Crittenden press. [volume] (Marion, Ky.) 1879-1907, 1900-01-04

five furnaces there now that turn out
$50 tons of pig iron every day, and
these are not the half of them-and
the great steel plant is to make 0,OOO
tons of steel every day. "Mirabile
dictu!" Have ] got these figures
down right. made some notes on
the back of an envelope and that's
the way they read. ] know that the
10000 operatives is right. though an
other man said 10000. Not long ago
retold a story that friend told
me about his hunting expeditions on
the Pan Handle region just after the
civil war, and how he and his COM
panions camped in an old cabin one
night and the wolves came down
from the mountains and besieged
them, and how they shot at them
all night through the cracks between
the logs and killed hundreds of them,
and as fast as they killed them the
pack of hungry varmints would jump
on the dead ones and eat them all
up-all except the hair and bones
and how the wolves left at daybreak,
and after they were all gone these
hunters went out TO see how many
they had killed. They never found a
single wolf, but the ground for three
acres around the cabin was covered
three feet deep in hair. That's what
I thought he said and l retold it that
way. Not long after this a mutual
friend told me that my hunter friend
was hurt at me for exaggerating the
story, for he declared that be told me
that the ground was covered two and
half feet deep in hair, and had,
without any provocation, added half
foot to It. And SO to keep the peace
| agreed to take off that half foot, and
have ever since done so when ! re-
peated the hunters story.
1t is a sore temptation TO US all to
make a story a little bigger when we
retell it, and we ought TO be very care
full on that line. And SO | feel very
cautious about retailing the magnitude
of things at Ensley. But my eyes did not
deceive me, and saw solid steel billets
that weighed 6,O00 pounds each piled up
and cross-pled like great logs of wood,
and | saw the men moldiug them from
the fiery furnaces. The men had on
large blue spectacles and visors, for it is
awful TO look upon the dazzling heat
that glows from the caldron of liquid
steel. These caldrons were not tapped
from the bottom, but were turned up at
an angle of As degrees, so that they
would overflow like water from wash
bowl, and let the top of the lava run
into the upright molds. These huge
molds were arranged perpendicularly
on little train of cars that was moving
| slowly by electricity, and as fast as
one was filled another took its place
Oh, it was grand and fearful. Those cal
drons were lifted up and careened by
great rams that looked like immense
cannon. But l forbear. The huge
leviathans all around me made me dizzy,
and l begged my friends to let me &c
home, for my amazement was tired.
Now, just to think of the wire depart
ment, where one of these great billets
was reheated and started through the
great rollers and was squeezed smaller
and smaller as il went on through hun
| dreds of them till it was reduced 10
wire-stee wire of all sizes, even down
TO silver steel wire that was small
enough 10 make the bows to pair OF
spectacles. What wonderful thing is
the brain of man! could tell more
wonderful things about Ensley, but
remember that during the civil war,
when confederate money had flooded
the south and every body had hat full
or bag full, asked treasury official
how much had been issued, and he
looked daZed for a moment and said it
was either three hundred million or
three thousand million, he wasn't GER
tain which. And so | will take off the
half foot.
Birmingham has been accustomed 10
speak of Ensley as one of its suburbs,
its pet, its cub, but Ensley is already
putting on Pittsburgh airs and talks
of taking in Birmingham within the
year and calling herself the Greater
Ensley," for the parent city has only
$4,000 people.
was going to write about Tusca-
loosa, that sits high on the banks of the
Black Warrior, the Athens of Alabama,
the home of the university and the
colleges, the alma mater of culture and
refinement, the druid city, the historic
capital of the state up TO 1914. was
going TO relate something about the
destruction of its beautiful university
buildings by the federal army, and their
reconstruction on a far more magnifi-
cent scale. | wished to say something
about its splendid organization, its
learned and efficient faculty, its muse
um. the largest in the south, and its
magnificent library. | wished to make
favorable mention of the Stilman in
stitute, where negro students are study
ing theology and preparing for the
white mans method of ministerial
service, and to tell about the two ne
groes from Africa who are there. and
who are the genuine sons of negro
princes, whom the missionaries have
converted TO christianity. But this letter
Is already too long and so | will sus-
pend.-Bill Arp, in Atlanta Constitu-
ton.