The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-07-12
Earnest Campaign for Beauty
 and Cleanliness
MISS PERKINS, VOLlNISI
Gossip About Prominent Folk-Al Freseo Theatricals at Club-Early Closing Movement-An-
 nouncements, Etc.
By MYRTLE MILES.
Telephones: Bell 11eo, Peoples 2s


 There has never been a more important movement before the Birmingham pub lie than is presented now by the munie- ipal government in its plea for the "Cty Beautiful" There are a great many patriotic and home-lovng citizens here who have already concerned themselves with beautifying their houses and gar dens with the result that our city has a great number of homes ideal from every standpoint. Whole blocks in some resi- dential sections are occupied by resi- denees that are in themselves cause for civic pride. But there are other neigh borhoods where the perfection of one homestead is marred by an unsightly al ley; others, perhaps, by the ill-kept yard of a neighbor or his dilapdated fence or neglected trees.
 It is the vast number of these insight ly places that keeps Birmingham from being a pretty city. It has claims to beauty, of course, in spots. but it is the aim of those who are forwarding the movement for a city beautiful to have it become tremendously pretty-that is, not only wel-kept houses, but well-kept yards surrounding them, and well-kept streets, too, not in some, but in all diree- tions.
 There is no city that more readily lends itself to improvement than ours. It has great natural beauty, as have said so many visitors from the north east and west Some have said that there is no more beautiful boulevard in the United States than Highland avenue, as it winds about among homes placed high on terraced gardens on the one side and on the other shows smooth and grassy lawns, and in places spots that lend them selves ideally to the sunken garden.
 No place can be found in Birmingham that cannot be coaxed into a flower gar den. Artistic women in every quarter have proven it. Making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before is as nothing compared to the veritable wonders that have been wrought here. One dry rocky back yard on the South Highlands seemed dreary place enough to a little woman until she had brought all her housewifely pride into play, and now the yard has been leveled by the use of a few loads of soil from a place where excavations were made for a base ment. It is not large yard but it has a neat, white house of laths where chick ems are kept, and the space that is not used for them is a wilderness of flowers. There are 75 rosebushes, but no fence at all except the trim, whitewashed one sur rounding the chickens.
 On the North Highlands there is the mi oct fr6- nf f l1a, 9,,I. three or four rooms but every aspect is that of absolute cleanliness. There are hanging baskets on the porch and the hedge is always clipped, and the roses seem to like to bloom for the little wom- an who lives there
 It makes no difference what kind of a lot one has if one is blessed with ar tistic taste, or a little ingenuity. There are residences beautiful in every appoint ment, some placed on the crest of a hill with sloping terraces; others constructed beside an unpromising hole in the ground; some even built boldly in the hole itself with no attempt to fill it up. Why fill it up when there is such a thing a sunken garden? There is no more artistic home in the south than the bungalow of MT. and Mrs. Truman Aldrch, Jr, on Fourteenth avenue. The treatment of the lanscape gardens and terraces is a constant tribute to Mrs Aldrich's ex- quisitely artistic temperament Mr. and Mrs. Turner Weakley and MT. and Mrs. H. E. Shropshire have in like manner brought about admirable results, each home showing the value of originality and taste
 The park which will be placed in one of the curves on Highland avenue will add a great deal to the attractiveness of the city. Nothing can be done toward build ing the park, of course, until after the sewer is constructed, which will keep that part of the city from washing during the heavy rains, but one can but look forward to the beautiful results that will be effected in the course of time and imagine the stone steps leading into the