davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
House Numbers

The new city ordinance requiring every house in Birmingham to have it's number properly displayed should and will be enforced. The old regulation was to the effect that the city englneel would furnish the number of any house on application; but the result was, as might have been expected, many householders never applied, and conse- quently their abodes went unnum- ] bered.
 As the ordinance which is substi- tuted for the former regulation is compulsory, those persons who have neglected to number their houses should do so without delay. It is need less to say that the public experiences much inconvenience by houses not be- ing numbered. And especially is the by the neglect referred to. The fact is that the postoffice department has rule that conditions the delivery of mail in residence sections on the city displaying conspicuously the name of street and houses displaying the num- bers. While this rule has not been en- forced in Birmingham, there is prob ability of it's promulgation here at a very early date.
 It is understood that postoffice in ] spectors are in Birmingham now for l the purpose of investigating the house number" question, from a car rier delivery point of view. Let every householder whose residence is un- numbered act at once.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
Cotton Contract Revision

The two great speculative cotton markets of this country are New Or leans and New York. The former is considered a producers market, and the latter a hedgers' market Over both is the commissioner of corpora tions, at least in a critical capacity. The two markets, aided, or ratnel pushed, by the commissioner of cor porations, are each endeavoring to es- tablsh better system of dealing in futures. They are each endeavoring to prepare a better and more accepl- able cotton contract.
 Could these two exchanges get to- gether for the purpose of formulating plan that would secure the approval of the commissioner of corporations, the speculative branch of cotton mar ket operations would certainly be placed on a better basis. The present form of contract is useful to those only who desire to depress the prices of cotton, and the New York exchange would serve itself if it would cut loose
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
COMRADICiTY OF HOTEL MEN.

From Leslie's Weekly.
 A rare feeling of comradlcity exists among the hotel men of the United States. The recent startling suicide of Frank " Bennett, one of the best known hotel men In the country, and former proprietor of the Gotham, in New York city, brought out such a volume of mes sages of condolence and sympathy as might have followed the death of lead ing statesman. An incident growing out of MT. Bennett's untimely death was the suicide of MT. George Crouch, at one time a power in Wall street. MT. Crouch had lived at the Hoffman House in New York for many years. Happening to hear its veteran managing clerk, Mai A. R. Pea cock, comment on the unfortunate death of MT. Bennett, MT Crouch, without a moments hesitation, hastened into brok- craze office at the hotel, locked himself into an inner room and fired bullet into his brain. On the table by the side of the dead body was found a pack of cards, on top of which lay the seven of spades, known by fortune-tellers as the sign of death"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
TESTAMENTARY REVENGE.

From the New York World.
 Testators do not always depart this life in forgiving frame of mind. Mrs. Cath arne k. Heckler, of Portland, Ore, be- queathed to her husband $1, payable in monthly instalments. MT. Heckler is re- ferred to as "the individual who married me in 1905"
 Some years ago a certain Col. Nash be- queathed an annuity of e50 pounds upon condition that the bell-ringers of Bath Abbey, England, should ring the death- knel from a. m. to D. m. on the an- niversary of his wedding day. On the day of his happy release by death there was to be a merry peal for the same length of time. It was the Earl of Staff ford who bequeathed to his wife five and forty brass halfpence, which will buy her a bullet for her supper. a greater sum than her father can ever made over to her, he being the worst of men and his wife the worst of women.'
 Another husband provided handsomely for his wife and sister with the condition that they should spend an hour week in company at the grave. This, so the the testator's life miserable and he want ed to be certain "that they will torment each ether for while after his death.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
Hemenway Encouraued.

From the Cincinnati Enquirer.
 Indianapolis, Ind.--Senator James A. Hemenway arrived here this afternoon from a tour of northern Indiana with information of a very encoura ging na- ture to the managers of the republican campaign. He said that conditions have improved greatly in favor of the repub- licans during the last two weeks, and that in his opinion there is no doubt but that Taft and Watson will carry the state.
 A few days ago Senator Hemenway predicted that Taft would carry In- diana by plurality of at least 25,0OO. He declares now that Taft's plurality will be much larger than that, and that Watson will win by a very comforta- ble margin.
 Senator Hensenway has visited large labor centers, like Gary, South Bend he says he found that the republicans are in much better shape than reported. Where republican workers were in- clined a month ago to be discouraged, Senator Hemenway declares they are now getting the campaign under way with old-time energy. He believes that the outlook for republican success is improving rapidly in the large cities and that the loss because of the county local option agitation will not amount to anything like what the democratic leaders and the liquor interests antici- pate.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
Fine Hogs.

q have had good luck with my hogs at the fair, said T. U. Jones of Orrville. q have won some of the blue ribbons, but the best thing of all is the sales which have made here at the fair
 "I sold one choice Poland China pig to a nelghbor of mine. l also sold a pen of very choice prize winners to Mir. c. D. Walker of Dallas county. MT. John Bradley, clerk of the criminal court, pur- chased of me a very choice high-class boar. I will show the pen of pigs and the one sold to my neighbor at the Montgomery fair. It is not any more trouble or expense to raise a hog of good breeding than common stock. and the returns are so much more satisfac- tory, both in the amount of meat pro duced and in the sale of pigs
 'The fair has been a great success. and I feel very much pleased at having brought my hogs here to exhibit them
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
SNOWMAN" AND PUBLLdC
From the Louisville courier-Journal.

