The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-16

I savings banks with deposits of more thar 1 five million dollars.
 So far, banking here is in it's infancy l The natives have not been accustomed tc l taking care of their money that way They do not like to go to the banks for I fear their friends will think them hard
 up, and that their business is borrowing l Therefore. they hide their savings under 1 the rafters or build them away In some 1 part of their houses. Many of them put i their surplus into jewelry, and this is especially so of the Bedouins and Kaby- ] les, the richer women among whom are ! often loaded with gold and silver. l The chief money lenders outside the banks are the Jews who charge eXorbi-
 tant rates of interest and take notes for much more than the amounts loaned. The Jew comes to the mans house, and makes the loan there, and at the end often gets both house and money. In the French banks the office hours arc from to Il, and from until 4 At noon every one knocks off for a rest.
 Similar hours obtain in the large busi- ness houses, but they open early, and, i with the exception of the noon rest, re- main open until dark All of the cities have French sections. with stores and business establishments like those of Flu , rope. The great bulk of the trade how ever, Is done in bazaars by thousands i of petty merchants who occupy cells no larger than good-sized piano box. and, who sit on the floor, while they weit for their customers. Such establishments open shortly after daylight and close long before nightfall. The streets where , they are located are poorly lighted and ; there is no business whatever after dark
 Openings for Uncle Sam. Tunisia has foreign trade of about , thirty million dollars a year, but Uncle Sam gets almost none of it. We sell but little to Algeria, and that, notwithstand- ing its foreign commerce, amounts to more than one hundred and thirty million dollars per annum. This Is large trade for a colonial possession, and It seems the larger when 1t Is remebered that the population here is almost all together agricultural and that 1t dresses in cot tons. l see some American meats Tn the stores, and not few of the French establishments carry canned salmon. There are windmills from Chicago scat tered here and there throughout the Tell, and there are American sewing machines working away in many of the bazars. As to the cotton goods for these eight or ten million people, they come chiefly from France, Germany and England, and the same is true of machinery both of which lines are specialties of our own. The most of the trade of all kinds Is with France.
 
 of the bankers of Tunis, and whose opn- ion Is of considerable value, tells me that there Is an opening here for all ! kinds of American machinery and tools. He says our windmills have been more successful than any of the others and that several hundred have already been sold
 As to American machinery and the tools in which we are so strong elsewhere, the people of Tunsia hardly know them. This is shown by our sales of 1904, when they amounted to only about $G000, where as France sent in similar goods to the amount of more than S500,000. England is now selling something like $1000.00O worth of cotton goods to the Algerians, | and France about half that amonnt The 1 timber of north Africa comes chiefly from | Norway. It might be sent from our l southern states. The country Is almost 1 treeless, and all the wood of value has | to be bought in from abroad.
 Among the Farmers.
 | Tunisia and Algeria once supplied rne I bread for Italy, and they are now one 1 of the bread baskets of Europe They ! produce quantities of wheat and other | grains; but the farming Is so poor that l the average wheat yield of Algeria Is | less than eight bushels per acre; whereas | ours is thirteen bushels, and that of 1 the wheat belt of Canada something like | twenty bushels. With proper machin- l cry this yield might be doubled. The | dry lands of northern Africa need deep l cultivation to preserve the moisture, and 1 1t may be that a vast amount of new