davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
Fees and PeOnaue.

The Franklin peonage case throws much additional light on the manner and place in which such cases are started. In one case a negro was fined s5, But the costs in the case were taxed at $1750, and the magis- trate desired to make it $27.50 in or der to meet other circumstances.
 In some states a justice of the peace or similar official is prohibited from assessing as taxable costs over s5 in any case, and a similar provi- sion is sadly needed in this state Fees of an unlimited nature invite peonage cases and other forms of in- justice, and the victims in every in stance are the weak and helpless.
 The legislature will be pressed for time next September, but 1t certainly can find time in which to put an end to abuses of the Couse sort. There are many Couses in this state, and the legislature can speedily put an end to their work and render them harmless, and perhaps no better rem edy exists than a provision that limits assessable costs to a reasonable sum.
 At present costs are in many mag istrates offices whatever the avarice of the magistrate dictates, and this can be speedily ended by the legisla- ture The story brought to light si the Franklin case is not a bit excep- tional It is on the other hand typical. There are, of course, scores of justices of the peace who would cut hand off before they would do harm to any one, but there are others who would not hesitate to handle the ignorant and defenceless in order to pile up large bills for fees. These fees can not be paiu by the victims of the petty courts, and thus they lead directly on to peonage. Tn short, there is no in duoement to create peons where there arc no fees. Fees are the basis and peonage the snperstructure. The legislature should sweep away the entire device.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
THE lNguNcTIoN,s FUTURE.

From the Boston Advertiser (Rep).
 Justice Brewer of the United States Supreme court, in his address before the Iowa state bar, predicted that the hue and cry now raised against government by injunction will soon cease. What the learned justice believes is that the time is approaching when equity will be &C., cepted practically as a substitute for law in it's criminal side. Said he:
 Unless the law is to place itself out of harmony with the advancing civilization. the right to prevent wrong should have an enlarged rather than a restricted scope. The cry of government by injunc- ton will eventually die out. and 1t will be felt by all that the power is exercised only when necessity arises and when equity and justice demand"
 If government by injunction were to be widened even beyond It's present scope, the effect upon the balance of our legis- lative. executive and judicial branches of government would be a serious question. To substitute equity for law would de- velop the judiciary at the expense of the executive and legislative powers. and af- feet our whole governmental system
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24

come great. Public Printer Palmer discharged Miller because the union had expelled him, 1t having been well understood for long time that none but members of a uaion were eligible to positions in the printing office bu- reau. The local union made the mis- take of not filing formal charges against Miller. and his dismissal was therefore directly in opposition to civil service rules.
 When Miller goes to work the mat ter will come to locus. and the al lied unions may decide to fight the issue out with the President and the civil service laws. The contention is not only interesting, but it Is of far reaching importance, and tEe develop ments will be watched by both sides closely and with much heat The President has, it is plain, struck a good-sized snag.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
LETTERS TO EDITOR

To the Editor of The Age-Herald:
 Your synopsis of the report of the state examiner on this office published in to- days paper. is, to say the least, mislead- Ing. The report shows that I have prompt ly remitted all monies collected on re- demption, licenses and charter fees, and that the clerical work on the books is excellent" The judge of probate has noth- ing to do with the collection of license taxes, except to receive the money. If parties from whom such taxes are due re- fuse or fail to pay it devolves on the tax commissioner. or grand jury, to enforce collection, and the examiner. knowing the law, very properly referred the matter to the tax commissioner. and placed the cases against the alleged delinquents in hIs hands.
 The judge of probate Is in no way liable for such licenses. as he.is without author ity to enforce collections and the failure to collect is not an "error," nor am I so charged by the examiner. The report on the officers of this county Is very favor able as 1t shows that the state owes them on the aggregate more than they owe the state. Respectfully
 WILLIAM F. SKEGGS,
 Probate Judge. Morgan County. Decatur, July 21, 1sOS
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
DRUNKENNESS DECREASING.

From the Washington Post.
 Statistics furnished by Police courts throughout the country show that the ar rests for drunkenness are continually de- creasing In number. Testimony of stu- dents of conditions in the larger cities show that. while the American people are drinking more than ever before, they are more temperate than they have ever been. Beers, light wines and beverages containing but small per cent of alcohol have come Into common use on the tables of families who a few years ago would have considered such indulgence nothing short of disgrace. The evidence is clear ly in support of the assertion that whisky drinking Is rapidly decreasing, and while the use of intoxicating beverages Is far more general than ever before our people are much more moderate. caring less and less each year for the real hard stuff'' which our ancestors took for their stom- ach's sake The overenthusiastic temper ance workers will probably be slow to &C., cept this view of the situation. but 1t is clearly the correct one
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
ADVANTAGES OF ART IN
 OUR AMERICAN CITIES

