davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
cHoRIsTER's LONG SERVICE.

From the London Mail
 All honor to MT. Fred Moore, who has sung in one choir at Stafford for "A years, for his unstinted and loyal service. Mir. Moore, however. is not the oldest chorister still In active service in the kingdom. This honor, believe, is due to MT. George Arnold, who has been a member of the Holy Trinity church, Bosham, Sussex, for more than so years. Mir Arnold joined this choir in 1920, and still sings in the chancel behind his grandson, who is also a member of the choir
 Even this, I do not think, constitutes the record for on looking through an old list in my possession I find the name of a Mir John Siddons, who in the year 1874 joined the parish church choir at Shares town and was still in active service there as a chorister in 1896, when he had just celebrated his soth birthday. Eighty-two years is certainly a record hard to beat for length of service in one choir.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
END OF WAR.

From the August McClure's.
 A Zeppelin airship Is not balloon, but true ship-exaotly corresponding to an iron ocean ship. The Zeppelin I and Zeppelin IT., two huge power-driven arrows. 40 feet long, are capable of be- ing driven at a speed of 35 miles an hour through the air and handled as quickly and easily not merely as an ocean-going ship but as an automobile. Nothing could be more wonderful than the control of these great craft. Turning figures of eight is a common trick.
 An aerial ship 51o feet long and 51 feet wide could carry dozen men a mile high in the air over a radius of 800 miles and back; that is, 1t could reach every principal capital of Europe from the borders of German territory and re- turn. It could, in addition. devote at least five tons of cargo weight to arms and ammunition. This could include ten machine rifles. each equipped with ann intuition enough for a full hours work, and two machine guns of the type built for the Zeppelin l.. with 200 shells for each weapon. Two and half tons of dynamite torpedoes could be substituted for half of the machine guns and theii ammunition, if it were desired to attack fortifcaton or cities. Forty craft oi this kind could be built and armed at the cost of one Dreadnought battleship And such a fleet, without opposition from other airship could conquer western Eu' rope. The moment it is launched the standing armies of Europe become ar anachronism.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
Historic Campaiun Man.

c. W. Chambers, the well-known draughtsman, has just completed a large map of the district included in the shen- andoah valley of Virginia. The dimen- sions of the man are about five by six feet and every point of interest in the famous campaign of "Stonewall' Jack son is shown in the minutest detail.
 T have been engaged for sometime in preparing my map" said MT. Chambers. who is an old Confederate veteran, and believe that at the present time it is the only one of its kind in existence. It Is my purpose to present 1t to Prof Felix Mclaughlin, who has a large col lection of Civil War relics.
 q have striven to bring out every loca- tion of interest in Jackson's operations in the valley, from Harper's Ferry, where the campaign began, to the spot near Charlottesville, where the great leader fell at the hands of one of his own men while he was making a renaissance. I have taken pains to find the exact location of every place where a conflict between the Federal and Confederate forces occurred, and believe I have pro- duced an accurate work"
 All the principal points are indicated, including Harper's Ferry, Blue Ridge, the Bull Pasture, Little North Mountain, Winchester, Kernstown. Salem Court House and Charlottesville. The exact spot where General Jackson fell is in dicated by a red cross. Charlottesville is not in the Shenandoah valley. but is only a few miles from Fredericksburg
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
DESERT IS REAL.
From Golfers Weekly.

From CollierS weekly.
 Did you ever conduct train of minia- ture pack mules (punch string of burros to be exact) across 10 miles of desert with the thermometer 107 in the shade (thero wasn't any shade), then, at the top of sun-seared rincon, come upon tiny group of utterly ugly, weather-beate shacks surrounding a head frame and stamp mill, the rough pine boarding house offering 12 feet of shade, benches, sight of its drill-stee triangle and beater hanging in front of the dining room door, its suspended olla wrapped round with a wet sack, taunt to thirst parched throat, and proceed patiently to water and feed your pack mules before coming into the boarding ng-house for wa ter and feed yourself? It is mining en- gineer in Arizona who sends the query. It was a question of getting from Yuma to Salome in the quickest possible time, and the stage ran only SO miles of the way. By prospector's burro train was the last part of the journey made. One dry camp in the mountains, with the moonlight turned on full, detour to Squaw Tanks, a slow descent into the Harqua Hala Desert, beginning at 3 o'clock of grillinS afternoon. stop at | Alamo for water and feed, a night trek down the sandy Alamo wash, then out into the malapai-stonyS dead country into the sandy desert again until O clock
 in the morning. At o'clock the pros pector pointed ahead to shouldering | hill. "The camps eight miles beyond that, and that's seven miles from here" | Too far without rest and some sleep. | Then a breakfast of six sardines and | hunk of bread, one drink of water, and | the long pull to the mine. At last the supreme luxury of food and cool drink | and shower bath with cold water pelt- l ing the skin. The desert is not Q myth.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
Aviation Week Al Rheims

