The age-herald., 1900-05-16
IN HOTEL HOBBIES
 AND ELSEWHERE

Astrologer Raphaels prophecies for this
 day, Wednesday, May 16, 1900:
 "Very uncertain all day"
 l Changes, law, and quarreling threaten 1 thee: thou wilt have an uncertain year,
 and thy business will fail"
 | "A child born on this day will be of a
 restless disposition, fond of travel, but
 not fortunate"
 l Hire menservants'
 Men may say what they please about 1 musical festivals, anthems, love ditties,
 etcetera. and praise to the top of their
 bent that power which is said to soothe
 savages, rend rocks and burst cabbages; 1 but such persons have not known the fid-
 dle when it fiddled unless they have been
 in the immediate neighborhood of this
 newspaper office in the shank of the soft l sprngtime evenings, when the sky is
 white-grey and the lengthening shadows | athwart are in point of fact the lengthen- I ing shadows athwart and so on! A poor
 man, who has suffered unspeakable physi- | cal affiiction, stations himself on the op- posite side of the Street Fair Midway | street named in the city directory as Sec
 ond avenue, directly in front of this news
 paper establishment and the melody of his fiddle continues bursting whilst the shad-
 ows continue lengthening. All the work | CTS in this shop are wild lovers of music
 and all wish the fiddler a thousand nic<les
 a day; but inasmueh as some of these l workers have nerves to nerve and work
 to work, they'd have a tenderer feeling | toward him if he should realize that the
 crowds of pedestrians are much greater | two blocks up the street He should read | the advertisements in this newspaper, and | follow the crowds Now is the time to ad-
 vertise, and in the language of the as- | trologer push thy business And still
 the wonder grows at the wonderful power
 of music.
 There was an informal but pretty cere-
 mcny of wide public interest in the new | press room of the Birmingham News yes | terday afternoon. Mrs. Margaret Rhodes,
 the accomplished wife of General Rufus N.
 Rhodes, editor and proprietor of the News, | pulled the lever that started the new press | of that journal and herself turned out the ! first fresh promise of millions of complete copies yet to be of that enteiprising pur- | yeyor of the worlds intelligence. This first | copy from the press the proud and | happy wife claimed as a souvenir, and there l can be no doubt that she will treasure it. | Most appropriately the press bears Mrs. l Rhodes's name as her husband alone has | always called it--"Marge." This is we'll for l the reason that it has been she who has | encouraged and inspired him through the i lcng years of ceaseless and wise endeayor, | the fruits of which have enabled him to | place that splendid engine of progress in l the home of his prosperous newspaper in | Twenty-first street. A few personal friends | were present informally to Mrs. Rhodes | start the press; and this public will with l out differences congratulate General Rhodes l upon securing what is understood to be the | fastest press, as it is one of the largest of i all presses south of the Ohio river. It is
 a magnificent triumph of mechanical and
 scientific skill, and with it's three decks | it is capable of turning out twenty-four-
 page complete papers faster than any per ! son could count them, or so many hundreds
 per minute that the bare figures make ones | head to swim. A friend present wished for | General Rhodes that the new press might | very soon prove to be inadequate l
 The young artist J. L. Ftzgibbons of 1 Birmingham has finished a superb nfe-size portrait of Hon. Basil Manly Allen, the l grand exalted ruler of the Benevolent and l Protective Order of Elks, and the portrait \ is now exhibition in the Midway of \ the street fair, in Second avenue The art | ist has done his work with extraordinary I skill and has produced a very nearly per- feet likeness of one of the most widely known of young southerners. Every feat l ure of MT. Aliens strong and handsome | face, together with the arrangement of his ! hair and his general bearing, is distinctly | brought out on the canvass which the ar | tist has made almost to speak, so admir- | able in the touch of his brush. In local art ] the portrait is believed to be quite un- l equalled, and the artist has won for him. l self the right to the heartiest praise h. l deed there are few portrait painters in I this country known to the public who | capable of doing work equal to MT. Fitz- l gibbons's masterly delineation of MT. AL 1 len.
 1 There is private information from Mont | gomery to the effect that Colonel Jeffer- | son M. Falkner has been very i'll for a | week. On Wednesday of last week, whilst occupying a seat on the platform of the l Montgomery Auditorium during the session ! of the Race Problem conference, Colonel | Falkner was taken with chill which caused him to go to his home. Something | like erysipelas set in, and he suffered much pain. Yesterday he was reported much better, and was on the way to re- covery. Colonel Falkner's friends, which 1 is as much as to say all the people, will regret to know that he has been so af- | ficted.
 Hon. J. A. Westerlund, the mayor of Fruithurst and editor of the Fruithurst yineyardist, was in Birmingham yesterday. Fruithurst is in Cleburne county, on the line of the Southern Railway, and much has been done to make it an ideal com munity of vineyards, orchards and gardens. If is highly prosperouS and within a few