From the New York Mail and Express.
 Ex-Mayor Bulls of Brussels. who will sail for New York next week to deliver in this country a series of lectures on municipal art, stands for a movement that in little more than a decade has made Belgium one of the most attractive coun- tries to the tourist and the sightseer, and that is doing much to increase the sight Illness and charm of the cities and larger towns of the continent. What he stands for Is what America needs, and, in these days of large fortunes and prosperous conditions, could go far but yet is doins so little to achieve. His object is to make the cities of his country attractive places to live in because of the beauty of their house exteriors, the dignity of their municipal erections, the sincerity of their parks, plazas and thoroughfares, and general application of the decorative quality, carried down even to the street signs, the lamp posts, the news kiosks and the very door knockers. He Is the ex- ponent of what the Belgians call Tart dans la rue"
 A tourist is drawn to Europe only or chief ly because of It's ruins. Europe has its inalienable dover of ruins and venerable associations. But if 1t had nothing be- sides these to offer, it's appeal might not be much more compelling than that of the mounds of the Mississippi and Ohio velleys, which are seldom visited save by the archaeologist. What draws the traveller to England and the continent, aside from the natural wish to study stranger peoples and see with his own eyes the places he has read about, is their art-their paintings, sculpture, buildings. European architecture inter ests because 1t is good, not because 1t is old. The ancient Byzantine church at Aix-la- -Chapelle, where Charlmagne and tlsirty-seven German emperors after him were crowned, has nothing like the vogue with travellers that the buildings of the Vienna Ring-strasse have, ai- though the latter are none of them thirty years old It is not very good art; they are splendid art. Indeed, 1t is the mod ern rather than the ancient or medieval architecture of Paris. Brussels and vienna that makes those cities the show places of Europe.
 American buildings fail to interest the traveller. not because they are new, but because most of them are not worth the while. Many of them, indeed, have been standing longer than some of the most att tractive edifces of the continent. But the continent has realized in advance of Am erica that a beautiful building is an al- most priceless possession. It confers a benefaction on every one who passes 1t and on every occasion when he passes it. | The St. Petersburg city council formally recognized last month the service that every fine building does to the community. | by devising plan to grant temporary ex- | emption from taxes to persons construct ] ing artistic houses. to award gold medals
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24

to their architects, and to place marble tables on the best facades.
 American architecture has developed nothing original except the New York skyscraper-which, indeed, is more of an art achievement than we realize. But 1t is at least possible for it to draw on the common store of the race, as Belgium is doing in recreating the Flemish renaissance style in public edlfices. The state of ar- chitecture has declined everywhere since the middle ages. and it is not as certain as 1t should be that buildings equal in beauty to medieval structures will be pro- duced in any mode of today or tomorrow.
 Int with these models before us, there is 'o reason why buildings in their style 'hauld not be multiplied. Chester, in Eng and, retains it's ancient beauty and inique local color by putting up modern
 eildings with the identical cross timber ng and craven front effects of it's original houses. If the visit to MT. Bulls could awaken this city to the moral disgrace of such offenses as jobbing the contract for all the hall of records statues to one sculptor, and jog the country out of the corrugated iron period, and past such enormities as the squalid and blackened buildings of the average railroad town, he would deserve a monument only less lofty than that of Liberty down the bay.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
HandwrItIna on Typewrlter.

Not being satisfied with making for tunes as handwriting experts, some men now claim that they can tell the differ ence between typewritten sheets done by different operators" said a lawyer yes terday.
 "In recent law case, where a long typewritten document was in question, It was alleged that one of the pages includ- ed had been substituted for another sheet. Although to a casual eye all the sheets seemed to be the work of one hand, experts showed that the spacing was quite different, especially between the end of one sentence and the beginning of another, and on the substituted sheet the paragraphs began in quite different po- sition on the lines, and the letters were shaky instead of upright and firm. And the punctuation was wholly different. The experts were unable 10 trace the person who had done the bogus type writing, but they agreed that 1t was a young woman. and only a beginner at typewritlng; that she was nervous, not very strong and that her education was only moderately good"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
M A. Miller and iha Unions.

