Could the savage rite, described by Strabo, depressing as it must have been, by any possibility be as gloomy as the Testimonial Banquet of today? Is the Guest of Honor, sitting at the High Table feigning unconsciousness, the miserable target for asphyxiating bombs of wit, of anecdote, and of reminiscence—is he any less to be pitied than the deceased relative of the Ivernian dinner? Yet we call ourselves civilized; we think it barbaric to hang a fellow being for anything short of murder. Why have we not equal consideration for the innocent Guest of Honor? Why do we not dine him in effigy? Few of us have forgotten the outrage of 1912 when William Dean Howells was dragged from his comfortable fireside by Col. Harvey, then the editor of Harper’s Magazine, who deaf to his cries and entreaties, dined, wined and flashlighted in the presence of a frenzied mob armed to the teeth with knives, and forks and spoons. How much more humane to have dined Mr. Howells in effigy! A waxen image simulating as far as possible the kindly features of the Great Novelist, sitting in the place of honor, bowing, even smiling by means of some ingenious mechanism! This, with a phonograph record of the graceful speech of acknowledgment, and the ravening public would have gone home happy and none the wiser. Thus with the dawn of a new era of Humanity, one more chapter of the ponderous book of martyrs would be closed forever. [Illustration] A NEW MONROE DOCTRINE When Old Doctor Monroe discovered and patented his famous anti-monarchical specific, warranted to prevent the spread of Effete Despotism, Imperialitis and Throne Trouble, why didn’t he invent some equally Reliable Nostrum to check the epidemic of Old World names that was spreading like a blight of infantile paralysis among the thousands of husky young cities then springing up all over the United States? Rome, Syracuse, Troy, Thebes, Memphis, Ithaca, and a host of others, names dark and ill ominous to chubby young cities with no evil traditions to live down to, staining their bright banners with bloody blots and black bars of sinister tradition where should only be the golden stars and crimson bars of freedom. Indian names such as Oshkosh and Kankakee were to be had ready-made for the asking; but they were few and for the most part too grotesque and Asiatic sounding for the liking of a serious-minded young republic just starting out in the city-raising business. But it is no easy task to find new names for cities, above all names that are euphonious, and the last place one would expect to find them is the Medical Dictionary. The names of diseases? And why should that deter us? If a Rose by any other name will smell as sweet, surely a Rose with any other smell will at least look and sound as pretty. Good Doctor Watts (or was it Mr. Wesley?)[2] when adapting tunes for his new hymn-book answered his critics by exclaiming, “Why should the devil have all the best tunes!”