Birmingham age-herald., 1895-03-31
GOSSIP FROM BOOKLAND.

The April Lipplncott has arrived with its novelette,, "Alain of Halfdene," by Anna Robeson Brown and also it's usual variety of stories, essays and poems.
 "Cheap Living in Paris" will bean article fraught with interest to those Birmingham ites who contemplate ta run over" for re- taxation during the coming summer. The author deals fully and completely with the subject and seems to know whereof he speaks.
 charming little sketch is "Grand Op- era,' by Nellie Melba, whose charming picture forms the frontispiece to the maga' zine.
 Quite piquant article is ''Bucolic Jour naiism in the Vest by Mary D. Stickuey. She says IA Wyoming contemporary cheer fully meets ihe prevailing financial strin- gency by announcing its terms in standing
 s' Subscribe for the Free Gazette. S1.50 per year in avance or S2 per year on time or trade.'o -
 The first and most interesting article iu Harper's this month is "Our National Capital, o by Julian Ralph. There are ten illustrations that are unusually realistic and correct, and one who has never been permitted the rare enjoyment of a visit to our capital city will find much informa- 5
 s'The set that counts in Washington the cream-is made up of the few who combine high official position with high social standing. They are so broad as 10 have established the only elegant society in this country to which man of brains, without wealth, can rise. In the round of a winters festivities in this leading social circle you see how cosmopolitan It is; you get bits of experience such as the cream of London society offers, and that of New
 
 plorers, army and navy heroes, historians, artists, scientists and the lights that illu- mine the whole world of genius.''
 Another article of note Is ''Paris in Mourning,p by Richard Harding Davis. He speaks of how the Americans acted when they heard of President Garield's death; how, as 1t was announced from the stage, the audience in each theater rose si- lently as one man and walked quietly out. But of President Carnot's death he says: 'sIr is never possible to tell which way the French people will jump, or how they will act at crisis. They have no precedents of conduct. They are as likely to do the characteristic thing-which in itself is dif- ferent from what people of any other na- tion would do under like circumstances as the unchnracteristic thing, which is even more unexpected, as the Yale captain said of the Princeton team, they keep you, guessing.'' 7
 There is also a study upon ' Recent I L. Harris, United States commissioner of education, which all lovers of progress and study should read. His article shows thorough conception of the work, and is positive and encouraging. He says in conclusiou: :The result of my studies gives me more and more respect for the old education without causing me to doubt the superiority of the new. The new is better, but the old was good in manifold ways. ,Ss-
 An amusing article is written of "Gree- ley's Handwriting,' subject you may have thought worked to death along this line, for we have each read so many ridicu- lous incidents as to the impossibility of reading it.
 Here, however, is another to be added to the already long list: It seems an ardent admirer had sent Greeley-in the great edi- tors days on the New York Tribune--a pair of roosters named the sGo. West' breed. MT. Greeley was much interested until they became little too familiar, when MT. Greeley exclaimed to the fore man:
 "Do you see those confounded young roosters? They're eatin' up my paste. They're full of 1t. They're waiting for me to get some more. Take them up stairs, and never let me see lem again.
 The foreman took them up stairs, and 1t seems they wandered about aimlessly and at their own sweet wills. Finally they walked over an ink roller on the floor and then over some paper lying near. The foreman saw it and great light burst in upon his mind. He sent down for some of the paper that MT. Greeley always used, and be and the 'tdevil'' walked the young roosters over the Greeley paper. Every two or three minutes the men would take them of, ink their feet and toss them onto the paper again. At the end of a few minutes he gathered up the pages, scrawled head on the first page, "The Plain Duty of Con- gress,' marked the whole "brevier ,double lead" and hung it on the copy hook. Alter a little Larkway came numbering along the Greeley copy was always saved for Larkway-he took this and labored over it. "Darn it, the best of us get hung up on word once in while. What's that down there?h No one could make out the word, so Larkway shuffisd out with long face and went into tue chiefs room: ''Mr. Greeley, Pm stuck. What is that word3" Greeley snatched the sheetsfrom his hand impatiently and squeaked in his highest voice:
 "Unconstitutional," sirl Great Jehosh- aphal it seems to me sometimes as if this office was full of frisky college gradu ates, and after I've given the janItor strict orders not 10 allow one of lem In the build ing."
 "Out of the East''-Reveries and Studies in New Japan-is by Lafcadio Hearn, the very delightful author of ttChilaD and ''Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japap," which latter work has had a remarkable success iu the favorable judgment of the most com petent critics, both in this country and in Great Britain, and is already in the third edition. The two quali,it 8 which most impress its readers are its ample and exact information and the wonderful charm of it's style.
 Noteworthy illustrations are four Easter pictures in Scrlbner's for April, by W. T. Smedley, Lynch, Abbey and Weeks. They very beautifully character ize Easter as observed in New York, Paris, Old England and Jerusalem. - I'