davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21
GOSSIP FROM LONDON-By Lady Henry Somerset

the amelioration of the Poor law for many years. and who is an expert on the subject. More attention will probably be paid to the signature of the minority owing to the fact that MT. and Mrs Webb had prepared a book embodying the differences that the minority sug- gested, which was published on the same day as the report of the commission, and therefore their practical and widespread knowledge will be given in concrete form
 The principal point in the report Is the reclassification of the institutions. It recommends that children should be dealt with by the education authorities, the sick by the health authorities, the insane by the asylum committees and cases of distress by distress committees, and so on The chief authority would be the council, so that complete author ity would be vested in that which Is d. rectly responsible to the ratepayers Tor expenditure. But the present workhouse is doomed, and for that we thank God. The far-reaching reforms which will be the result of the patient labor given by this commission, through the many months in which 1t has waded through the mass of evidence laid before it, will be the reward such as probably the la bors of few committees have yet received. The fact that we are willing to classify and to discriminate between the quiet, patient man or woman who has drifted into the poorhouse through no fault of their own, who is dependent on the many for subsistence because 1t has been inn possible that it should be otherwise, and the loafing tramp who has never chosen to do a days work in his life, and who seeks the workhouse as his natural home, is in itself step which we hail with thanksgiving.
 Some of the recommendations. if car ried into effect, will bring us into line with the German system. for instance. that there should be new forms of in- surance. to which the employer, the work man and the state should make contri- button, that trades unions should be en- couraged by subvention from the state to extend their methods of insurance against unemployment. These arc germs of new developments which may at last
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21

to do. But then Cleveland was more of a patriot than a politician. If there had been room enoagh in one administration for Grover Cleveland and William R. Morrison, democrat would have been inaugurated President of the United States this good day of March {, 1909.
 Mckinley, the disciple of Pig Iron Kel- ley, and President because he was the most distinguished apostle of the dogma or protection in the country, chose Ly- man J. Gage for the treasury department, who had voted for Grover Cleveland be- cause of the tariff issue of 1892. Roose- velt's Secretary of Commerce and La- Dor, Oscar S. Strauss, was the enthusi- astic admirer and devoted friend of Will liam L. Wilson, and Is as much a free trader today as Champ Clark or Henry Watterson.
 Franklin MacVeagh is to business what his more brilliant brother Is to the law in the front rank of the elite of the guild He, too, was a Cleveland demo- crat, for sound money and honest and constitutional taxation.
 If the republicans shall make an honest effort for decent taxation and measurabiy succeed, I do not quite clearly see what my old friend, the democratic party, is going to do for a living. If the repub- licans fail, as I think they will, then fortune will again knock at the demo- cratic door.
 Pray God the : eerless One" and the 'Matchless'' be not sent to open to the summons.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21
UNITED SEA POWER.
Significance of EngIand's Action On
 the Navy Standard.
From the New York Tribune.

From the New York Tribune.
 The report comes from London ''ac- cording to the best information" that the British cabinet has decided to exclude the American navy from it's reckoning of the
 "two-power standard" That is to say, it will keep the British navy at strength 1t will keep the British navy at strength of any two other navies in the world ex- cept that of the United States. The idea appears to be partly that the American navy is destined soon to be so large that 1 to surpass it and the next largest put to- 1 gether would be beyond the power of the | British admiralty. and partly, probably chiefly. that the possibility of hostilities between the United Kingdom and the United States is so remote that it need not and should not be taken into account in preparations for British defense.
 Both of those reasons are gratifying to the United States. and for both there is a certain foundation in fact and sense. though we fear that neither will be alto gether convincing to all the British na- tion. The shipbuilding abilities of the United Kingdom are enormous and the financial resources within reach are so ample that many will hold it quite possi- ble to increase to double or to treble, if need be, the present rate of naval expan- sion. Nevertheless, the growth of the American navy in the last few years and the assured prospect of its continuance must be a severe reminder to Great Britain of the magnitude of the task which would be involvel In keeping the Red. White and Blue" navy superior to ours plus the next greatest. It might be possible to do so, but is there sufficient probability of need of it to justify the dofng7
 Perhaps a hint at the answer to that question may be derived by Great Britain from the United States itself. This coun- try. too, has its standard of naval effi- cheney, which 1t aims to maintain and which it Is { merely to be hoped it will maintain. T at Is, a strength greater than that of ny other navy in the world, excepting onl the British. We are con- tent. without Jealousy or trepidation. to let that one far surpass ours in number of ships, and therefore, in total efficiency. though not, of course, in the quality of individual ships. We do not know that any one seriously proposes to make our navy greater than the British. There are, on the other hand. many who would con- slder 1t calamitous to let any other navy than the British exceed ours. but who regard actual British supremacy with large degree of complacency.
 Our British kinsmen might not be un- wise If they paid to our naval growth the same disregard which we pay to theirs, and so left America cit of their naval reckoning as a possible antagonist. It will be hard enough for the first power to keep ahead Of the third and fourth pow CTS united without trying to surpasS a unio- of the second and third: and it will be needless to incur such a burden in view of the practicable impossibility of there ever being a union Of the second with tho third, or fourth. or any other power against the first.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21

