The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-01-29

6HE portierless fiat is the latest " classification in flats and 1t was
 originated in Jersey City a town which has appeared in public print often before The recent innovation in city cliff dwelling was brought about by desire for the artistic the part of cer- tain tenants of certain flat which was not reoiprocated by the landlord. These aesthetic individuals conceived "a perfect horror of anything that looked like door. Their tastes ran in the direction of graceful draperies and sumptuous ar arrangements of curtains known to the trade as portieres. As soon as the new craze was fully developed a crusade was made against doors with the result that these unnecessary contrvances of inte- rior apartments soon found themselves piled up in the cellar to be the sport of time and the spiders. When this partic- ular flat looked like a dry goods store on opening day and the ensemble effect was considered perfect by the fond fiat ters the landlord hapuened along and found his cherished doors reposing in the
  Now the landlord was not an aesthetic man but he had good eye for business and he promptly raised a howl First he consulted his lawyers. Finding out where his rights lay he proceeded to institute wholesale eviction of his artistic tenants and these are now engaged in looking for doorless flats elsewhere. The question is tyh hpfh ba of right to dictate the arrangements of their apartments to the landlord and from the little story just related it would seem that they have not.
 That the bank at Monte Carlo can real ly be broken has been demonstrated by the Russian Grand Duke Alexis. who managed to get away with s5o,OoO. All the same this does not make the trick any the easier.
 A dispatch from Berlin states that Baron Hammerstein, Prussian minister of the interior, is in danger of being dis missed because he made a remark in pri vate conversation which was offensive to Emperor William. If such were the fate of public officials in this country who | criticise their "superiors," no one would be left to run the government
 The public longs for another romantic novel in which valorous gentlemen who never have any work to do pass away their time in making love to fair ladies, or in plunglng from one adventure to an- oil
 in novels make living, especially those of the swashbuckling type. Authors usu- ally leave the public in doubt on this point and we are lead to believe that the averages hero is born wealthy. It is so sordid' don't you know, to introduce the commonplaces of making living into story where all is aetherial, mmaterial evanescent, and largely slush At any rate heroes always have plenty of money until authors try to awaken sympathy for them by arranging a series of disas- ters and then heroes have a hard time in print. This world would certainly be remarkable place if all the heroes of novels could become alive. Everybody would be so original and so interesting that life would be intolerable--until some new novelist took it into his head to por- tray a natural man or woman like those he formerly knew before all novel heroes became real persons
 It has been a subject for frequent re- mark that when a policeman starts out to shoot a cat or mad dog he frequently empties his own pistol and borrows an nt hef iG Iich haT while if he is firing at fugitive whose
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