The age-herald., 1901-07-18

other evil influence against the public health in BIrmingham
 i'rhe Dust Devil was terrible and awful in his death agoniesih the physician ob- served. and being humane man he re- porary as 1t wasl
 The physician referred to the antics of the Dust Devil before the windstorm which came out of the north late Tuesday afternoon. bringing a considerable rain fall
 The dust was truly terrible and awful, as the physician said. Down all the streets running souths came monstrous pillows of reddish black dust which reach ed from the pavement to above the tallest houses, partially binding and suf- locating every living creature In the way of the onsweeping terrow. Viewed from cross streets out of It's wake the Dust Devil was appalling In It's mountainous greatness and terrific force. It darkened the air and brought the gloom of early nightfall while the sun still was shining two hours above the horizon. People fled as before a pestilence which they were powerless to avert.
 All of the dust was brought from out side of the business district, some of 1t from comparatively great distances; for 1t is due to the city authorities to say now. after long years of waiting. that the business streets are fairly we'll sprinlxled, and once day are well swept.
 The Dust Devil was appalling in it's death agonies. But--4t will be alive and rampant again today.
 What a glorious thing it would be if a great number of petroleum ''gushers' were discovered in this valley and the streets could be 'watered" with oili
 Memory Faithful to Trifles.
 Life is made up of little things and 1t is sometimes startling how tenacfously ones memory retains the record of iife's trifies," a philosopher of the lobbies said last night
 'One day in 1877, when I was young boy, I stopped for moment at the cor ner of the present city hall in Mont gomery. Part of the ground floor of the city building, including the corner, which is now Q grocery store. was then occupied as the postoff1ce. At the mo- ment I stopped in my walk two young men, whom I didn't know. came out of the postoffice and stood within arms reach of me. One of them took from an envelope a large sheet of what seemed to me to be parchment, though had never really seen parchment.
 This Is fathers commission he said as he unfolded the paper.
 "'And this Is really President Hayes signature, said the other, tentatively.
 At once I was absorbingly interested and, touching my cap respectfully. I ven- tured to ask the stranger to allow me to look at the paper. Each had hold of one side of it and they at once passed it to me, one of them saying Certainly
 "The document was the commission of President Hayes to Israel w. Roberts, naming him postmaster of Montgomery, and so clearly do remember it all that I could now write R. B. Hayes in al- most the exact penmanship that the President himself wrote 1t twenty-four years ago-I think the year was 1877, though possibly 1t was the year after.
 "The two strangers were John Rob- erts, now of Birmingham and H. H. Rob- erts of Montgomery, sons of Israel W. Roberts. The father died yesterday at the age of ninety, the oldest and one of the best and most honored citizens of Montgomery. The announcement of his death recalls the circumstance of my seeing his commission at postmaster, and relate this merely to illustrate the hold memory has upon the trifies Of ones life."