Crittenden press. [volume] (Marion, Ky.) 1879-1907, 1900-01-04
ARP AT HOME AGAIN.
Has Just Returned from a Lee
turing Tour.
Observations Daring TrIp-DIHerence
Between Large and Small cities
-Astonished at Growth of
some Places.

an-told me that | had better start
out and see IL I couldn't talk the
good people out of enough to make
the grandchildren happy. The wealth
er was unpropitious and my old bones
we're grumbling, but | obeyed the ma
ternal orders and went. Inertia is a
great invention. The older we grow
the more inertia we have. When |
have stayed at home few months,
want to keep on staying there and 1t
nearly kills me to rouse up and so
away for even a week. After | have
gotten on the road the harness seems
TO warm me up, my inertia is broken
and new scenes and people and
friends absorb my attention.
! have just returned from Alabama
from a second trip and the welcome
home has settled me down SO calm
and serene that my inertia has begun
to work and | feel like could never
go away any more. The weather was
against me somewhat, but ] reckon
sold enough talk to run us through
this Christmas. hope so, for it may
he the last, and then-what then?
There is "a wonderful difference be-
tween the people of big cities and
those of little unpretending towns.
by request | visited Childersburg, Il
village Of few hundred people,
whom ! did not find too busy to talk
TO me; especially the old confederate
veterans. whose grizzly beard and set
tied features always mark them. !
can tell them hundred yards off.
And the common people heard him
gladly" sayeth the Scriptures. Just
so have ] found the yeomanry of our
sunny southland are my most willing
hearers. | love them and love to
talk to them, for they have neither
policy nor hypocrisy. am glad my
self to belong to the middle class
and to mingle with them. Aristo-
cratic society has but few charms for
me. The sweetest poet who ever
wrote a verse said that Abou Ben
Ahdam was placed high in Heaven
because he loved his fellow men.
That was his only credental.
In Childersburg the good people
gathered at the academy that cost
nothing. In fact not anything cost
anything, and ! was most Hospitality
entertained and left with a kiss on
lips of n sweet little girl who recited
Il speech for me that her aunt had
taught her. She was only o little
child. Before ! left home l had n
letter from a cousin IN Birmingham
cordially inviting me to his house,
and said he would meet me at the
depot with a brass band. Also an
other letter from n lady friend, n
widow, who said | must come to her
house and she would meet me ut the
depot with open arms. When my
wife read them | asked where had
better go, and she replied, with Pc
culiar emphasis: go to Fred's."
Birmingham is Il wonderful city and
very beautiful one. A large, clear;
well-arranged depot receives you.
Broad, well-payed streets and side
walks delight you, and magnificent
commercial blocks astonish you.
Everything has been planned on a
grand scale and everybody IS busy
with trade and industries that seem
TO be increasing and spreading out
in every direction, Thousands Of
beautiful dwellings adorn the high
lands that environ the city and hun
dreds are being built on new streets
that are being graded and paved as
fast rs it is possible. There are
churches there that cost over $4,000
Mnpnu unnnoxI
there by the million and keeps on
coming from all points of the coun-
try for investment. Wealthy mer-
chants from other cities have planted
branch houses there and the child is
outgrowing the parent. All around
this center the whole face of the
earth is dotted with iron plants and
their fires are ever burning. 1t is a
magnificent sight to approach Bir-
mingham by night, and on either
side of every railroad to see the an
gry-looking flames going up from
thousands OF coke ovens and hundreds
of smokestacks. 1t makes one think
OF "Dante's Inferno" and hades and
Pluto and hell itself. Not very long
uBO trump WuuueTcu OUT uIuOuR the
ovens before they were fred and land
down TO sleep. During he night,
when the fires were all aglow. he
was found in dangerous proximity
and was rudely punched up, and when
asked who he was and where he came
from, said: II was in Birmingham
yesterday and l reckon ! got drunk
and suppose am in hell now-just
as I've been expecting-no water
about here, Is tbereT
1 visited Ensley, the southern Pitts
burgh, where the leviathan steel
plants are going up. There is a pop
ulation now OF 10000 busy people OPP
Grating the furnaces and rolling mills
and mining for coal. but the half has
not been told, and I'm afraid to tell
what l think l was told about the
plants that are going up and are I'M
der contract to be completed and in
operation by April / next. Hundreds
Of handsome cottages. all neatly fin.
ished and painted. are now ready and
hundreds more going up for the work.
men who are 70 man these immense
steel plantS-one of which Is to be