The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-01-18

HHE last call has been sounded for NY the office boy. When the new
 electric messenger" comes into general use there will be no further ne- cessity for maintaining this picturesque aide-de-camp of business and professional life who has been the butt or jokesmiths and the sport of humorists since she time of Adam. The new invention Is peculiar in its construction and also in it's meth- ods, but the results 1t accomplishes are nothing short of marvellous. There is roll of paper and an electric pencil in the ante-room of MT. Lucrehunter's pa latial offices which are connected by wires with a similar roll and another pencil somewhat differently ordered which Is at the elbow of the magnate. When visitor calls without, the clerk takes the electric pencil in hand, writes his name and business on the first roll and it is reproduced in facsimile by the au- tomatic pencil on the second roll at the corner of MT. Lucrehunters desk. A slight burning sounds a warning to the magnate, he glances at the scroll and decides in jiffy whether he wants to
 
 of this contrivance over the office boy are too numerous to mention, but a few of its most salient recommendations to favor may be summarized. In the first place the electrical messenger never wants to get off for funeral baseball du- ties, 1t never whistles, never smokes cigarettes and does not put it's feet on desks when the 'old man. is not around. Moreover 1t Is neat and orderly and so accurate that mistakes are impossible. The office and messenger boys union had better take immediate steps to put down competition or they will have seen the last of their palmy days.
 Sir Henry Irving says that the music halls are ruining the theatres. With so many evils now assailing the existence | of the drama 1t Is surprising how well the '1egitimate' manages to worry along. It would seem that vaudeville, musical comedy, the present dearth of plays and the appalling amount of "tommyrot" be- ing dealt out to the public, to say nothing of the theatrical trust that Mir. Belasco considers nothing less than blight on | riot or a revolution. Nevertheless, the theatrical business was never more prof itable, and even the drama, in the literal acceptance of the term, is fourishing about as we'll as any one could expect. General Lew Wallace has taken up smoking again after abstaining from the solace of Lady Nicotine for five years. He says that it really helps him, and perhaps he Is right. At any rate a man who is as near the grave as General Wal lace and is working as hard as he Is to finish an autobiography ought to be per- mitted a few pleasures. A great many people will not be able to smoke after | they are dead and a great many others may smoke more than they want to, but a whiff from a good cigar or a mel low pipe does much to dspel the clouds that hover over a man when the snows of life's winter have whitened his head.
 Another "miser" has departed from earthly joys and left behind him a for success. Even beggars have been known to do we'll in the world, so far as &C., cumulating money goes, and while pro- fessional mendicancy offers no induce ments to the ambitious man there is enough of the milk of human kindness left to enrich a great many reprobates who are seldom found out until they are dead.
 There Is a vast amount of pu1piteering these days against tandem polygamy'' which is distinguished from Mormon polygamy in that the first means taking