William A. Miller was assistant foreman of the government printing office, and on May IS he was dis missed from the position he held, and all other employment in the big print cry conducted by the government He had been expelled from the local un- ion of the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders. The case was inves- tigated by the direction of the Presl- dent by Secretary Cortelyou, and in the end the President directed the public printer to reinstate Miller in his old position, because he had been removed in violation of the civil ser. vice laws.
 The bookbinders now threaten to quit the government printing office and the allied unions also threaten in such contingency to support the bookbinders. Miller has not yet been reinstated, but if he should apply to the public printer for reinstatement it now looks as if Uncle Sam would have a strike of the first magnitude on his hands.
 The Bookbinders union charges Miller with the use of scurrilous lan- guage towards both those employed under him, and t-e bookbinders' or ganization itself The local union Is unqualiiedly opposed to Miller as an individual and as bookbinder in the government printing office.
 But Miller was under the protecting wing of the civil service and that service does not know the union as a factor, at all. The Bookbinders' union has locked horns with the civil ser vice, and President Roosevelt aligns himself on the side of civil service and to that extent against the union He says: There is no objection to the  employees of the government printing office constituting themselves into a body, if they desire to do so, but no rules or resolutions of that union can be permitted to override the laws of tho United States, which it is my duty to enforce"
 Heretofore organized labor has con trolled appointments in the printing office bureau, but if Foreman Miller Is reinstated the power of the union will be broken in one of it's strong holds. Strikes have been avoided in the past in several instances through the skill and tact of the public printer, but President Roosevelt now prefers, 1t seems, to bring the matter to a crisis and final decision, and if Mil Ter is reinstated the issue becomes acute, and either the one or the other must prevail. This may involve a strike. and thus the tension will be-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24

concern themselves with the slumps of the 'P" brigade. This was not the case fifty or even twenty-five years ago. but 1t is the case now.
 There may. of course, be weddings here and there that are leaning on Wall street, but the proportion of such cases Is yearly growing less, and in year of good crops, as the pres ent will undoubtedly prove to be, there will be no deserving cases. None will fall that deserves to live. Thus far Alabama has incurred but one such case, and there may not be an other.
 James J. Hill described the general condition when he said: Prom St. Paul clear through to the Pacific coast our people are engaged in pro ducing foodstuffs, in numbering and mining, in developing the great natu- ral resources of the country There fore they are prosperous, and see no reason to believe that this prosperity will not continue" Such people do not stop to ask about the price of M. P. or U P, and they do not bother themselves with their fluctuations.
 
 The Great Northern physician pro ceeds to prescribe a remedy for Wall street. He says it's overload" should be declared indigestible and discarded altogether. The lambs will not have it. The general public long ago left Wall street bag and baggage, and nothing can coax them back. not even bargain counter prices, and the pro fessionals will have to swap jack knives among themselves.
 The great west and the great south are as sound as a dollar, and they arc not bit troubled over the slumps of Wall street 1ney are making wheat, corn and cotton to beat the band, with big lots of lumber, iron and coal thrown in, and they are wholly in- dependent of stock prices. The se- curities they deal in are not listed, and will not be listed, for they want 4 4 Al. are those that the people at home do not want. Tho south and west are not handling such securities. They are too nearly indigestible.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
States show

The paramount position of this country as a producer of iron ore is now well established, and when con test takes place for the control of the markets of the world this country will readily outrank all. the rest. Such contest is close at hand, and the old export work of this district will doubt less soon be resumed. All things point that way. Germany and Great Britain will not yield without strug- gle, but tl.ey will assuredly be driven out of many markets when America has surplus of iron that she does not need at home.
 It should not be forgotten that this country has by no means reached a maximum in iron ore production Neither the Lake Superior fields nor the southern fields have been worked up to their possibilities, and if need be the production, especially in the south, can be greatly increased.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
No AsphaIt Pavement.

"It has struck me as a little strange that Birmingham has no asphalt pave ments," said a northern man. For 8 long time 1t was thought that the south ern climate was too warm for asphalt and that it would get so soft as to be imprae- tlcable, but this idea is exploded by the situation in New Orleans. Down there they have beautiful asphalt pavements and they have given entire satisfaction.
 Asphalt Is the best pavement of them all for streets where there is not a maxi mum of heavy traffic. They are abso- lutely smooth. are soft enough that they are not hard on horses feet and, best of all. they are noiseless. In addition to this they are durable and are very easily re- paired"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
THERE IS NO DEATH.

By Lord Lytton. There is no deathl The stars go down To rise upon some fairer shore: And bright in heavens jewelled crown They shine forevermore. There is no death! The dust we tread Shall change beneath the summer
 showers TO golden grain or mellowed fruit. Or rainbow tinted flowers. The granite rocks disorganize. And feed the hungry moss they bear; The forest leaves drink daily life. From out the viewless air.
 And flowers may fade and pass away; They only wait through wintry hours. The coming of the May. There is no death An angel form Walks OCT the earth In silent tread; He bears our best loved things away; And then we call them dead He leaves our hearts all desolate. He plucks our fairest. sweetest flows
 CTS; Transplanted into bliss. they now Adorn immortal bowers. The bird-like voice, whose joyous tones Made glad these scenes of sin and
 strife. Sings now an everlasting song
 Around the tree of life. Where'er he sees a smile too bright, Or heart too pure for taint and voice. He bears 1t to that world of light To dwell in Paradise. Born unto that undying life,
 They leave us but to come again; With joy we welcome them the same Except their sin and pain. And ever near us, though unseen, The dear immortal spirits tread; For all the boundless universe
 Is life-there are no dead.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
AN APPRECIATED COMPLIMENT.

