The Baltimore Country Club, at Roland Park, just beyond the city limits, has a large, well-set clubhouse, an active membership, and charming rolling golf links, one peculiarity of the course being that a part of the city’s water-supply system has been utilized for hazards.

The two characteristic clubs of the city itself, the Maryland Club and the Baltimore Club, are known the country over.  The former occupies a position in Baltimore comparable with that of the Union Club in New York, the Chicago Club in Chicago, or the Pacific Union in San Francisco, and has to its credit at least one famous dish:  Terrapin, Maryland Club Style.

The Baltimore Club is used by a younger group of men and has a particularly pleasant home in a large mansion, formerly the residence of the Abell family, long known in connection with that noteworthy old sheet, the Baltimore “Sun,” which, it may be remarked in passing, is curiously referred to by many Baltimoreans, not as the “Sun,” but as the “Sun-paper.”

This odd item reminds me of another:  In the Balti-telephone book I chanced to notice under the letter “F” the entry: 

Fisher, Frank, of J.

Upon inquiry I learned that the significance of this was that, there being more than one gentleman of the name of Frank Fisher in the city, this Mr. Frank Fisher added “of J” to his name (meaning “son of John”) for purposes of differentiation.  I was informed further that this custom is not uncommon in Baltimore, in cases where a name is duplicated, and I was shown another example:  that of Mr. John Fyfe Symington of S.

A typically southern institution of long standing, and highly characteristic of the social life of Baltimore, is the Bachelors’ Cotillion, one of the oldest dancing clubs in the country.  During the season this organization gives a series of some half-dozen balls which are the events of the fashionable year.

The organization and general character of the Bachelors’ Cotillion is not unlike that of the celebrated St. Cecilia Society of Charleston.  The cost of membership is so slight that almost any eligible young man can easily afford it.  There is, however, a long waiting-list.  The club is controlled by a board of governors, the members of which hold office for life, and who, instead of being elected by the organization are selected in camera by the board itself, when vacancies occur.

The balls given by this society are known as the Monday Germans, and at these balls, which are held in the Lyric Theater, the city’s debutantes are presented to society.  As in all southern cities, much is made of debutantes in Baltimore.  On the occasion of their first Monday German all their friends send them flowers, and they appear flower-laden at the ball, followed by their relatives who are freighted down with their darlings’ superfluous bouquets.  The modern steps are danced at these balls, but there are usually a few cotillion figures, albeit without “favors.”  And perhaps the best part of it all is that the first ball of the season, and the Christmas ball, end at one o’clock, and that all the others end at midnight.  That seems to me a humane arrangement, although the opinion may only signify that I am growing old.