From the Louisville courier-Journal. N BRHAPs we often take our " dramatists with a deadly seri. ousness that surprises and amuses them. Even George Bernard Shaw. whose airy discussions of prob- | lems have brought him into prominence, is gravely wrestled with by literary socities made up of deep thinking stu dents of literature and life, and Ibsen, who declared himself a snowman rather than a teacher or a preacher, is, of course, accepted at a valuation he de- clined to give himself. Between Ibsen and Shaw there is a wide range of writers of plays dealing with various problems. How many have sought to teach the world needful lessons and how many have merely sought to write good plays?
 lbsen wrote "The Dolls House." a play of excellent craftsmanship. to drive home the lesson, it is held, that the mere man-the blunderine male IS guilty of a grave crime against the other sex when he treats his wife as a doll instead of considering her unon his intellectual plane, entitled to con sideration as comrade in all things. and entitled to a full share of the re responsibilities of life The play has been applauded by amounted thousands Volumes have been written in criti- cism of it, favorable and unfavorable We-the playgoers-have seen the door slam in the face of Torvald Helmer and felt that he deserved to be deserted regardless of whether any wife would. In the circumstances. have left her husband and gone forth in the world to find herself"
 But comes another ramatist-show- man or preacher-and writes "The Thief" In this plsy a woman who has been treated as Nora Helmer was treated-who has been a doll to her adoring husband-eommits a much graVer and far less pardonable crime than the forgery done by Mrs. Helmer
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19

from the eastern spinners who have long made it's rules
 The two exchanges should act as one in making a basis for their con- tracts, and if they would go further comparatively by securing uniformity in grading and classification, cotton trading would at last be placed beyond criticism.
 The action of the two. exchanges will be watched with interest. Many con- flicting interests are involved, and the outcome is still in doubt, although all know that a better form of contract has become compulsory through the trend of public sentiment in the cot ton trading world.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
TABLE MANNERS OF THE NATION

From the London Chronicle.
 Over against us is a man whose hand and fingers are all conversational. They dart from face to the infinite, returning with a touch on the nose. In a second he jumps up to accede to the demand of his companion-a lady-who has forgot ten the third button from the top of her blouse. His knife goes into the salt, and his hands seek the gilded roof in surprise, protest and the Britisher sits with knife and fork at the insular boise, and knows that the man whose five fingers are in the air and whose knife is on the floor is a Latin. Anyhow, he shouts French.
 Detection of foreigners is easiest at table. On Sunday, lunching at the Cafe Royal, you may see more strangers to the square inch than in any London :es- taurant. While waiting for our food we speculated on the differences. And when
 man or woman held on to the fork 1 we decided that this was English. For an American cuts the food and then eats it from the fork in the right hand. Those left-hand fork people, on aural inyestiga- ton, were English.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
-------------@he---- AN AIRSHlP THAT BREATHES.
Inventor Hit Upon Soaring Idea in a
 Dream.

From the New York World
 After ten years of toll and disappoint- ments, Rocco M. Viniello, of No. ho- air flying machine. He has not availed himself of any of the motive forces now in use. Finding that a birds ability to soar and glide is largely due to it's power of breathing, Viniello has invented what is practically a breathing machine, which embodies the principles of respiration.
 The inventor thus narrates how he hit upon the idea: "One night I had night mare, and dreamed I had fallen among lot of raging lions, who were about to devopr me. In my desperation it flashed into my mind, why don't you fly like a bird I took a deep breath, then another, and each time I seemed to soar higher and higher. Then I awoke.'
 Viniello has spent $50O0 on the device. Four thousand dollars came out of his scant earnings as foreman in large fac tory on Pearl street. The other thousand was subscribed in shares of sl0 each by an association of his compatriots. as poor as himself. The Italian newspapers of this city are helping him.
 A trial was made at Schuetzen park in Hoboken last May, and Viniello succeed ed in rising to height of ten feet. An other trial will be made at the same place in three weeks
 The machine, which is at No. 5O3 East Seventeenth street, is built of steel tub ing. It is ten feet high, six feet wide and four feet deep. From each side of the top slant two large pneumatic pumps, which converge toward the center. At the back of the machine, in the center, is another pump which works with a lateral movement.
 In the center, In front of the operator S seat, is an involved windlass arrange ment.
 When the machine is to move, the opar- ator turns the cranks in front of him. This sets in motion pulleys that work the pumps At every compression of air in the pistol the machine jumps.
 When the desired altitude is reached the mounting pumps are shut off and the rear pump set in motion, which drives the machine with lateral movement. In or der to glide in the atmosphere, Vinello unfolds a pair of curved planes, which spread out on both sides They are fold able and can be adjusted at a moment s notice. There Is a rudder for steering. No track is required to start it, as the machine simply rises from the ground.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
What a Dollar Will Buy

