The age-herald., 1899-06-08
THE NOTES OF
 A TRAVELLER


 London traveller asked: Boy, does it al- ways rain here?" the urchin answered, "Naw,( sir, some wtiles it snowsr
 Anyway rain is a good thing in the world. It lays the dust, helps the milk man, cools off the bibulous citizen em- braclng the lamp post. and incidentally keeps the Clyde running. What nerve these scotchmen have! We saw this morn ing in J. & G. Thompson's yard Japanese battieship, three British cruisers, a 12,0OO ton Cunarder, two other ocean liners, and an odd dozen or so of torpedo boats twice the width of Village Creek after a good rain. It looks as though a girl might throw a stone'across (a1ways providing, of course, that she aimed another way.) Yet Bir- mingham basic pig goes to Chicago and is made into steel plates, and then those plates come here! Moral-take the ship yard to the basic pig; that is to Alabama.
 They tell us here when we say this, that wages are high in America and low here. Common labor (unskilled) is 80 cents per day. But the foundry boys must earn some money for on Sunday we saw crowd of happy, well dressed young and little folks coming out and asked who they were Foundry boys society," was the answer There were one thousand in that happy throng streaming home with red checks and flying hair and hymn books.
 And speaking of hymn books. after vainly trying two churches and finding that Gaslic was not within the compass of our linguistic attainments, we got into a Presbyterian church where they surely distrusted the gifts of the "meenister," for they took up the collection at the doors as We went in. The good man used three separate hymnals in the service besides reading from fourth, and to keep the children awake he interpolated right in the middle a live minute special discourse to them with hymn and a text for their very own selves out of their very own own book
 Sunday is a solemn day in Glasgow. There is no morning paper; breakfast is not served in the large room till 9:9O a. m., and you are informed at noon that there is no regular bill of fare in the middle of the day, being Sunday How this would para lyse the American hotel boarder accus- toned to gorge the principal dinner of the week.
 But then when you do get these meals they make amends and two of them ought to answer any one but "razor-backed' peo- pie. The juicy tender mutton, tender beef, mealy potatoes that dissolve into the gravy, the crisp yet tender toast that is not baked to death in an oven or a lime kiln. No wonder the people are fat and surely they all wear boards for the barber would not have time to go over so many full moons every morning. By the way you sit on an ordinary chair, he puts a sort of straight waistcoat on you, or pinafore with endless sleeves, then tells you of all the crowned heads who use his hair restorative and charges 125A cents for hair cut and shampoo
 Is imitation the sincerest form of flat tery? The Englismen do not roll up their pants except when the streets are muddy; American dudes do. And here when they see 1t the remark is, "it must be raining in New York" So at dinner we get a table d hote with French bills of fare. We make one waiter and by asking in French the nature of some doubtful preparation. He plaintively says he don't know what it is as he don't read French! They find and send us real French waiter who can; and as he brings us a piece of fish one and one-half inches square We send him for a maSnifying glass to see 1t with and he returns no more All hotels and restaurants should be ostracised by English speaking people until they find their bills of fare in our own vigorous Anglo-Saxon tongue in- stead of (often) mongrel French That's fair. Talking though of limitations, we stop to look at toys and trifles for the little ones at the only attractive display and the pro- prletor proudly points to his sign oyer the door, "New York Store.'
 The hotels do not initiate our provision for smokers or sociability-there is not a cuspidor in the house except in the smoking room, and legion of prohibitory placards You go to your friends offices and they neither smoke in office hours nor offer you the chance. But every youth in the street has a pipe, be he on bus, wheel, or plain foot back, and most youths and all working men without exception wear caps. Capi- talists and hackmen alone rejoice in the glory and unutterable dignity of the plug hat And speaking of hats, you hang your own up on the rack in the big dining room. and if that is closed and you go in the coffee room you put your hat where you please. The waiter, most civil in other ways, does not seem to be interested in that department.
 Many walters are waitresses Trim white caps and aprons, rosy cheeks and civil manners. One showed us to our seat last night at a billiard match, another sold us our railroad. ticket today and carefully gathered up the stray change and placed it on the gloved hand which was fumbling the coins. Trim and neat and rosy and civil-yes but not prettyi In three days in thlS great city, bigger than Birmingham, Atlanta, Nashville and Memphis combined, we have not seen one pretty girl. Bevies of school girls pass our window from the trains, every one with her hair loose down her back-but none prettyi They lack t&s willowy grace of the American girl, the delicacy of her features, the fluffy curls that blow about her eyes. These girls look strong and slow, dress heavily, look either sheepish or boisterous; they have not in the least the self reliance and refinement com bined that characterizes our southern girls. f ..i. "a,
 How plain that we are in foreign city, We go out and hunt divers blocks for a drug store at D. m. We find it closed. We go next morning at S:55 and find it closed, but it opens as the clock strikes g. These hours are rsyered by the trim house. maids who begin at 6 a. m., work till 10 p. m. and are paid s5.50 per month and boarded. Why can not Alabama import 1,O0O of them to replace as many sqlamblins Africans, prestesses of the frying pan and apostles of the doctrine of greaSe3