The age-herald., 1900-12-19

 Masons of Alabama mourn, was. like many of the worlds greatest men, Grant included, accounted a dull person in his earlier life" said student who had known MT. Arm strong long and intimately.
 Five and twenty years ago Clay Arm strong's acquaintances in the adjoining counties of Macon, Bullock, Lee and Rus sell didn't think much of him mentally, or as to physical vigor or energy. and many a jest was spoken at his expense. The people of those counties who believed they knew him. assuming their rustic cackle to be the murmur of the world, were amazed when he was elected Superintendent of Ed ucation of Alabama, and somebody origi- mated an Armstrong anecdote which doubt less many persons still remember l first heard it in Union Springs. and to this eff feet:
 "Cay Armstrong had saved enough of his earnings to acquire at least nominal owner ship of a rather small plantation, as Black Belt plantations go. He began to improve the property by erecting a cotton gin- house, and an old-fashioned screw now called a press, for baling the ginned cot ton The screw, the story goes, was care lessy erected so close to the gin-house that the two immense arms or sloping shafts on either side, each seventy feet long, to which mules were attached in order to walk around the wide circle and screw the screw down, could not pass in their cir cult. The first arm that struck the gin- house proved to be too long by several feet, and the screw couldn't be worked.
 Cut it off, the owner commanded.
 The arm was cut off to the required length for passing the gn-house.
 '.Now work 1t with one arm, the owner directed.
 'Then the second arm was pulled around until 1t too struck the gin-house, when it suddenly occurred to the owner that the screw was too close to the gin-house to be worked at all.'
 ''Such was the story told to illustrate the rural idea of the stupidity of the man who was to become chief of all the public edu- cators of Alabama; speaker of the House of Representatives of the Alabama Legis- lature; the most successful and distin- guished consul-general of the United States who was in office from 1885 to 1SS9 a man who more than held his own with the trained and lifelong consular and diplomatic officers of older countries at Rio de Janeiro, and who made the consul late-general of greater international im- portance than the legation; a man who be- came the first Mason of Alabama, and one of the best known of the South, and who died as one amongst the first of Alabamas s citizens!
 'The lack of local appreciation experi- enced by Clay Armstrong has been felt by every great or noted man and woman since the world began. "A prophet is not without honor save in his own country is a truth old as Holy Writ; and no man is hero to his own valet All of which points no moral except possibly that familiarity breeds contempt and serves no particular purpose except to arouse the worlds smiles. A narrow partisan majority turned William Mckinley out of his Congressional seat in favor of man whom the people had not elected, sixteen years ago! So it goes and time brings in it's revenges."
 Maj. Frank r. Anderson is recovering from tedious and painful illness, and is now strong enough to in part attend to his office business.
  ney's Handbook of Alabama, was in Sir mingham yesterday.
 
 Secretary of State Robert Patton McDa- vid is in Birmingham to attend to some social duties.
 Percy Clark of Selma and l.. A. Pfeifer of Cincinnati are in Birmingham.
 MT. Douglas H. Gordon and MT. Thomas P. Grasty of Baltimore, who are spending this week in the Birmingham district, went to Ironaton yesterday and returned last night They will go out this morning 10 visit some coal and iron mines.
 Probate Judge A. J. Driver and former Representative J. Thomas Hefiin of La Fayette are in Birmingham.
 Maj. Thomas D. Radcliffe of Sheffield is in Birmingham.