saloon League superintendents, embalmers, private deteclives, elocutionists and vice crusaders. They have been barred from public inns and public conveyances. They have been turned out of all respectable clubs. In many countries, even today, the statutes hold that their assassination is no crime. But Colonel Hook, by his extraordinary social talents, has swept away all that old prejudice. And not only has he swept away that old prejudice, but he has erected in its place a presumption of innocence, an epidemic of good-will, a general and unanimous veneration. Even in South street, where tax-dodging has been a fine art since the Mexican War, he meets only smiles and hospitality. Even bank directors now pay their taxes.

Just such a man will be needed by Uncle Sam when the time comes to collect the income tax. The natural instinct of every American will be to dodge and make a mock of that tax. Sunday-school superintendents with $20,000 a year will go into court and swear that they don’t own the haloes they stand in. More immoral persons will go through public bankruptcy rather than pay. To counteract that pestilence of perjury the influence of a born tax-gatherer will be needed. Mendacity will have to be combated with geniality, avarice with eloquence. These rare goods Colonel Hook has on tap. He is able, by his subtle arts, to overcome the original sin in man. He is, to go to biology for a term, a moral antibody. Put him in charge of the collection of the income tax and he will make even John D. Rockefeller come across, and what is more, John will come across with joy in his heart and tears in his eyes. Verbum non amplius addam.

Eight cents cash to anyone who will come forward with a single sound excuse for the estimable Lord’s Day Alliance’s activity in Baltimore. Does it meet a public need? Does it accomplish any tangible good? Is its campaign supported by any appreciable public sentiment? The Anti-Saloon League, whatever its absurdities, is yet obviously combating a genuine evil. Drunkenness is dangerous and costly to society: even a foolish war upon it is probably better than no war at all. And the vice crusaders, though almost utterly lacking in sense, yet fight something that deserves to be fought. Prostitution may be inevitable and necessary, but not even those who practice it deny that it is an evil. But what of the jehad of the Lord’s Day Alliance? Is it a fact that the turmoil it kicks up is for the public good? Is it a fact that we would be better off if our Sunday were even more gloomy than it is today? Is it fair and decent to pursue poor folks, taking their recreation on their one day of rest, as if they were criminals?

Warning to the Hon. William H. Anderson: Look out for the Hon. Ed. Hirsch! He is lurking somwhere astern! He is getting ready to put one over! Mark him well! Be alert!