The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-02-16
OUR FRIEND, THE UMBRELLA

(By Andrew James Miller.)
 Bards of all ages have sung their lyric praises of the old armchair. old clocks, old tiresides, old wines and old oaken buckets. but they have left that old sturdy friend, the umbrella, to the dis arrangement of the cynicsand the ridicule of the humorist. This is rank injustice and it Is time to protest against this friend being made victim of selfish ingratltude. Let us do so on high moral grounds and stand up for the umbrella. which has sc often stood up for us. Your umbrella is no mere fair weather acquaintance. bH. sticks fast to you df not borrowed) ln diverse circumstances and is sometimes blown inside out" in its energetic et forts in your behalf.
 The umbrella comes of fine antiquity and can count more centuries of homer than the proud houses of Guelph ano Hapsburg. It was indeed borne alsft, long before Athens reared her Areopagus, or Rome threw its iron embrace reuno q siIenced world. The reader knows, of course, that the Greeks in their preees sions, carried a Skiadeion over the hesc of their liberal god, Dionysos. while the partrician women of the Eternal Cit shaded their charms with an um braculum. when they appeared in tn. theatre. He knows also that Cleopatra was never happier under the sillseH canopy of her barge upon the Cylnss than she (and he) was under that eM umbrella. All of us can remember Mi Browns umbrella, in Bulwer's 'Dis owned,"-it was a part of the man; ans Micawber's umbrella, in David Cop perfield;" and Quilp's in "Old Curiosity Sharp;"-what individuality in each!
 There is much character in an um- brella- To some extent, it may be said with the older ones) to assume the character of its owner. On a stormy day, you can see a whole collection of then marching down the street; you can study their idiosyncrasys, from gingham !" silk. The sturdy. the defiant the aggres Sive, the susceptible, the retiring, th' lnsinuating-all are there. Here is the blase individual, careless of both weathe: and pedestrians: the feebleness of age whose wobbling alpaca keeps time will his gait; the dainty dude. who has Q fancy handle to exhibit; the reckless. plunging woman, who gouges her ferule into your eye and gives you an angry glance, as though you did it.
 In deed this last individual is quite numerous, and she charges down tn stret, without the malignity, of course of the scythe-wheeled charioteer of old. but with the same deadly execution. It amusing to observe her would-be victim fleeing to the right and left. barin. their heads to the storm, in the hope saving perhaps, the only optic left from their last collision with this selfish um brella bearer.
 Yet, none of these escapades arc chargeable to our faithful friend, the um brella. It can't choose it's owner. for alas, 1t is too often common property | frequently disappears in the most myste rious way. l suppose there are som, deviations from the rules of honesty, which must not be judged so severely a. others, as people take an umbrella iron the hotel or club, who. even in the most indictment weather. would hesitate to lay hands on our overcoat. This is one Of those strange perversities of human nature, which we may liken to the piou: deacon, who can tell some 'whoppers' when 1t comes to swearing to his tay schedule. It has also an affinity to somt women, of highest and most devout principles, who pass their progeny of pn railway companies, as infants in arms long after the youngster has learned t play hockey" and I suppose 1t is tho same sort of failure of continuity. IF the code of morals. that causes our um- brella to disappear from reading room" and other places.