Although there is a closed season for terrapin, the value of the diamond-back causes him to be relentlessly hunted during the open season, with the result that, like the delectable lobster, he is passing.  As the foolish lobster-fishermen of northern New England are killing the goose—­or, rather, the crustacean—­that lays the golden eggs, so are the terrapin hunters of the Chesapeake.  Two or three decades ago, lobster and terrapin alike were eaten in the regions of their abundance as cheap food.  One Baltimore lady told me that her father’s slaves, on an Eastern Shore plantation, used to eat terrapin.  Yet behold the cost of the precious diamond-back to-day!  In his smaller sizes, according to my marketman, he is worth about a dollar an inch, while when grown to fair proportions he costs as much as a railroad ticket from Baltimore to Chicago.  And for my part I would about as soon eat the ticket as the terrapin.

Of a number of other odd items which help to give Baltimore distinct flavor I find the following in my notebooks: 

There are good street railways; also ’bus lines operated by the United Railways Company.  Under the terms of its charter this company was originally obliged to turn over to the city thirteen per cent. of its gross income, to be expended upon the upkeep of parks.  Of late years the amount has been reduced to nine per cent.  The parks are admirable.

Freight rates from the west to Baltimore are, I am informed, enough lower than freight rates to New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, to give Baltimore a decided advantage as a point of export.  Also she is admirably situated as to sources of coal supply. (I do not care much for the last two items, myself, but put them in to please the Chamber of Commerce.)

* * * * *

It is the habit of my companion and myself, when visiting strange cities, to ask for interesting eating-places of one sort or another.  In Baltimore there seems to be no choice but to take meals in hotels—­unless one may wish to go to the Dutch Tea room or the Woman’s Exchange for a shoppers’ lunch, and to see (in the latter establishment) great numbers of ladies sitting upon tall stools and eating at a lunch-counter—­a somewhat curious spectacle, perhaps, but neither pleasing to the eye nor thrilling to the senses.

The nearest thing to “character” which I found in a Baltimore eating-place was at an establishment known as Kelly’s Oyster House, a place in a dark quarter of the town.  It had the all-night look about it, and the negro waiters showed themselves not unacquainted with certain of the city’s gilded youth.  Kelly’s is a sort of southern version of “Jack’s”—­if you know Jack’s.  But I don’t think Jack’s has any flight of stairs to fall down, such as Kelly’s has.

The dining rooms of the various hotels are considerably used, one judges, by the citizens of Baltimore.  The Kernan Hotel, which we visited one night after the theater, looked like Broadway.  Tables were crowded together and there was dancing between them—­and between mouthfuls.  So, too, at the Belvedere, which is used considerably by Baltimore’s gay and fashionable people.