The bureau of labor shows that tIe income of the average wage earner is spent in this way: 42.54 per cent for food, 12.95 per cent for rent, and l4.o4 per cent for clothing. In the average family in the towns of the country the income is expended in these proportions. This leaves about 30 per cent for other expenses.
 But the trouble comes not in the division of earnings, but in the in. creasing percentage that food calls for The dollar has lost part of it's purchasing power. Its buying capac- ity in 1901 and 1907 is shown in the following table:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
Indications of Bryan Landslide.

From the Baltimore News Ind Rep.). New York.-Everybody you see tells you that there's going to be some sort of seismic disturbance on election day.
 There'n be a landslip, if not land slide. A landslip would not be big enough to do the business for Bryan. Neither would 8 landslide unless 1t were a big, high grade, man's-size one.
 About as honest and reliable and judi cial minded lot of people as one can find at such a time as this are the
 newspaper men who have been travel
 ing through the country and who land
 in New York for the last fortnight of the campaign. They are coming in now. after feeling out public opinion all over the country. One of them, who ,, has travelled with Bryan and with Taft and then trailed both of them, and has been in all the states which are classed in anybody's doubtful list. said:
 q don't like to prophecy. That's well enough for the man who doesn't l take chances of having a record pulled on him. But what I write gets printed.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19

Prices of staple commodities show no sign of receding even in these days of comparative inaction, and the presumption is that they will go higher still, and the only prospect cl relief consists in cooperative buying so that the expenses of distribution can be reduced. The cost of produc- tion may be maintained, but by CO., operation in block or an apartment house the distributing expenses could be reduced. Cooperative purchases are possibility in some neighbor- hoods. In other neighborhoods they are impossible on account of a thou sand and one incornpatibilities.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
KANSAS GOLD BRICK INDUSTRY

Kansas Correspondence of the New
 York Post.
 It is conceded that there is high
 measure of prosperity and that there is
 plenty of money to use, if needed. The crop of gold bricks harvested has been
 enormous. A life insurance fiscal agency, just collapsed, took in s700 ,000,
 nearly all in Kansas, during the past
 three years, and all was lost. One county 200 miles west has, according
 to bankers estimate. sunk $175.000 in patent rights, mining schemes, land speculations in Mexico, etc. practically all of it lost.
 In addition, it has purchased sicne May 1907, over 100 automobiles cost | ing at least s9o.0oO, and is shipping in more every week. All this accounts | for some of the earnings of the pros 1 porous westerners and sh ows why they ! are hesitating on ordinary trade.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19

unselfishly and withoue .aKaa1 appre- ciation of its gravity fhiik E woman steals money to buy exnaHki1- le cloth es so that she may hold the 1ozf kH of her husband by the sensuous HbnkaII of ap- pare1 that as someone haa 8At a, is "a sentiment expressed n fatabrics." Through a narrowing hour or fl wo the audience is asked to syfn1athfze with the unfortunate woman's point Of view. Finally the husband is won over to Ysthat side of the argument. TIb forRiyes his erring wife's theft He would haee rtput her out of his house for ever So smslal a fault in the direction of disloyalF.ty, as the dramatist shows. Ana .whAn Mrs. Voysin is forgiven the au6ienceT- borne along by the brilliancy of u. no playwright rather than by the convinae- ingness of the argument-feels that thsSl climax is logic and agreas win the~,. husband. who virtually pats 4lie wife upon the head and bids her be good in ! the future, regarding her as one would 4 a repenant child. In almost this exact situation-her fault, however being in- finitely less-Nora Helmer is disgusted with the stupidity of the husband who is willing to forgive and forget. In the stress of trouble she has acquired soul growth. She says:
 When your terror was over was ] again your doll-whom you would take twiee as much care of in the future be- cause she was so weak and fragile It is all over."
 And so Ibsen's heroine leaves her husband, and three children, because she has been defrauded of a woman's ! right to be treated as responsible be- ing. In The Thief" the doll treatment IS thoroughly satisfactory and the lived-happily-e y-ever-afterward ending is so applauded that the echo of the ap- plause is heard all over the world. and the dramatist's solution of the prob- lem he set himself to solve brings him fame and riches. Perhaps he might say, like Ibsen, that he is not a preach CT, but merely a snowman.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
MllLloNAlREs TO ORDER.