and 1t is establishing technical schools in which all branches of industry are taught. In Tokio I found one indus trial school for young women with more than 1000 students who were learning embroidery, sewing and the making of silk flowers and other art icles for export.
 As a result of such efforts Japan's foreign commerce is rapidly increas- ing. It is now more than double what it was in 1900, and it has greatly in- creased since the Russian war. It made a jump at the close of the Japan China war and until our last panic oc- cured its exports and imports were larger than ever. Today 1t Is doing more business with the United States than with any other nation. We are its biggest customers and it sells us in the neighborhood of $66,0o0,0o0 worth of goods every year. Next comes China, to which it sells $43,- 900. 900. and then France, which buys s2o, ,o0O, 900 or more.
 As to imports Japan gets more from the English than from any one else, and we come next. We are now ship ping something like $4o,oo0,ooo worth of stuff here annually, and there is no reason why our trade should not be increased. The people like American goods and if the war scare does not spring up from time to time they will buy more and more. That scare has affected our trade. The merchants say that they bought of France and Eng land while the American papers were full of a possible war with Japan. A bright young Japanese who sells our typewriters, linotypes and office fur niture in Tokio tells me that the war scare has materially affected his bus mess and that the drummers from oth- CT countries have used 1t to influence the native merchants. asking them why they do not buy of their friends in other countries instead of from the United States, who are anxious to fight them.
 The fuss which Japan has had with China about the seizing of lot of guns which are being smuggled into the latter
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21

prove a solution of some of our greatest problems.
 Five hundred years ago a peasant girl was burnt at Rouen, and a sigh of re- lief went up from the great lords and the soldiers in the ranks of the British army They had done to death one who was witch, and who, possessed of a devil, had been able to carry out feats of arms and conquer the Burgundians and the British. A girl of mean origin. a peasant from a farm in Domremy, she was dead and the difficulty was ended. Time adjusts the proportions of all events. When St. Paul stood before Calico, there could have been no question which was the most important man, the gay senator, whose wit and wisdom were quoted every where, or the fanatical prisoner, mean and despised. Where God had called. there foundations are laid that man can never destroy and the words of the Eng fish soldier when the last spark fickered out of the stake on which Joan of Arc was burnt, was proved to be true, We have burnt a saint
 Next April, when English and French gather in Rome on Tow Sunday, great ceremony of the justification of Joan of Arc is to take place. For 10 years she will be 'the Blessed Joan of Arc,' and by and by, if the church so decrees, she will become Saint Joan. Over 60 French bishops will be present. and 1t is to be recolected that loans trial was an ec- cesiastical one, and that it was before the Bishop of Beauvais that she was con- demned Many hundreds of laynnen will travel to Rome for the ceremony. Eng land will probably send large repre- sentation of bishops, clergy and laymen. The old account of the trial will probably be read and history of her life, and then the announcement will be made that henceforwsrd the holy father has de- clared that the word "Beata" will be placed before her name. The picture of the maid will be placed on the altar, and when the decree has been read it will be unveiled Blessed Joan, if she is still watching over France, must be mourning now more for the loss of religion in that country than she did for the binding tyr amy of a foreign power.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21

own combinations. There are over four hundred such guilds in Japan, and also 600 guilds devoted to commerce.
 Japan is establishing commercial bu- reaus and museums throughout the far east There are now about 40 of these, including many in Japan. One is located in Korea, another at Singapore, and a third at Bombay. Similar museums have been started in Hankow, Chungking, Shasi and elsewhere in China, and one was recently opened in Bangkok. Of the local institutions, the largest Ire in the big cities of Toxio and Osaka. I visited the Tolxio Museum the other day. It takes up the better part of large three story building, and it has about 25,0OO samples of foreign and native-made goods. It is somewhat like the Commercial Mu- scum in Philadelphia, save that 1t Is larger and more like an exposition. It contains all kinds of foreign raw materials and manufactured products, shown side by side with those of Japan. There are large displays of machinery and electrical works of home manufacturers, and of all sorts of metal articles from aluminium to iron. There is Japanese lacquer made in Germany side by side with the beautiful native product, which Is worth its weight in gold and which no European artist can copy. There are Japanese clocks and watches, and even Japanese pearls. The latter are magnificent and they arc homemade. They are gotten by introduce ing grains of sand or other offending particles into the shells of the oysters while they are still alive. The bivalve coats the sand with layer after layer to protect itself and the result Is pearl. As far as I know, this has been done successfully only in Japan. The inventor of this process has become rich through the sale of his pearls.
 Japan has now 60 chambers of com merce and it is also sending commer- cial commissions abroad. During the past year 1t has been inviting Amer ican merchants to visit this country and there have been several large del esations from the Pacific coast, which have been taken through the factories and entertained generally. The enb- pire has also many commercial schools
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21
CHRISTIAN MORALS FOR EVERY DAY-By J. C. Hiden D. D.