Paulhan won the endurance test in a biplane, and Curtiss won both of his speed contests in another biplane, at the aviation tournament in Rheims. Neither was a Wright biplane, but both were essentially duplicates of the Wright machines. Paulhan is a Frenchman and Curtiss is an Ameri- can, and the two countries are sharing aviation honors, and no other country is doing much toward a final conquest of the air. The big gasbags that Ger many is steering here and there have small bearing in the real effort to con- Quer the air.
 Man-fight was rendered possible by the development of the gasoline mo- tor. It was not possible until the needs of the automobile had brought that motor out. And then it was dis covered that if the motor becomes un- workable the man at the wheel does not necessarily suffer injury; the we'll balanced airship no longer turns tur- tie, and when the power stops the ma chine becomes a parachute, easily gid ing to the earth. The Wrights early sought safety in an emergency, and all trained aviators no longer fear acci- dents when the motor stops There will be accidents in these first stages of av- iation. but the machines as well as the air are pretty well conquered. Some hard bumps will occur, but these will be largely due to undue daring on the part of the flyers.
 The Rheims tournament enabled
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
THE BAD MALAY PIRATES

Some boys were taken in the fight be- tween the Rainbow and a squadron of Lanus in 1862, of which Bishop Mac Dougal wrote a famous account in the Times. Carried to Sarawak, these urchins instantly put themselves at the head of the native youth and organ ized it for mischief I once heard the commandant say to Rajah Brooke: We shall never have good order in the town until you send those Lanun brats away"
 It is a question whether these races took to piracy because they were more intelligent. of stronger character than their neighbors. or whether piracy de- veloped their faculties; but certainly they were the most vigorous and hope full of the peoples called Malay. Craw- ford admits that the sulus had at tained considerable civilization of their own; in fact Hunts report on the main island, drawn up for Sir Stam- ford Rallies, pictures it a garden ad- mirably cultivated by free and happy people. Doubtless the pirates were law abiding and industrious when at home. But the high prosperity represented by early travellers came to an end under the repeated attacks of Spanish, Dutch and British squadrons In 1878 the Spaniards were able to conquor Sulu. That incubus has been removed hap oily, and we may hope that the former pirates will show their capacity as leaders in the march of progress under American rule.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
In maiden meditation fancy free.
 -Mdsunmer Nights Dream.
Rebates and Passes

4. B. Stickney, long president of the Chicago and Great Western railroad, says the railroads are still granting rebates. "The fayorite way of grant ing rebates" he says, 'is to allow claims for overcharges or for dam ages presented by large shippers. Claims of this kind when presented by large favored shippers are promptly paid by the railroads"
 Nor are passes unknown. The ship. per who controls large slices of traffic may incidentally mention that he de- sires to go to some city. A round-trip ticket is at once purchased by the freight solicitor, and the amount is entered in his expense account.
 The habits of granting rebates and passes cannot be overcome in a jiffy by a statute. The discovery of the subterfuges should be followed by se- we're punishments, not of the man at the bottom, but of the man at the top. The interstate commission will, it is said, soon begin an investigation of MT. Stickney's charges, and possibly a remedy may be devised against the new form of both rebates and passes.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
Judge Weakley'S Candidacy

The announcements of prohibition candidates for governor will, after all, turn upon the election on constitu- tional prohibition on November 29. If constitutional prohibition is voted down Judge Weakley will practically be out of the running. If constitutional prohibition sweeps the state MT. Nal lory will have lost out, and the race will then be between Weakley and a local option candidate to be hereafter selected.
 It is impossible to forecast the situ- ation next year until the fight over constitutional prohibition has been concluded in the closing days of No- vember. That election is to be d great struggle between fanaticism and common sense-between good judgment and headlong zeal. It is not contest between prohibition and 6 wide-open condition, for the state has statutory prohibition of the ann plest and most drastic nature. To put this into the organic law while it's efficiency remains untested would be the height of public folly. It is scarce ly conceivable that the people of AL abama will do this while they have all the prohibition that they can execute and a good margin besides.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
cARuso,s SAD PLIGHT.

Miss Glider in September Putnam's
 Poor Carusol His case is pitiful. "Peo- pie who envy me-" he is quoted saying, don't know my case. I earn s3OO.00O an- nuallYS but that cannot last over five years more, perhaps" Say that he earned would be less than s2.oOO,OOO and how can a man be expected to live for six years on that and have anything left to lay by? But that is not his only trou- ble. He has other things to worry him. MT Hammerstein has engaged a young tenor by the name of Carasa. The names are too much alike to suit the older sing CT. It is hard, but bearable in the cir cumstances, I should think. But then I am not making $SooO00' annually. It will take more than five years more for me sSOo,OOO last year and earns the same amount for the next five years, that to earn a million and a half of money.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
o6LITERATlNG WATERLOO.

