Horace, the Latin poet, taught truth by laughter; in politics a smile has controlled kings; and Swift and Heine did more by their smiles for freedom than swords. We can’t all be poets, painters and presidents, but we can all be end-men to Life’s minstrel show. Mark Tapley was always cheerful, and Sydney Smith said, “I have gout, asthma and seven other maladies, but otherwise, thank the Lord, I am very well.” “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” * * * * * Pacific Coast physicians are conducting a campaign which has for its aims “the conservation of public health”—specifically, the elimination of the advertising doctors, whom they designate quacks, and the squelching of “cranks” who oppose vivisection. The editor of the Whiz Bang may be put down by the doctors as among the “cranks” because he doesn’t like the idea of vivisection. I suppose I’m one of those sentimental birds, but any goop who tries to carve up my dog, my pony, or even Pedro, my pedigreed bull, will have a fight on his hands. If surgeons must have live bodies upon which to experiment, it is suggested they utilize some of the less useful members of the medical profession. Most doctors are good citizens, and we include some advertising doctors, too. They have, it is true, a somewhat exaggerated idea of importance in the general scheme of things, but their delusion is honest. They regard the profession highly, and rightly so. This being the case, nobody would object if a doctor showed the courage of his convictions by allowing his fellow “cut-ups” to strap him on an operating table and dissect his carburetor and other inside machinery. But until doctors assume this attitude, most regular people will regard vivisectionists as a low species of bloodthirsty coward, pandering to a perverted taste for twisting entrails. * * * * * Puritans of the city of Spokane, Wash., are seeking to have a city ordinance regulating the length of skirts. Our correspondent in that neck of the woods says he sees no need for such an ordinance, and that the girls are wearing skirts now that are as long as the distance from Spokane to the Canadian border, 100 miles, and that anyway he would rather live on the border. However, that’s neither here nor there. The big question in Spokane, now that the old maids and senile lawmakers have agreed that the skirts ought to stay below the knees, is to whom should authority to enforce such an ordinance be given? Some seem to think the ordinance ought to be enforced by the commissioner of public health, while others want the commissioner of public safety. Therefore, the question seems to be whether short skirts are a menace to somebody’s health or whether they are dangerous to public safety.