The age-herald., 1899-01-26
IN HOTEL LOBBIES
 AND ELSEWHERE

l to uO so at an carry udy. IfdISaCtlOliS lil-
 volving 1700,0 shares, as occurred on Mon
 day, are abnormal. That figure is several 1 hundred thousand in excess of previous
 records; and that sort of thing cannot last. 1 It is true enough that the country is
 greater and richer than ever before but the l expansion of the national wealth scarcely warrants the wild excitement now daily l witnessed in Wall street.
 l "The bubble will burst soon, and the l bursting of it will be a great event for the 1 country at large. It may be disastrous to l Wall street, but it's effect in Birmingham l will be happy. The collapse of the boom l will release vast amount of money now | tied up in stock exchange speculation, and | Birmingham will get it's share of the cap- | ital so released. So long as the unwonted l conditions prevail in the stock exchange, | surplus money will not seek legitimate in- vestment to any notable degree. It is idle
 to expect the holders of large cash reserves
 to seek investments paying six per cent. l when they can go into Wall street and 1 possibly make five or ten times as much | in few days, or twenty per cent. in a few | minutes. The enormous amount of money | now being devoted to speculation will be | made available for investment in industrial 1 enterprises
 "The well authenticated statement of how man in Wall street made $500 Monday l by taking a drink might be used to great l advantage by the opponents to the Moody | dispensary bill," observed a man in the l lobby. "A man held so many shares of | certain stock. He sent in to the stock ex | change for his broker to give an order for | the sale of the stock. The broker couldn't | answer the summons at once, and while the l holder of the stock was waiting friend | joined him. Let's go take drink, said the | stockholder. The two hurried to the near est saloon, hurriedy took drink each, | and went back to the entrance of the ex- | change The stoekholder then found that
 he was $e0O richer than when he took the drink, and closed out at that increased profit. The moral is that you should take
 drink before selling out"
 1 Lots in the outskirts of Birmingham that | cannot now be sold at $25 each will sell l readily for $500 within a very short time; | and lands that find no buyers now at $10 | an acre will command $lOO,' declared on yesterday one of the best informed men in | the United States regarding the industrial | situation. He was in Birmingham but for | few hours route to his home in the | east. There are private reasons why his | name is not gwen at this time. Any man | with few thousand dollars to invest can | grow Independently rich within two years | by putting his money in Biri.lngham real | estate at present prices. Recently l talked | with one of the most noted iron manu- | facturers of the United States, an eastern | man known all over the country, and he | assured me of his conviction that Brming- l ham would within ten years surpass Pitts | burg as an industrial center He declared l that in his mind there was no doubt re- | garding that proposition. Birmingham is l vastly better advertised than it ever was | before and 1t is advertising that is not l paid for; it is the spontaneous and free | tribute of observing business men to the un- | eoualled advantages of Birmingham. Talk l about booms! Why, the widest flights Of | the ordinary mans imagination do not eom- | pass the immediate future of this town. Il
 | "I travel from Columbus, O., to San An | tonio Tex, visiting all the principal towns l in the south and wide section of the west, 1 and I tell you the plain truth is that Bir-
  l thing about. The next dirtiest Is Dallas, | Tex, and the third is New Orleans Bir- I mingham is being advertised freely every | where by the best men of business. They | say Birmingham is the best town in the l United States, but it is the dirtest Yes- l terday and Monday the representatives of l the leading importers of cutlery in New l York were here, and while they were l charmed with Birmingham in a business way, they were astonished at the dirty dition of the streets"
 l Hon. Robert J. Lowe, chairman of the state democratic executive committee, went | to Montgomery yesterday to attend to the
 city's business before the general assembly,
 and to preside today over the meeting of l his committee, which will be one of tho
 most important gatherings of its kind of recent years. The principal duty of the l committee will be to formulate a plan for
 conducting the campaign for the constitu- | tional convention. Another matter to be | dealt with will be a proposition, which, it I is presumed will be submitted by Judge | Zell Gaston, of Butler, looking to the merg- I ing of the populst party into the demo-
 cratic organization.
 l The other self or astral body of Mr. Jas l Weatherly, the distinguished member of l the bar, stood for few moments in front l of the Morris at about o'clock yesterday I evening. A warm personal friend of Mr. | Weatherly. one who has known him half | his life time, approached the astral body,
 with the familiar greeting, Hello. Jeames." l The body looked surprised, and said noth- l ing, and the friend of him of the solid | flesh apologized and moved away. Another | old-time friend of MT. Weatherly was in the | act of approaching the body, when the first I speaker called to him sharply. 'I just l wanted to speak to Jim Weatherly a mo- | ment," said the second friend. Hist, and I also hark! Likewise, beware" said the | first friend; that is not Weatherly at all. | It is his astral body" The second friend l tested the matter, and had the same expe-