The age-herald., 1900-03-18
NED BRACE VISITS
 SOME ALABAMA TOWNS

The best way to know a people Is to go to their towns and homes to see them. I have been about Alabama and into Misss- sippi quite a deal during the past two
 weeks. have found out some things I don't want to tell and some things perhaps worth telling. In Mobile the other day ran upon a wealthy young friend of mine
 from Birmingham, and discovered that he
 had acquired habft-a novel one, and yet more deadly one than the cocaine the
 morphine, or the liquor habit. It was noth- ing more nor less than the pie habit. In the
 wee small hours of the night-dn the early
 morning, at breakfast and at midday he was given to the consumption of pie. Pumpkin pie I found to be his favorite. but any old pie would do him. Getting off rhe train at five o'clock in the morning he
 stopped at the depot lunch counter to eat a pound of pumpkin pie and drink nearly pint of coffee. To bed he then went and at Rine o'clock began his breakfast with
 great slice of cocoanut pie, followed by | Sledht DdcOn d0u 6SSS anu lHO usual OASoh- fast. An hour thereafter he complained
 that the steak he had eaten at breakfast must have given him indigestion. A couple of heaping spoons of soda in water were taken for relief. and in a few hours there- after another dose of soda followed, quickly supplemented by slice of dried peach pie from a convenient counter. For several
 -,1ia fr,If fnn
 soda and pie again. It is a genuine case of the pie habit. Yet he is young man or much ability and a worthy instructor Of agricultur in the proper preparation or soil for the most beneficial results. On dis solving bone and acid phosphates he IS an expert, yet upon the proper treatment od himself he is a failure.
 Mobile is a refined old town. Ut wears A dagnffied and wel-cultivaIted air. looks educated. I never saw it before, and really never had desire to see 1t Now am sorry have so long missed so much. It wears the appearance of a com mrnity that takes pride in Itself, where polteness and courtesy of man to man pr revails-wlhere man looks upon his neESn- bor as honest and is 10th to believe to the contrary until it be clearly demon strated-wRere people give parts of days to pleasure, social intercourse and culti- vation of the mind and dhe gentler sides of the human composition.
 The residences are neat, massive and dignihed. There Is nothing saudy about Mobile or its people Even the air is pleasant and the 'breezes gentle There is nothing ito shock nor jar the most aes- thetic. People are polite ito each other on the street. They neither jostle nor jar against one another They look weal-fed. You meet men on the street early in the mo rning They wear the air of having breakfasted. You meet no one who ap- pears to be on the dead run to make money enough to get breakfast like one is forced to observe occasionally in hustling, bust ling trumpety towns like Birmingham and Atlanta, and none of the not hungry, but half-fed, like one is forced occasionally to observe in towns like Montgomery. 4 day in Mobile creates desires for other days there.
 Another town I have just visited and which impressed greatly Is Meridian
 little town, yet the largest and best in Mississippi. It has but twenty thousand people-all of them apparently prosperous and with plenty elf energy, business sense and generous, whoe+souled, smiling na- lures. Its cotton receipts and the fact
 that it be the central market for the agrf- cultural products of large section of Alabama and Mississippi give to it pros- perlty and trade a-plerlty. It has per haps the largest iobhdng house between Baltimore and New Orleans, and its cot ton receipts rank next to Memphis of any interior southern city. It's streets are
 well paved, it's buildings modern and its principal hotel one of the best in the south.
 Between Birmingham and Meridian is a | splendid section of Alabama-wealthy, both
 mineraly and agriculturally. Tuscaloosa. Livingston and Eutaw, along the Alabama l Great Southern, between the two points.
 are three of the best and oldest towns in | Alabama. Tuscaloosa particularly has re- l gently developed into quite a joblbing and 1 manufacturing city. It has one of but | three concerns in the United States manu- facturing trunk slats. 1t seems that sweet | gum is the only wood suitable for these stays for trunks. Millions of them are made annually in Tuscaloosa and shipped all over this country.
 | From Southwest Alabama into the ex- l treme northwest I went-into Tennessee 1 Alabama, as 1t is known. Up near the Ten nessee and Mississippi corner, Florence,
 Sheffield and Tuscumbia nestle almost to- gether. The starting up of the iron fur naces has thrown new life into these towns Sheffield particularly has arisen from the trough of business silence into live and busting town. Three of its long idle fur
 naces and its rolling mill are in full opera tion and two more will be within a few
 weeks. The two hundred ton Florence fur mace just across the river is active, and the many wood working factories and cotton factories of Florence are in full operation | This section of Alabama is full of valuable | woods, and there are several factories In
 Florence saving and manufacturing them -t-T.