Baltimore Evening Sun (23 March 1914): 6.

Perambulating East Baltimore street last night, I searched in vain for my distinguished friend, the Rev. Dr. W. W. Davis, and his attendant catchpolls of the plupious Lord’s Day Alliance. Evidences of his neglect of duty were on all sides. A shameless delicatessen monger sold me a chunk of blutwurst without the slightest attempt at concealment, and in another store I bought a rasher of ganshalz and some schnitzelgloz. Across the street the works of Bulwer Lytton were openly displayed in a bookstore, and a block further on a public concert was going on, with a silver collection at the door. Are such debaucheries to go unpunished? Can it be that the “moral patrol” is out of business? Where were the snouting policewomen?

A DAILY THOUGHT. In moderation, wine, beer and spirits may be taken throughout a long life without impairing the general health.--Sir William Osler, Bart., M D., LL. D.

The Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte, LL. D., on his late chief:

Many of our newspapers and public men and sundry small fry * * * might say * * * “they always tell the truth, except as to Theodore Roosevelt.”

What is more, the Hon. Mr. Roosevelt himself might say it.

The Hon. John E. Raine continues to fill the columns of the Towson New Era with rich and racy reports of deviltries in Baltimore county, and particularly in Highlandtown. The moral movement in the city, inaugurated by the estimable Soper-Niles-Ammidon Police Board, has turned Highlandtown into a sort of haven for the unsanctified. It is copiously strewn with brothels, gambling houses, all-night saloons. Revelry reigns as in Tyre and Ninevah. Trade is drummed in the city, but served across the county line. The moral United Railways does a land-office business. Highlandtown enjoys a boom.

It is to the putting down of such gross carnalities that the Hon. Mr. Raine dedicates the New Era, which is still in its first volume. As a result it is one of the most entertaining journals that come to The Evening Sun office. Week after week its first page is filled with the chronicles of the gay life–lists of faro joints, directories of kaifs of easy virtue, gossip of the handbooks, notes and jottings of the red-light district. Whether the Hon. Mr. Raine is moved by a genuine moral fervor or by a mere desire to make an interesting paper, I do not profess to know, but at all events he is making an interesting paler–the liveliest and best that Baltimore county has ever seen. If its circulation is not growing by leaps and bounds, then the people of the county are not human.

Whe are the city papers so silent about Highlandtown? Time was when they muckraked it semi-annually, to the vast delight of all connoisseurs. But now, with a show going on in every ring, they seldom mention it: the Hon. Mr. Raine has so complete a monopoly that many folks have begun to take his instructive weekly. I throw out the suggestion to the learned city editors of the Evening News, the Star and The Evening Sun. Here is hot stuff, gents, and you are letting it get away. Why waste time and space on handbooks, jail wardens, ward heelers and fortune-tellers? There is material for a whole week of exposes in the county brothels alone–first fruits of our own blest vice crusade. There is material for another week in the games of chance, and for still another in the all-night saloons. And then Back River will be opening for the summer, and its annual “cleaning up” will be in order. Vorwarts!

Myself an old vice crusader, in active practice before most of the current professors were heard of, I still prick up my ears whenever I smell smoke. Ah, the old days! Ehue fugaces, Jasone, Jasone! Dost remember how we spied out the “music” halls of Gay street and filled the columns of the old Herald with astounding tales, and stirred up the moral element, and dragged a lot of scared cops before the Police Board? The joke is that the “music” halls were actually closed--and that they have never reopened since! Such was muckraking in its palmy days, before overcrowding spoiled it. Even the Hon. Max Ways was then a muckraker, and a very good one. So was the Hon. Wilbur F. Coyle. But the art declines. The journalist is a proud man: he refuses to put himself into competition with the Bonaparte-Levering Society and the Lord’s Day Alliance.

Headline from the estimable American Issue:

ANNAPOLIS CAPTURED BY PROHIBITIONISTS.

Somehow, this recalls the case of the man who “captured” a tiger that had escaped from a circus--and was later buried from his late residence, the Knights of Pythias officiating.

Incidentally, the Rev. Dr. Charles M. Levister, editor of the American Issue, gives the tail of the truth another twist when he counts up the saints who helped in the “capture.” On his first page he says that there were “more than 500" of them, but on pages 8 and 9 he presents a large group photograph of them--and a diligent count reveals but 228. Can it be that the rest were present only in spirit? Or that they were hiding behind the State House when the photograph was made? Dr. Levister’s statistics, like his “proofs” that Dr. Osler is an ass, are full of a sweet and optimistic fancy.

The Hon. Aristides Sophocles Goldsborough in the Municipal Journal:

The loftier ideals, which give to civilized life much of its mellow sweetness and delight. * * *

For example, the ideals of the Hon. Sunday-School Field, LL. B., president of the Sunday-School Trust.

A large ikon of the late Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, adorns the first page of the current Democratic Telegram. In the literary section the Legislature is furiously belabored for canning the mass vote, and the Sunpaper is held up to public obloquy for its part in that foul business. In addition, the Hon. D. Harry is defended for log-rolling at Annapolis, on the ground that “while it is a mighty poor example of intelligent legislation, it is the only method effective among our worthy governors from the counties.” The Hon. S. M. Wood again greases the City Club. Have a care, Sam; have a care!--Adv.

One million dollars cash for a single sound reason for voting against Col. Jacobus Hook for Mayor.

Boil your drinking water! Observe how Bob has come back! Swat the fly!