The age-herald., 1897-12-04

Polk Miller is a jolly old fe1i5w. I'm glad to know he'll be here Saturday night I am going to sise him, sure. He can tell more good negro stories and make more fun in a short time than amy man know.
 am a little afraid to go to OfBmen's opera house often. It would be fearful if a fins should ever occur while this house is crowded. I don't like to criti- else things, but the entrance and and exit to this iqou7e should be changed. It is a psnfect deal.qI- trap as it is.
 The opera house itself is all right, but the exit Is down three flights of mar TOW staircase. Should an alarm of fire be sounded while the opera house is crowded, fully a thind of the psople would be trarnpled to deaih in going doiwn the stairway. The officials of the city should demand that efhis thing be remedied Everybody liloas to go to the theaIaer, but people don't rslish endan- geGfng their lives.
 I am glad to seis ex-Mayor VanHoose is ra,s ng money to build the Auditorium. It seams to be hard to get anybody in Birmingham to spend money But it's we'll known thai. you cant make mcney urlleiss you spend it I don't know any thing that would bling mons money to Birmingham than to have a building in which big meetings could be held It is needed and the people should buildbit.
 I lhe3ar two ou Iaflree Trism in town are trying to make money for themselves out of the carnival to be held here next Fsabruary If we are going to have h carnival it ought to be for the good or Birmingham m and not for lhe good of amy one or two schemers. This thing ought to be gotten up by the whole people. or else 1t should be snuffed out. Nothing so aIdvertissls a city and so benefbtS It as a we'll regulated carnival, but don't let it be made the maans of advertising any one or two or three men.
 Some members of rfhe board of alder m=m seem to be bstween the devil and the desp sea. They don't know how to handle either the gas or the water prob lem They are afraid of the people on the onel hand and the companiss on ltfe other. It strikes me that if I were in their places would do my duty, what ever it might be.
 see that aI of the railroad peopDs are before the Interstate Railroad Comm1s- sion asking that tIhey be given more tdna eTl order to equip thsir freight cars with automatic brakes and couplers. donab blame the roads fer asking for llale more time. All of 'ullsm have experienced the hard ltim:s Their earnings have been small They should be given a year cir eightesm months more, but fin that time they ought to do ithelr work propeudy. Too many lives are losIt in coupling cars. All weal regulated railroads will do this without being forced in a reasonable length of timel But there are some rad roads that will never do it.
 Washington dispatches say that the postoffice department has construed the lottery law to apply Ito m elzirlg word and mis sing letter contests. The d;palltmemt in this decision seems iba be fighting the newspapers. No newspaper that l ever heard of carries lhIhs matter so far as to make a. lottery of it. They give their patrons a full value for the amount of money sent in and give prizes in addi- ton Ito the oni1 makiing the correct guess. It is nothing mcre or less than an ad- vertising soheme to increase the cfrcu- lation of tfle newspaper. It is good alS 1t causes many people to read. It educates them. They pay no more than regular prdceG5 for ths newspaper. Yet bscamse some of the newspapers give prdzss to inspire tdne people to take them, the de paritment proceeds to dticlare that they ara violating the lotItary law. It Gs of 'the worE,t kind. l hope some publisher will carry this matter to the courts and have it decided.
 I. CALLYER DOWN.