The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-09-05
<<vyy11LL." said the Hotel Clerk of
 w sns,,. the St. sz.-.. Reckless she's

AA/ the St. hecKiess, she $
 w about over.
 'Meanin'. I spose, summer" said the House Detective
 Summer it is,' said the Hotel Clerk. 'Weve got our last rose out of summer and she's got her last rise out of us. or will do so next Monday the same being Labor day, when the working man will take a day off and rest up, by walk ing twice as far in a parade as he would if he were doing his little eight union hours, meanwhile carrying on his brawny shoulders a transparency that weighs about three times as much as a bod.
 And all next week the vacation hordes will be pouring back to town from the mountain and the sea shore tanned and freckled and broke. and some of them will rally rapidly and be their own selves again in a short time, but 1t will take months for the others to re- cover from the heart-breaking, nerve-ex- hausting strain of enjoying themselves. Yes, sir. summer with her record high temperature, its record high tariff, and her record high prices is about to pass into history and I hope history gets more out of her than we did. The summer chautauquas closing and the sum- mer chatalkers who went to 'em and talked, are also closing. The fellow who went to the mountains to get shut of the hay fever and the fellow who went to the same place and caught it are on their way back together swapping symp- toms and pocket handkerchiefs. The summer hotel will soon be deserted of all except it's regular winter residents-the night watchman and the cockroach. The fishing line and the lawn tennis pants will cuddle up together for a long rest in the bottom tray of the trunk, and the haunting intangible witchery of the camphor ball will fill the September air as the first fall overcoat comes out of the closet and chases the last straw hat into winter quarters.
 Our main street will regain its wonted air of gayety and life. The sidewalks of Broadway will be filled again with ac- tors and authors, pugilists and pikers, battle-axes and battle actresses, play song and sheet writers, and all the known varieties of agents. including press, wine and road. The fall crop of new plays will be coming on and going right off again. The new playwright who thought he was about to be discovered will read the papers on the morning after his first night and learn that he has not
 
 devotees of fashion, brave women and fair men, all or nearly all. will once more be seen in our midst and many a noble country estate will be given over to the caretaker for the long, silent months. while the landed gentry of our country. may Heaven bless themi will come back to their town houses on Fifth avenue or Riverside Drive and stay there almost b minutes before going elsewhere"
 .'Wot makes you say Heaven bless them guys?" asked the House Detective, with trace of bitterness in his tone.
 Because they deserve it. said the Ho- tel Clerk "If it wasn't for them where would the masses turn for entertain ment? With seats at the theatre selling for one fifty and up and the lad at the box office telling you he has nothing left but the ups. the great common people would be in bad way for little whole some enjoyment these times If 1t wasn't for the moving picture shows, and the overworked leisure classes. l think I'd even put the latter ahead of the former because the picture shows cost you cents throw and the others perform for nothing and pay their own expenses.
 I've think we're a bfithe, gay people in this country, Larry, but we're not. We work so hard to have a good time that then we are too tired to have 1t. Some of us laugh from happiness, but more of us from hysteria. We spend half the time on the merry-go-round and the other half taking the rest cure. We've studded our fair land with chute-the- chutes and sanitariums for the nervous wrecks. and the only reason why so many people live to middle age is that be- fore then they couldn't spare the time to die.
 Free shows are getting scarcer all the time The circuses are cutting out the street parades and public hangings have been abolished in most of the states of the Union 1 really don't know what we of the lower orders would do for q little entertainment that doesn't cost any thing if it wasn't for the very wealthy.
 "Who is it that buy automobiles that are so high powered they travel 25 mil ss an hour when they're standing still and break the speed limit after they've been taken apart in the repair shop? And who is it that go joyously jousting down the highway in the same, until they skid into a large immovable object. sucf as a brick barn and are brought home wrapped up in bit of newspaper? Who is 1t that give the monkey dinners, some times with an outside monkey present and sometimes with only the regular members of the set? Who build the great country estates with Scotch gamekeepers to keep the ferocious white rabbits in sub lection and great houses designed b5
 
 Architecture? Who set the fashions 1T evening clothes. divorces, private yachts new disease and other things that would be luxuries to us but are only necessities Of life to them? Who produce the young women with the kind of faces that thu society writers call interesting becaus it would not be polite to say startling And who the fathers of all thes' young men with the thought proof ex pressions and the brains that never tir because they never have anything to tlr them? You know the answer withou my stopping to tell you, Larry
 "Even the name that we've given then lately is good for a laugh with me ever time it comes into my mind. Only tn other day I was reading 1.-the lande gentry class-the paper said Think tha over, Larry, my boy. You and I alon with a good many others, were raise to believe that the only true lande gentry we had in this country were tn Kind that landed at Ellis Island and cam ashore looking Tor job of work. Blu 1t seems we were wrong. We now hay