The following letter was received yesterday and the, Age-Herald takes he liberty of printing it, as it so wei expresses the desires of the editors of The Age-Herald in their desires tc properly represent the Birmingham district:
 Office Southern Industrial Guide,
 Norfolk, Va, July 21, 1908. MT. E. w. Barrett, Editor Brmlng- ham Aee-HeraId, Birmingham, Ala.-
 Dear Sir: Please do not neg lect to send me copy of your ln- dustrial Review, which Is to ap- pear Sunday. am anxious to see 1t, and shall be pleased to notice your enterprise.
 Of all southern daiIles, ! con slider The Birmingham Age-Herald and the Jacksonville Times-Unlon and Citizen most valuable in point of actually advertising the com munitles which they represent. The attraction of favorable notice to a section Is very easily accom- plished-by means frequently neg lected by newspapers. The trick simply consists in paying strict attention to industrial news, and 1 desire to congratulate you on the way In which you follow out the Idea. 1t Is not talk about what can be done that attracts capitalists, but 1t Is constant talk about what has been done and what is being done that does the work for community. read your paper profitaby and with keen Interest.
 Yours very truly,
 ALVIN ROBERTS,
 Editor.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24

ceptance of aliens be amended-that more severe and certain measures of restric- ton be adopted. and that the policy of the steamship companies in raklng the slums of Europe for emigrants be dis couraged. The government need be hamp- cred in this matter by no consideration that we absolutely need more people. Good and useful new citizens we want. But we have no need of more beggars, pusheart peddlers or illiterate and wholly unshlled cheap labor. There is positive danger in next years threatened mil- lion.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
Isolation of Wall Street.

There was time when the price of securities in Wall street meant much to the rest of the country, but that time is recorded in history now. and no longer concerns us. The men who make the crops of the country and conduct its factories and trade do not care what the price of "M. F." or ''U. P" or any other "P" is. They do not
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
IN HOTEL LoBBIEs.
Much Grading Necessary.

When the seaboard Air Line begins work on Avenue A there will be quite a little excavation to be done at Twenty first and Twenty-second streets" said street car patron. At these crossings the streets have been graded up to the level of the viaducts and now all that dirt will have to be removed and the waducts ex- tended down toward Avenue B.
 aThe Birmingham Water Works com pany is at work now lowering the water mains at Twenty-seeond street, so they will not be interfered with by the Sea- boards excavations"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
Harvest Hande Are searoe.

"Every year the wheat-growing west calls out vociferously for men to harvest the crops and for money to move then" said a grain man yesterday.
 At this moment 1t Is clamoring for men with unusual vehemence. A little later the demand for money will be heard, and Wall street will be plnched to accommo- date western farmers.
 'It is easier for the west to get the currency It needs than it is to get the men. Unless the stories which come now from the wheat fields are exaggerated they probably are little overdrawn-the harvest hand is becoming scarce and a valuable adjunct to wheat growing"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
REFLECTIONS OF A BACHELOR.

From the New York Press.
 When a girl refuses to marry a duke it is because he refuses to ask her.
 Probably if there were only a few men lin the world women wouldn't have such objections to polygamy.
 Why does a girl always want the lights turned down when she Is going to let Q man kiss her against her will?
 When girl Is on a dark piazza with a man and coughs every now and then, it is a sign to her mother not to come out there too suddenly.
 If you argued with her million years you could never convince a woman that she was undressed as long as she had her stockings on.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24

From the New York World.
 On the tables showing that S57,046 immi- grants reached these shores in the fiscal year just past Commissioner General Frank P. Sargent bases prediction that, under unchanged laws, next years army of incoming aliens will pass the million mark.
 MT Sargent finds peril in the filling up of the cities with masses of untrained newcomers. In the event of hard times the gravest public menace will lie in the discontent of these hordes when there are no wages to be earned.
 Our recent history strongly emphasizes the demand that the laws as to the ac-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
CHRISTIAN FLIRTING.

From the Spectator.
 The rresent-day behavior of young peo- pie is a continual source of regret tc aged travellers. We used to fiirt when was young. I don't say we didn't.'' said an old lady. a Sunday or two ago. who was travelling In suburban train to hear her favorite clergyman preach. T did fl myself. but'-with full consciousness oi bygone attractions--"I fiirted in a Chris tan manner. not as girls do now"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-24
Housea Hard to eet.

'I just recently begun housekeeping in Birmingham" said a new conner, "and have rented my house only until the first of October. Last week I began to look around for another place that would be for rent when my time is up, and found dwellings very scarce. We are not very hard to please and would like house of almost any size from five to ten rooms, and yet we are not able to find one close in that suits'