The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-09-17
COMMENTS ON MEN AND
 MATTERS OF THE WORLD

the release of all prisoners held by either side and one of the unfortunates to bene- fit by this clause was an EngIishman who had been in dungeon twenty years. He had become blind and could not be- lieve that he was really to be set free. Here is a tip for novelists that would inspire a Dickens to write a second ..Taie of Two Cities or Dumas to improve on "The Count of Monte Cristo." No doubt this man, if his mind is still clear, could tell a story well worth the hearing. His case merely reminds us that the op- portunities for fiction have not been ex- hausted by any means and that 1t Is still possible to have experiences in real life which would do credit to the most vivid imagination.
 What Jeffersonian simplicity has come to was never more forcibly illustrated than by the splendid magnificence which charaeterizes the Hotel St. Regis, recent ly opened to the public in New York A suite of apartments costs kings ran- som there, and meal would cost more money than the average ribbon clerk makes in two weeks. yet there are plenty of people who are willing and able to patronize such a hostelry. For them it has been expressly designed. and when the moneyed throng Is gathered within the new hotel the working man and his
 quarter dinner will have passed from memory. That such a structure finished in royal splendor. bids fair to do profit able business, shows that the great Amer ican people have more money than they know what to do with.
 Preparations for the Lewis and Clark
 centennial to be held In Portland, Ore,
 are going merrily ahead and the lesson of previous fairs seems to have been for gotten. If the St Louis fair, situated
 in the heart of the country and easily reached from all quarters of the United States, and with one of the most mag
 ni1cent displays that has ever been
 thrown open to the public, has lan-
 guished all these months neglected and is just now beginning to receive the tardy | recognition which was It's que, what will
 be the fate of the Lewis and Clark cen- tennial, removed thousands of miles from
 the teeming cities of the east and on the wrong side of the country altogether? For a time 1t seemed that Professor Starr had been effectual1y quieted. but he has just turned up at the fair with the statement that, according to his ad- vanced way of thinking, the dog meat diet | of the Igorrotes is incomparably better 1 than pig and preferable even to lamb. Pro- lessor Starr is a member of the University | of Chicago's freak faculty, and Is there
 fore supposed to know whereof he speaks 1 If the professor really wants dog meat l for heavens sake let him have 1t, even l if the number of the nations CUTS has to be reduced. The first thing we know the
 professor will be advocating an Igorrots l style of dress. but right there is where I a law and order league will draw the line. l However learned a man may be he can
 not go without clothes in the United States unless, indeed he Is Filipino.
 It is authoritatively announced that
 along with dip belts, balloon sleeves and other dress regulations for fair femin l ity skirts will be made shorter this
 year and the distressing spectacle of wom-
 en acting as street sweepers will not be l so much in evidence as heretofore. What
 the frenzied bowling of science boards of | health and microbe experts has failed to
 accomplish has been quickly brought
 about by one sweep of Fashions magic wand. P. c.