The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-25
B. IF. E BO R N, lntee BuiIdinq

I EBORN'S CHRISTMAS OFFERINGS.
 and patrons the compliments and best
 wishes of the season. and to express my l appreciation for the general courtesy and
 many kindnesses and liberal patronage given me for the past eighteen years. byuing and selling real estate, and espe- cially during the very satisfactory season
 embracing the current year now about to close.
 Birmingham and the district have many
 things to feel grateful for Conditions
 are healthy and the future Is laden with promises of greater things.
 1 Those who have Idle, unproductive real
 estate, would act wisely to either improve
 1t and thus put it to work, or sell 1t to
 some one who will, and invest 1t in prop
 erty that is paying good income.
 The watchword of the day Is activity"
 sleepy owners of idle lands will act wise
 ly and serve their own, and the best in-
 terest of the community and district, by
 kindly consenting to wake up," and get
 the benefit of the development that is go- ing on around them, and disabuse their l minds of the delusion that it is a good proposition to hold idle lands at prices | they think 1t will bring twelve years hence; and remember that it only takes 1 twelve and one-half years legal interest to make your lands cost you double; and whether you figure it that way or not, ] the fact is the same, as your idle land
 is just like so much idle money, where
 you can sell it, and put the money to 1, work. Besides, if you have idle land and i can get fair price for it and prefer to carry it twelve and one-haf years and
 thus cause it's present cost to you to | double you take your chances on the | value not doubling, while you are cer- i tain it's costs to you will be double; on
 the other hand, if you either improve 1t | or sell and invest in interest paying prop
 erty, if your purchase does not double in value in twelve and one-half years, you
 secure the same chances of it's increasing ] in value as in the case of idle property | and get twelve and one-half years rent
 besides. It is unwise to assume that
 what we own is worth as much to us as
 it is to some one else, where we fail to | improve it, and where the other man
 will; and this unsound reasoning Is pre- l venting many otherwise sensible men l men from reaping the benefit of present
 opportunity.
 | If their reasons were sound. there would l be no use~for stores, industrial enter prises, railroads, steamboats, labor, or l any commercial activity: all the entire | business world would have to do to be-
 come utterly lazy and miserable would
 be to adopt that proposition, viz that | what we have is worth as much to us l as to any one else" besides rpening a
 race ready for the 'Osler" process; yet, | before embracing it. which would under l such circumstances prove a great bless | ing. we would have the opportunity of l looking upon a race of human creatures
 who persisted in making the whole of life and its purposes a grimace and a huge ! joke; a caricature of the laws of natural growth and progress and a sin against self, mankind in general and against the generous intentions and purposes of an alwise, kind and merciful providence that decreed through natures laws the ever
 present ever changing law of develop 1 ment which no man or race of men can
 attempt to bar without suffering the con ] sequences of their folly.
 The Almighty gave us the good things | of this life to use them, not to bury l them, and block it's use by others.
 l B. F. EBORN.