The age-herald., 1897-11-11
THINGS HEARD AND
 TOLD ON STREET CORNES
By NED BRACE.

l He fs bachelor. He is not so old. He 1 is not good looking. But he is not so bad | looking. He is round and chunky. He looks bit like a Catholic priest. But 1 he is not He Is a coal operator He l operates in an adjoining county to Bir- l minghlam. His home is in Birmingham, l but he spends most of his time out at l the mines.
 He wants to get married. He has been 1 figuring around on this line for several years. It was only a few days ago at the mines that he received a telephone call.
 s'Is that MT. Blankety Blank?" asked a feminine voice over the telephone. "Yes"
 ''Did you receive my letter?" s'No."
 .eYou know am to be married today l at 2 o'clock.
 ''Then life has no further joys for me" | the good bachelor yelled over the wire. With this the bachelor reached for his l shotgun standing dn the corner, fired it 1 into the ceiling, and then had his clerk l run to the telephone and announce, Mr. | Blankety Blank has shot himself | The telephone was kept ringing all l the afternoon asking how MT. Blankety Blank was getting on.
 The marriage occurred in Birming- ham.
 | The bachelor, though not wounded, Is l not 90 healthy, but he is looking else 1 where.
 Why is 1t both the men and women of Birminghham wear such common, l un0empt looking shoes? Is it that you | cannot buy g. respectable pair of shoes l in Birmingham. I have watched the people here. Of all the outlandish look 1 ing shoes I ever saw the Birmingham people wear the worst. I have looked in all the shop windows, but have not | yet seen respectable pair of shoes. | They all look like they were bought | from northern and eastern bargain coun- ters. I am almost sure they afe here, but if you judge from what you see the | people wearing, you think that they don't keep respectable shoes in Bir-
 mfngham. Perhaps they have to sell shoes so cheap that they don't carry good shoes. I don't know why that is, but I would like to see better looking | feet around the streets.
 A first-class shoe factory would be a good thing for Birmingham. My friend Richards, emigration agent of the | Sou thern railroad, when he was here with the armor plate committee, made the suggestion. It is good one. We reed new industries here. We need a
 shoe factory that can make good looking shoes. I mean by good looking shoes, those that, when people wear them, look like they are comfortable. The most
 wretched looking man or woman alive is he or she who wears shoe that don't fit. You can always tell by the way they
 walk.
 Tlhr5e religious rayivals are going on in town now. I ana glad to see this. If there is any town on the face of the earth that neeils Sorne religion it is Br- mingham. There are more Str:et leaf CTS and bar room loafeis here than amy town I evel' saw. don't object to bar rooms. TlBey are very good in their way. I take a drink onca in a while myself. Not often. but occasionally, when I feel
 the neeesstty of it. But Tf there IS any thing on earth which is a disgrace to a town, it i3 to see men 1oafing in the sir let's in front of @ barroom gestiloulating ard expecto1ating, preventing respecta- bte men, not to say anything of women, | from passing along the sitreets. On Sat | lzr6ay nights ore hears the yilest of vil=- language cill about the stre,ts. Es- pecbailly along Twentieth street between | Seoond and First avenues. This ought | to be stepped.
 I don't believe in prohibition, but w- | oannct oritlcise the ministers harshly 1 fer the movement wfilcfh they have start l ed in favor of prohibition in Barming | ham as long as these classes swarm about in front of the bairrooms and maks 1 it, to say the least. unpleasant for la l dies to be upon the streets. I have had several minister's to talk l to me recently. Thsy say they are go- | ing to push the prohibition issue in this l town. I don't suppose they can win, but l they will make the contest a warm one. | Atlanta tried prohibition several years ago. Thsy had an election and the pro- | hibitionlsts won. Prohibition was en- 1 forced for two years. Everybody in town | who drank at all cei-ried bottle of 1 wh skey in his pocket. You could buy wChiskey by the bottle everywhere. It didn't prove a good, thing, ard Atlanta | rsscinded it.
 I den't care much about it here. I | don't think it would be a good time to | have prohibition, but I believe the peo- 1 pie have perfect right to discuss pub 1 alc nraltters wn :Tiever they want to. | They have beeen discussing gas and water, and I don't see why they should | rot discuss whisloey and beer if thsy 1 want to.
 l By the way, Birmingham is becoming l quite a cotton market. Very few people seem to know 1t, but it is. Eighty | thousand bales of cotton we're received here last year, and 100000 bales are promised here this year. If we had q ] few more cotton mills we might have
 more cotton Teceived here. Perhaps we have no cotton mills here because outside, capitalists think coal is high in Birmingham. They must have .besn getting their figures from the gas I company Everybody else in town can | buy coal at from 75 to S5 cents ton.
 F.r..