Birmingham state herald., 1896-01-04
NOTES AND NOTIONS.

We ought to feel good over Birming-
 hams elegant union passenger station.
 Few towns are better provided in this
 respect. Poor old Nashville is begging
 for union depot, and Editor Ed Car
 mack of Memphis commiserates her
 woe in the following manner:
 "The Nashville Sun suggests that the
 Louisville and Nashville road would do
 better thing by Nashville if 1t would
 build a new depot than 1t could by lib-
 eral contributions to the Centennial ex-
 position. To all of which we say amen.
 The Louisville and Nashville depot in this town is no pleasing thing, but it
 is bed of violets compared to that
 filthy old mule shed known as the union
 depot at Nashville. Year after year it
 has stood there rocking in the wind
 reeking with half century's collected
 nastiness, foul as charnel house, ghast-
 ly as a skeleton, hideous and disgust ing ulcer upon the very nose of the town. Every year thickens the mildew on it's fostering sides, adds fresh layer of filth, generates another army of rats and makes a new and original contri-
 button to its bouquet of stnks. It is fit for nothing but rats, billy goats and the maggots that breed in the unfath- omed depths of it's unspeakable corrup- ton. Blessed be the blaze that shall purge the universe of this hideous and iePulSiNe tIlHS! bleSSeu De Ine cyclone
 that shall bear it to the uppermost parts of the earthl'
 Thanks to Birmingham's wide-awake, p-early-and-late wea ather service, our folks have been thoroughly warned of the cold wave.
 The new year may mean a great deal to Birmingham in the successful devel- opment of a steel manufa curing indus try. It is confidently believed in many quarters that this year will solve the
 problem and accelerate the growth and importance of Birmingham and her dis trict more than anything in her career. Two gentlemen who have had much to do with the mineral development of the Birmingham district were discussing the
 possibilities of steel making here. when they agreed that if some of the big con- cerns here. instead of desultory individ-
 ual efforts would unite their energies, say such as the Tennessee Coal, Iron and
 Railroad company, the Sloss Steel and Iron company. the Birmingham Rolling mill and MT. H. F. DeBardeleben, there would be no doubt of early success.
 The following extract from a card just published by MT. H. M. McNutt secre- tary of the Bessemer Land company, in answer to some impatient expressions by another correspondent, tells what MT DeBardeleben Is doing toward the devoutly wished-for contamination: Tn answer to the Rambler please say briefly that I have never made a state ment concerning the steel plant which did not fully believe, and never made
 one that was not authorized by resolu- tion of our directors. Long ago they re- solved to build a steel plant, but Mr De- Bardeleben knew that the narrow mar gin of profit in both steel and iron ren- dered it absolutely necessary that we should first have a full supply of raw materials and not be dependent on the general market for pig iron in the mak- ing of steel He therefore set to work and, after many months of hard work and large outlay of money, he has open ed the best coal mine in Alabama and is now at work on both red and brown ore. We will be able to deliver these supplies in Bessemer at the lowest possible cost Now the opening of the mines and the building of railroads furnaces etc., re- quire a large cash ca pital, andsthis com pany is progressing with it's work at a reasonable speed. Our coke ovens will | be built to supply power for the steel | plant and many other industries, giving them their power at nominal cost The | steel plant, so long delayed, so much de- l sired by this country and every one else except perhaps the Rambler who seems really to wish that we may fail entirely, l will yet be built. Whether 1t will be be- | gun next month or six months or one l year hence. no one can foresee. If any one has been made to suffer by wbat I have said touching the steel plant in l times past. regret 1t very much. can- | not speak as to tho experience of other 1 property owners of the town, but I do know that we have about seventy. five | cottages and old farm houses, every one l of which is occupied by people that have good employment Our town, compared with others, has very little to complain ofr