The age-herald., 1900-11-15
IN HOTEL LOBBIES
 AND ELSEWHERE

Changes and traveling mayest thou ex-
 peet and of an unfavorabla nature; keep
 myself very quiet and do not give offense;
 avoid young people.
 A child born on this day will be very
 headstrong and restless, eonceited and ill-
 hammered; it's success in life will be very
 poor; 1t should keep in employ
 Astrologer Raphael's prophecies for Fri
 day November 16, 1900:
 Seek work, ask favors, and push thy
 business"
 Beware of losses, and run no risks with
 thy money; with care and attention thou
 mayest keep thy bushes together; those in
 employ will be promoted
 "A child born on this day should keep in
 employ, in which it will be fortunate 1
 "Cofins and drugs cost Birmingham enough annually to keep the city clean and
 in good sanitary condition" "One death week in Birmingham is di- rectly attributable to the uncleaniness of of the city generally. Look at that" As he i spoke the engineer and sanitary expert waved his hand towards the middle of the l street
 There, gaunt and wind-swept, shivering l In the cold, was the street-cleaning force 1 of Birmingham.
 The force consisted of three negro men and negro boy. The negro men wore shackles, which caused them to half shuf- he, half hobble along in their slow and in adequate work. The boy small enough l toWear knickerbockers, the knee pants l of the ugliest of all imaginable slang. His once black stockings were ragged, and the l space of several inches of his right leg 1 was bare, and the cold and uncleanliness l had given the black skin dull ashen grey. Like the three men, his fellow prisoners of 1 the street-ceaning brigade" of Birmng- l ham, he was ragged unkempt, untidy, and l the four mournful figures in the street pre- l scented the most mournful spectacle which l one can see in the South-steel-shackled negroes making the vain effort to clean 1 filthy streets.
 1 Yet there were perhaps two hundred good l men from the North, some of them pos l sessed of wealth, who were in Birming- l ham yesterday with a view to investing l their money here, and perhaps making Birmingham their home! What must they have thought of Birmingham's street-clean- 1 ing 'brgade?' What must they have | thought of the filth everywhere observ- able, and of the mighty clouds of dust | that partially blinded and stifed everybody who walked the streets?
 "rhat isn't the worst of it." said the en- l gineer and sanitary expert. "'The alleys, | back yards and secluded places all over Birmingham are filthy beyond description. | It is doubtful if there is a sink or recep- | tacle of unclean material in all Birming ham which is inspected four times a year. | There is no real cleaning of the streets; no intelligent effort to clean a single spot l in Birmingham.
 I Most accurate figures demonstrate that | the proper cleaning of a city reduces the death rate one person in thousand inhab- | itdnts at least. That means the immediate and unnecessary death of one person week in this town. The coffin and funeral ex- penses average $1OO for each one of the dead; doctors and drugs cost $100. That is upwards of $10O0O a year actual cost in money of the dead who die solely because the city is kept unclean. For every per son who dies, as scientific estimates prove. there are twenty who are seriously sick. The seriously sick will certainly average $l00 each for doctors and drugs, and so on | in the way of necessities. Thus we have | $110,0O0 in actual outlay of money on ac- count of the general refusal to keep the city clean. That takes count of the loss of time and energy due the debility in thou- sands of the population, solely on account | of lack of sanitary regulations enforced. And all this vast outlay for the disgrace of keeping the dirtiest city in America does not take into account the inestimable aggre- gate of human suffering and g-ef, the re- suit of keeping the sextons of the cemeter- ies busy.
 Our people are always demanding fac tories and mills and railroads, and yet re- fuse to accept the enormous profit that would accrue from cleanliness of the city A sensible system of keeping Birmingham thoroughly clean would be of five times more profit to the community than the largest five steel mills in the world. Ii Bir- 1 mingham would simply clean itself as Att lanta, Jacksonville, Fla, and Peoria H., have done, it would double this city's popu- lation within five years. In Jacksonville I knew q wholesale grocery merchant About the end of Jaeksonville's first year of clean liness I asked him one day how business was. It was bad, he declared; had been forced to get rid of seven men in the of flee and had cut down the number of his
 
 know what they would do. Just after that saw his head bookkeeper, and asked him about business. We have saved $150 900 more of clear profit the past year than the year before,' he said. Since the city was cleaned up and paved, eighteen men do the office work of the twenty-five men before, and six wagons do the work of ten as before All this is due to the sanitary improvements of the city
 That is case in point. One firm netted an increase of S15000 income solely be- cause Jacksonville had been cleaned up 1 That is luminous lesson for Birmingham merchants. Suppose the ordinary big houses in this city should each $15, GOO net a year on account of cleanliness the great est houses could each save $50,000 to $45,000. Thus as a purely business proposition, re- gardless of the saving of precious lives and | .t. t.11 ;,F n..,