Baltimore Evening Sun (9 January 1914): 6.

Standing of the high contesting parties in the grand peruna-swallowing match between the Hon. Isaac Lobe Straus, LL. D., and the estimable Sunpaper:

Isaac. Sunpaper. Local option. The short ballot. Woman suffrage. Penalogy. The initiative. The Lee plan. The referendum. The direct primary. The Gorman plan. The initiative. The direct primary. The referendum. The low tariff. Vansickleism. Anti-vivisection. The low tariff. Trust-busting. Bryanism.

A DAILY THOUGHT. Jealousy is the theory that the other fellow has just as little taste.--John Bunyan.

Whoever is responsible, whether the Hon. Sunday-school Field, LL. D., the Hon. Bob Lee, the Hon. Aristides Sophocles Goldsborough, LL. B., or the Hon. D. Harry himself, for the reply to Dr. Phillips Lee Goldsborough in the first column of page 16 of this morning’s Towel, deserves public praise for a straightforward and convincing piece of writing. It disposes, one by one, of all the Angelic Doctor’s specious and sophomoric arguments against Home Rule for Baltimore city. There is sound knowledge in it, and there is sound sense. It is one of the few intelligent state papers that have emanated from the studios of the Hon. Harry since his coronation, and it should be given respectful attention by the members of the Legislature.

Life under prohibition in Salisbury, Md., as described by the Rev. Dr. Morgan Lee Starke, kappelmeister of a revival in those parts:

He said that whisky and beer were being sold at three places on Main street, right under the eyes of the police; that he could point out three disorderly houses, two of which were on Main street; that he had counted 32 females playing their trade openly on the streets.

The population of Salisbury, at the last census, was 6,690--a mere chicken of a town. If Baltimore were as sinful per capita as should have 249 speak-easies and 166 brothels on Baltimore street alone, and our boulevards and avenues would be perambulated by 1,909 fair victims of the hypodermic needle! If this be prohibition, give us Back River!

The Eastern Shore! The Eastern Shore! Eftsoon it will be “dry” no more! Each town will swap its boot-legs for a first-class family liquor store!

Historical note from a current magazine:

About 15 centuries ago an Arab herder of goats, driving his flock through some new country, was alarmed at the antics of the animals and thought they were possessed of the devil. Each day the same thing occurred after the goats had eaten of a certain kind of berry. The goatherd thought he would eat a few to try the effect. That was the discovery of coffee.

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

The Hon. Rudolph Blankenburg, Mayor or Philadelphia, on his reform schemes:

I care not who gets the credit for the achievement.

The Dashing Harry of Philadelphia! How alike in their modesty are all great men!

From the history of a female patient in The Evening Sun’s amusing Divorce-Clinic:

I believe that the good Lord will show me a way out. * * * Please advise me.

The classical mixture of mouthly faith and sneaking doubt. If this fair penitent is so sure that the good Lord will show her a way out, why does she apply for guidance to The Evening Sun’s Ella Wheeler Wilcox?

What between the short ballot and the initiative and referendum, the estimable Sunpaper is in the position of the man who was chased into a lion’s cage by a crocodile.

The gossip in the kaifs has it that the Hon. Young Cochran will turn State’s evidence the moment the legislative committee begins its investigation of the Anti-Saloon League. But whether he does or not, backward-lookers are assured a refined and instructive entertainment. Among other things, it is positively promised that the Hon. William H. Anderson will be brought back to testify.--Adv.

That anonymous anarchist who polluted Tuesday’s Letter Column with the unearthly doctrine that “Dr. Joshua Rosett is as great a man as the Hon. Frank A. Munsey” makes an effort today to support it with evidence. Needless to say, that this so-called evidence of his, at least in so far as it relates to the Hon. Mr. Munsey, is bogus, bilious and libelous. His method is simply to exaggerate the hon. gentleman’s commercialism on the one hand, and to deny his idealism on the other hand. It would be perfectly possible, by the same immoral process, to prove that the Hon. Ben B. Lindsey is an uplifter for revenue only and that the Hon. William Jennings Bryan loves money even more than he loves the common people.

As a matter of fact, fully a half of Mr. Munsey’s energies, during the last 40 years, have been devoted to what the Nobel prize committee calls “work of an idealistic tendency.” Not only has he labored gallantly for the purification of American politics, without the slightest hope or thought of personal reward, but in addition he has spent many an hour that should have been given over to needed slumber in composing fiction of an inspiring and reformatory character. I allude, of course, to his celebrated romances, “The Boy Broker” and “Afloat in a Great City,” to say nothing of “Derringforth,” a title of honorable amour, and “The Boy Pirates of the Hudson,” an epic of valor and high endeavor. Here is beauty for you, and here is virtue. Here is the true and secret soul of a great man.

I bring, of course, no accusations against Dr. Rosett. Such of his compositions as I have chanced to peruse, whether didactic or purely artistic in character, have been marked by a soothing and mellow loveliness. But it would be an absurdity to compare them to “The Boy Broker,” and sheer insanity to put them with “Derringforth.” Not even Dr. Rosett himself, I dare say, would venture upon such absurd comparisons. He is a worthy and industrious author, but he is no Munsey. It is unimaginable that he should have written the first chapter of “Derringforth.” And to prove that it is unimaginable, I shall publish selected extracts from that chapter, and perhaps from other chapters, during the next week or so.

Belated, but none the less beautiful epitaph upon the late William H. Anderson:

Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed And drunk the milk of Paradise.