and primitive that I doubt if anybody could prove fl.
 Not long ago, attended mission" that Is to say. a protracted meeting. at St Paurs Episcopal church, Lynchburg Va The preacher was the Rev. J. Hen ming Nelms, rector of the Church of the Ascension, Washington. D. C., and an admirable preacher he is. I had known him as young lawyer, in Isle of Wight county, Virginia. He had abandoned the bar and entered upon the ministry. On the first night of the meeting he said: "I see before me an old friend who had more to do with putting me into the ministry than had any other one man; and that not by advice. nor even by uggestion-simply by his general influ- ence upon my life" He might have added that I had never even thought of bis entering the ministry. It was a com fort to an old preachers heart to feel that after he is gone, he will still work through others.
 But one of the most fashionable ways
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21

r ONDON, March 20.-There are those who are pessimistic enough to de- A clare that we live in an age, which, instead of being better, is in many re- spects worse than those that preceded II. I have always maintained that this the- ory is fallacious, that it is because our ideals have grown that we are apt to see the flaws all the more distinctly In the various systems which have always at tempted for the betterment of the world No man can read "Oliver Twist without realizing that the old poor law as admin istered by Rumble was an iniquity which words fail to describe, but when Dick ems. who was the greatest philanthropist of our time, and who, by his genius old more to better conditions than anyone living described the workhouse and It's terrors. the country woke up to see that something was wrong, and much was done to ameliorate, but much remained to be done.
 A great deal of the work that was undertaken then was only patching, ana when we drew back the curtain and looked into the real state of the pauper we became aware that we had only touched the fringe of the question.
 A commission, however, has been sitting for two years, and seldom has the report of royal commission been received with such interest and approval as that on the poor law, which has just been made pub lic The mass of evidence which has been collected on the subject forms a classic on poverty. but the significant thing about the report is that it deals death blow to the guardian, and Rumble don is dead forever The system was wrong; let 1t go.
 The most important part of the new recomme ndations is the subdivision of the pauper class, the dealing with the de- serving poor In such manner as to re- tain their self-respect, and with the loaf CTS and cadgers in such a way as to force them to work. The scheme was signed under two heads the majority re- port. Among the names on the minority report was that of Mrs. Sidney Webb, who with her husband has worked for
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21

any speculations on .sEthics;" who never saw the Lords prayer, and never heard of the Ten Commandments. uttered grand thought when he asked: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" That cowboy who was stolen away out of Palestine and sold into slavery in Egypt. made himself ever memorable in human history when he said: How can 1 do this great wickedness and sin against God?e The silent brother with the light purse can speak powerfully and contribute largely in behalf of the cause of truth and righteousness in the earth by simply and quietly doing right.
 I was once acquainted with a church member whose voice I never heard in meeting, end whose finances were so embarrassed that he could not give much He was a farmer, and raised horses for sale; and was one of the best judges Of a horse that I ever knew. This brother had for sale q very handsome horse, as sleek as a mole and as black as crow.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21
Don't Hold Up the Trains.
From Judge.

From Judge.
 To the railroads. more than anything else is due the great prosperity that this country has enjoyed in the past. Ameri- can railroads have sown ties. rails and telegraph wires in uninhabited regions. ana the harvest has been fields of way ing grain. tell chimneys of manufacturing plapts. deep shafts of the mines. and tho countless buildings of city and town.
 Literally speaking, tho man who hurls a cobblestone through the car window of a passing train is. if caught, properly punished; but figuratively speaking, the railroad agitator may throw any number of cobblestones in the shape of legislative restrictions with absolute impunity. Every state has pretty strict laws about the placing of Instructions on railroad tracks. but no state prevents its legislators from passing harmful restrictions that obstruct whole railroad systems. It is time to pull in the red signals. Let the obstruc- tions be cleared away by special crews from state legislatures. if need be. Let the train dispatchers give the Ego ahead" signal. But, above everything else, make the anti-railroad agitator stop throwing cobblestones and placing obstructions on the tracks.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21

