The age-herald., 1899-12-30
IN HOTEL LOBBIES
 AND ELSEWHERE

!
 frightened man in the senate. In the days
 of Rome's almost world-wide temporal 1 power, the legend upon her banners was,
 as somewhat freely translated, "The sen-
 ate and the Roman people," In this day.
 and this New World that is aging fast. the
 legend Is reversed. It is now, "The People and the American Senate" Senator
 Morgan is an old man in years, in service ito the people. in honor; old and young in
 wisdom. Emphatieally he is young in the l spirit of progress, in the abounding vitali-
 ty of the national life; in all that makes i for progress. for material development 1 for the good of today and the hope and
 promise of the morrow. Pre-eminently he
 is the first of all the Alabamians who ever l adorned the state. He is the incarnation 1 of the higher thought of this people and of | it's purposes He, than any other
 man living, or who has lived, is laboring l for the material development of Alabama
 and of America How pitiful are the puny | efforts of pgmies to drag him down! l Against his armor their wingless shafts l hurt$ess break!
 1 So much was not meant to be written l here. The purpose was to relate story of | an old and unprogressive southerner told l by Judge Banks, whom everybody in the | valley honors
 | Judge Banks. like Senator Morgan and l many of the strongest and best men of 1 Jefferson county, is a Black-belt man, as he came >hither from Bullock county, when | Birmingham was a dozen years younger.
 The story, as Judge Banks tells it, is to
 the effect that an old-time southerner, who mi cfNriup
 lutey and absolutely to accept the railway as an established thing in the cotton fields
 ton the old plantation!" as the phrase runs. Once twice year this gentle
 man of the days when gentlemen ruled 1 in southern life. would journey to Colum-
 bus, on ths Georgia side of the far-winding | Chatt tahoochee He travelled the long and
 rough way in his own private carriage, scorning to the end to accept the railway. | Upon his last journey to the Georgia town | his coachman was the faithful black servi- | tor Who had obcyed him through tho toil- some years of a generation of men. The old negro turned from the unsightly rail l way and erove many miles out of the way, The master was wroth, and demanded an explanation, saying
 "Edinborough, why in the devil did you go so Tar out Ol lHe way NhS h0i7NS 'NO not afraid of the confounded train!' No, master no, sir! l knowed these
 horses wouldn't git skeered; but l wus
 aleard you an ole missus d be mighty
 skeered when de lbulgine come along!'
 Senator Morgan old-timc southerner,
 new-time southerner al-time southerner \ and American, ain't a-skeered of the "hul-
 zine"
 It is but just to say that Judge Banks's
 relation of the story here related had ao-
 so,utely nothing to do with politics of any
 sort. That is to say further, in perfect
 sincerity, that there is not aere meant to
 convey any impression of Judge Banks's
 political views.
 Richard F. Johnston tells a good story on
 fellow newspaper man, in connection
 wAh the Morgan-J ohnston contest in Lime
 stone county. The correspondents were
 staying at she hotel in Athens. One Of
 them had very uaoughtfuMy provided him
 Self with a bottle of whisky, to be par
 taken of in case of emergency only, and
 this precious treasure he concealed in the
 plano in the parlor of the hotel. He and
 another became very thirsty, and they hur-
 ried to the hotel par.or. Arrived there
 they discovered a flair young woman play
 ing on the piano Loves Old, Sweet Song" There was just a song at twilight when
 the shadows softly fall" and all that sort
 of thing. The two Thirsty Ones waited, swearing impatiently. The fair young
 woman then drifted Down the Road of Life, I and My Daisy Belles'' and the Thirsty Ones got wild. There wa a
 sudden pause in the music. The piano gave forth muffied notes She closed it with a bang, and left luhe parlor. The Thirsty Ones hurried in. The bottle had become uncorked and the liquor had flooded the chords. The Thirsty Ones re- mained thirsty. The piano-tuner got a job. E
 Yesterday was the coldest day Of this | season; and the frost served one good pur- pose. It made Second avenue, between Eighteenth and Nineteenth streets, hard | and clean for the first time since the bed 1 of the avenue was last frozen. That part l of Second avenue is perhaps the busiest street surface in Birmingham, and it is 1 easily the most deplorably bad stretch of | thoroughfare in the business district Be- | fore the frost came to freeze the filth, l there was a lake of black mud from Eigh- | teenth street to Nineteenth. It is always | so after a rainy day; and to cross from | one side to the other one must need wade l through foul slush. Yet seven-eighths of | all the suburban cars stop there for pas- l sengers. In the middle of the block is the l station for Pratt City, Ensley, Bessemer 1 and East Lake, and thousands of passen- lsgers board the cars and thousands leave gthem there every day. Moreover, the gov lsernment building is at Second and Eigh- lAeenth, and near by are numerous stores | -and offices. Twenty carloads of chert swould mend Che way and remove great | nuisance.
 l State Treasurer George W. Ellis is in lfBlrmingham. MT. Ellis will probably be a l candidate for state auditor.
 Former State Treasurer J. Craig Smith of