The age-herald., 1900-03-20
IN HOTEL HOBBIES
 AND ELSEWHERE

main satisfactorily steady" said D. L. | Cobb of Chicago, general sales agent of the | Sloss-Sheffield company and an expert of
 international reputation MT. Cobb arrived
 in Birmingham yesterday, leaving zero weather in the west to walk the streets of
 this town without an overcoat. He has been exceedingly busy since New Years, | and has spent the last several nights in | sleeping cars. Buyers and sellers of iron | seem to be waiting and watching, so to speak; the large producers and dealers hay l ing pretty much all they care far until l July" Mr Cobb went on to say. "There | is some good business in exports, but | the high prices in this country prevent | large shipments abroad. The demand abroad continues strong, and 1t would be >asy to book orders from Europe for ten fifteen and twenty-five thousand ton lots on comparatively reasonable reductions in current prices; but such reductions appear to be improbable. Birmingham ironmasters show no disposition to yield; and any con- siderable break in local prices here would be ridiculous, since there are no stocks on hand and the masters are well sold up as regards their output"
 Tt is amazing that there has been no organized effort to push Alabama trade in Central America,' said Robert G. Mallett
 who has just returned from prolonged business sojourn in Yucatan. "Certral and South America are rich territory for the development and wealth-yielding expansion of our trade; and it Is astonishing that in- telligently organized effort in that direction was not begun long ago. Excepting the period of the Spanish-American war, have been working for seven years to build up Alabama trade with Central America, more especially with Yucatan. Some success at tended the efforts, and finally 1 induced the Mobile sfirm with which l am associated to put on a regular steamer to ply between Mobile and Progreso the seaport Tor Merida, the capital of Yucatan, and, in fact, the only port that country possesses. Merida, by the way, is a prosperous city Of 65,OOO inhabitants. Prospero lies directly south from Mobile, on the other side of the Mexican gulf. The distance between the two ports is about 635 miles, and our steam CT easily makes the voyage in sixty-hVe hours, which shows that the rich market of Yucatan is practically at the great gate way of Alabama commerce. We snip al most every kind of commercial commodity to Progreso; but our heaviest business IS In Alabama coal and coke. Our feturn cdrgoes consist largely of fruits and of a very superior and valuable grass for rope-mak- ing" MT. Mallett has already accomplished much, and if he succeeds in enlisting the co-operation of Alabama business men gen. orally in building up trade with Central and South America, he will win the graa- tude of all the people.
 411,a 1n- ty town of Autauga, the picturesque pusl- ness district of which has Just peen burned, is familiar all over our southern states and in various far distant lands or the earth. 1t is doubtful, indeed, if any other town of similar size in America IS so widely known. Prattvflle was toundeo scmeft sixty years ago by the famous Daniel Pratt, inventor and manufacturer of the Pratt cotton gins, which now mum along the Rio Grande, the Alabama the Volga. the Nile, and in storied India. The ginmaker Pratt was a New Englander who came to Alabama in the 3Os. fie set tied in Autauga and began in a small way
 the manufacture of gins. rrhe original place of his factory he abondoned within a few years, and founded Prattville, on bold creek in beautiful district amongst the sandhills several miles from the nearest point on the Alabama, and fifteen miles from Mont gomery, the market town and place of shipments. The heavy products of tine gin factory, and the cotton mill many years ago established, were conveyed to Montgomery by means of six mule wagons which crossed the river at Washington ferry, near which is now the great bridge of the Mobile and Ohio ratl- road. The miles eff public road on the Montgomery side of the river between the ferry and the city constituted in rainy sea- sons one long mud-hole But the long and tcilsome fifteen miles did not stay the tor tunes of Daniel Pratt or his successors. The founder of the famous town made large fortune, which has been greatly in- creased by his heirs and successors in business. The fifteen miles d.d not pre- vent the earning of 20 per cent dividends by the cotton mlll. TIlhe earnings of the gin factory were never told to the public, that enterprise being private prop erty, but the profits must have been very great. The public industries at Prattville are now owned almost entirely by Daniel Pratt grandson of the founder, and William T. Northlngton. They suffered no loss by yesterday mornings fire. Several years ago the Louisville and Nashville Railroad company built a branch line from the vicinity of Coosada to Prattville, and in 1898 the Mobile and Ohio, which passes through the town, was completed from Ar tesia Miss, to Montgomery.
 
 Winnie Davis button, commemorative of the approaching reunion of Confederate Veterans at Louisville, is being distributed by Captain P. Sid Jones of the Louisville and Nashville railroad. The button, which Is very attractive and tasteful, bears an ex- cellehtly executed likeness of the lamented Daughter of the Confederacy, and around the margin is inscription to the effect that "Ellen N" is the shortest route to the meeting place of the rapidly thinning ranks of the Braves of the Grey No att tempt Is here made to give Captain Jones his numerous designations, as the Scotch would say. He holds so many places of honor and trust with his c0mDany and fills