of going wrong is to live beyond your means. Pay as you go. and. when you can't pay. don't go.e is valuable "sys- tem of ethics in a line. Tn a certain town. which had a wide reputation for its many failures in business. heard Q preacher say: "Tm thinking about breaking myself I'm mighty tired of going afoot and if I should break. may be I could get a horse and buggy; for I notice that the broke people are nearly all riding in buggies." And then he ex- plained thus: If I were to break, I shouldn't have to pay my debts; and so l could buy a buggy and horse with what I am now paying to my creditors" Of course he was speaking satirically; but there was truth in what he said. Sheridan is credited with saying that he thought it was a waste of money to pay debts He could buy with the cash what he could not get on credit But Sheridan could hardly be called a Christian.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21
THE TRADE OF THE PACFIC-By Frank C. Carpenter

country has cost the Japanese no end or money. The Chinese about Hongkong, Canton and other cities in the south in stituted a. boycott against Japanese goods. For months they would not send their freight in Japanese vessels, would not patronize Japanese merchants, nor buy anything from Japan. For long period some of the biggest Japanese steamers left Hongkong practically empty of Chi nese goods, and today the boycott Is still felt.
 Japan has, in some years. sold as much as s50,000,000 worth of goods to China, and the loss of so much of that trade has added to the commercial distress of the past year. The boycott was of such a nature that the Japanese could not go to war about 1t. There was no way to retaliate without hurting themselves. and they could only grin and bear 1t. As 1t is now, they are doing all they can to recover from the effects and their agents are everywhere in China, drumming up trade.
 Tn the meantime, the Chinese have learned the power of the boycott. They used it with great force against us Amer jeans, and they will employ 1t in any in ternational contest that comes up. I un- derstand that they are now talking of boycotting the Germans on account of disputes which have arisen over certain concessions in the coal mines of Shan tung. The people of that province are re- fusing to buy German goods; they say they will not travel on German railroads, nor go to schools which employ German teachers, nor hsve anything to do with the Germans until the trouble be settled their way.
 Referring again to the boycott against the Japanese talked with leading bus mess man from Shanghai. He told me that the Chinese merchants had decided to make Japan lose $150. 900, 900 on account of her action in that matter, and that they would not let up until they had ere ated damages to that amount.
 I find our American goods popular in Japan. They are to be seen in nearly every shop on the chief bus mess streets of the big cities and often in the little stores of the Jap anese villages. These people are buy
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21

think there is great reason to fear that New England Baptists are by no means peculiar in their lack of capacity to util- ize the member whose tongue is still ana whose purse Is short. Is not the situation much the same among evangelical churches of every name, and all over the country? Now this, I submit, ought not to be. Speaking in meeting and giving money to the church are both important but surely they are not the sum and sub stance of Christian duty, nor are they the only graces that Christians should practice, recognize and encourage.
 Christian morality means doing right in every day transactions between man and man. whether Robert E. Lee ever wrote or said that duty is the sublimest word in our language" is question which I am not prepared to settle but the remark is true, whether he made it or not. That Chaldean shepherd, who seems never to have lived in any residence better than a tent; who probably never indulged in
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21

s120. The fact that have told this story from the pulpit, and have insisted there. as I do here, that the conduct of my friend was simply honest. and that he was bound to act just as he did. and the fur ther fact that I have had prominent church members remonstrate with me for holding up an utterly impracticable stand ard of business morality-these facts, taken together, cause me to fear that too many reputable" Christians are not all together square" in their business trans actions.
 What we commonly call the Golden Rule" is, when applied to business trans actions, nothing but plain straightforward honesty No sensible man who has any sort of appreciation of fair dealing can believe that it is honest for him to put off on his neighbor goods whose quality would give him just reason to complain, if his neighhor should put them off on him. This proposition is too clear to need any proof. Indeed 1t is so simple
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-21

youth of some Is years of age wished to buy the horse and offered sl2O for it. My friend said: q can not take that price The horse would be worth it but for defective eyes. The eyes are now good, but they are of such d character as to make the animal liable to go blind under hard usage. If kindly used the horse will probably never go blind but in my judgment, the defect have men toned damages the value of the horse to the amount of $40; so you can pay me $50 and the animal is yours.9 The boy gladly paid the money, mounted his pur- chase and galloped off, doubtless won dering at the conduct of the odd old man who preferred $50 to s120 as the price of his horse. Now, in that transaction my friend was simply honest. As a Christian-nay as an honest man-it was his duty to do just what he did. And yet how many church members who talk in meetlng," and give their money to the church would have taken that boy s