From Technical World.
 The famous Occur d'Alene mining dis trct of northern Idaho might well be called the millionaires factory of Amer ica. Rich men are in the making there; Charles Sweeney, a deputy marshal dur ing the Coxey labor troubles of a dozen years ago, now president of the Federal mining and Smelling company, the four mines of which, although three were closed the latter part of the year, earned a net profit last year of S1,596,707; C. Il. Reeves, once a barber of Wallace, now a millionaire of Spokane, the mine which his son-in-aw located, paying regular monthly dividends of s96,00o; August Paul son, few years ago driving milk wagon for s40 month, now erecting a History steel-concrete office structure, and able to write his checl1-and have it cashed-in six numerals: L. W. Hutton, once rail- road engineer, his wife the proprietress of village eating house. together now accredited people of great wealth-the record might be extended to include sev- eral dozen names.
 In spite of the slump in the price of lead last fall the net profits of the five big mining companies in the district amount cd last year to s5,119,SS0. adding in the majority of instances to the great wealth of men and women who a decade ago were in humble walks of life.
 The records of this millonaires factory of the northwest are crammed full of pie turesque, even romantic pages. Fact is stranger than fiction throughout the en- tire stcry
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
New Bills of LadiDQ

The 416 railroads north of the Onu river between the Mississippi and the Atlantic seaboard will use the new bill of lading after November. but it's use by shippers will not be fully com pulsory. If a shipper uses the uni form bill of lading he will be charged the regular rates named in the off, cial cl ssifcation lists. If he decline to accept the conditions of the new bill of lading and shipping order his goods will be transported at carriers liability under the common law and the laws of the United States and of the several states, and the charges will be 10 per cent higher than the regular rate. This is mild compulsion, and it is probably compulsion that is sanctioned by the interstate commerce commission, which has approved the new uniform bill of lading.
 The order" bill of lading is to be printed on white paper, while the straight consignment bill will be a vel. low document. The hope is that these. bills will commend themselves to all shippers and all bankers. They are the outcome of three years negotia- lions, and if the railroads north of the Ohio find them acceptable they will quickly and easily come into use in all other sections of the country.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
Unfair Taxation,

"The unfair raises of assessments here in Jefferson county are clearly shown in the comparisons of the several counties of the state published in the Age-Herald of Sunday" said real estate man.
 Although it was supposed that the re- cent depression had affected industrial properties more than agricultural, the published list shows that the total assess lnent of Dallas, one of the richest agri- cultural counties in the state, is less than the raise made by the state board of assessment here in Jefferson, which is over $120oO,0O0. This speaks in cold corporations and property owners of Jef- ferson"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
HELEN OF TROY.

By George Horton. The witchery of Helen is undying, Her charm cen yet the longing soul
 enslave With the same spell that brought young
 Paris flying, With sea gull sails. across the Grecan
 wave The glory she of seven cities lying Together in the ruin of one grave The world went mad for Helen; strife
 and slaughter Were kindled by the luster of her eyes. When she was rapt away nation sought
 her.
 Warning great epics. under foreign skies; ; Until from out the smoke of Troy they
 brought her, Swarming to see with Babel of hoarse
 cries.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
Cooler Weather rodau.

The beautiful weather afforded yes- terday gave the impression that the weather man. in his prediction of cool weather, had missed again." How ever. before midnight the temperature began to drop considerably and during the early morning hours 1t was quite cool.
 Yesterday was one of the ideal Sun days which Birmingham has enjoyed for a month or more and many people took advantage of the fine weather by indulging in walks to thelr favorite localities. During the early afternoon the sun was quite warm. The weath . CT officials say. however, that the warm weather will be ended Monday. for the time being at least. The forecast sent out from Washington promises clear cool weather today with probable showers tomorrow and it is predicted that during the latter part of the week the temperature will approach the freezing point.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
About Persons.

Among the numerous visitors who spent the week end in Birmingham was Prof. Sam Adams. Professor Adams was formerly prominently connected with the Birmingham public schools and was one of the most popular edu- eators in this city. but is now superin- tendent of the Decatur schools. He re- turned to Decatur last night.
 Redmond N. Wheeler is expected to return from Europe next Sunday or Monday.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-19
REFLECTIONS OF A BACHELOR
rom the New York Press.

From the New York Press.
 The only way to have good servants is to be them yourself.
 There's heap of misery in this world -Sdst because we think it is
 There's nothing makes a woman so happy as making somebody she loves happy.
 A man is as ashamed of not knowing the baseball percentage as he is of knowing his church deacons.
 A man seems to think he can con- vince his wife he is a great scientist if he can make her believe he understands the furnace when he doesn't