From the New York Tribune
 The battlefield at Waterloo, writes an American tourist from Brussels, Is rapidly being divested of all its interesting fea- tures The houses which sheltered men who helped to make history there are being torn down, the roads and paths are being obliterated, and soon there will be nothing left to remind one of Napoleon's s last stand but the great mound capped by the Waterloo lion. The museum, where all the battlefield trophies are on view, uniforms, arms, drawings and pictures, was never pretentious institution. but no visitor failed to look with interest at the many exhibits behind the glass doors. This also Is to be dismantled, and the articles which have been care fully kept for years will be distributed among the provincial museums of Bel gium, where as individual exhibits they will lose much in value.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
John B. knox,s Interview.

q read with keen interest and hearty approval John B. Knoxs remarks about the recent legislation at Montgomery, which appeared in an interview given out in Washington, D. C.. and reproduced on the third page of The Age-Herald of Monday under an Anniston date line,' said prominent citizen, "and those who failed to read it should look 1t up. As MT Knox is a lawyer of exceptional ability and as he was president of the consti- tutional convention of 1901 whatever he says in condemnation of the legislature must be regarded as significant. l was particularly struck with this paragraph in Knox's interview:
 The most unfortunate feature of the situation is to be seen in the great Prot estant church mixing in affairs of state, and in order to control elections and ef- feet the choice of candidates of its own engaged In constantly collecting tribute from the people susceptible to political
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31

appeals. Our electorate seems to have forgotten the great cardinal principle of safe government for the people that marked Thomas Jefferson the pattern or democracy when he demanded the sep aration of church and the state and de- clared that people was best governed which was the least governed
 MT. Knox being very scholarly as well as very able as a lawyer, never used, l take it. the phrase the great Protestant church. In all probability the inter- viewer Is responsible for it. What MT. ism; for while there are many large Protestant churches or bodies there Is no organization known in the United States as the Protestant church. The only con- siderable body that embraces the word Protestant in it's title is the Episcopal church; and that is one of the churches that keeps severely out of party poli- Ntics.
 As a rule individual Episcopalians are strongly opposed to prohibition or sump- tuary laws of any kind; and I can speak advisedly of Presbyterians. While many Presbyterians may cau themselves pro- hibitionists great many are against all forms of drastic legislation. I think that thousands of men connected with the various Protestant churches of Alabama will vote against the constitutional amendment on November 29."
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
DANIEL DEFOE,

From the Washington Post.
 Daniel Defoe was endowed by nature with an extraordinary literary genius, and many of his writings are masterpieces of English letters Nature must have been in riot of fruition to give to English literature Swift and Defoe in the same generation. The Charleston News and Courier, in a passing remark on the au- thor of Robinson Crusoe," has this to say:
 'Defoe is described as a master of de- ception,' and evidently possessed highly developed sense of what in these piping times is known as yellow journalism. When alarm was occasioned in England by the report that the plague was spread ing in France, Defoe promptly published Journal of the Plague in which he described his personal experiences as a grown man during the plague of 1865, al- though, in reality, he was only about years old in 1865. Defoe, it is said, also wrote a detailed account as an eye wit ness of the destruction of the Island of St. Vincent by earthquake and volcano, which attracted much attention, although as a matter of fact, he had not been with in miles of the catastrophe. It is inter- esting, however, to note that many of his descriptions of that terrible event tally with the accounts of the more recent de- struction of Mont Pelee, notably the fall ing of the cinders on ships at sea-
 Defoe was a consummate master of the quality of verisimilitude, and in that re- Cyyff hiI,,da perior. He wrote the Memoirs of Cavalier and in no authentic history can you find so vivid a picture of '"The Thirty Years War" on the continent, and the military operations of the struggle be- tween king and parliament in England. The first William Pitt, the great Lord Chatham, held 1t to be veritable his- tory, and worse histories have been writ ten of that mighty and momentous con- f1ict than this romance of Defoe.
 It is wonderful that Sir Walter Scott, who was never on the scene, wrote tho opening chapters of Count Robert of Paris" but 1t is equally wonderful that Defoe wrote that rather rsque narra- tive. "The Life of Colonel Jack" Unfor- tunately, some of Defoe's works are unfit for the young to read. or the old, either, unless their literary taste is so admirable as to separate the inimitable style of the author from his coarse suggestion.
 Defoe could not have written "A Tale of Tub;" only Swift had the genius for that. So, also, is Guliiver a far greater production than Crusoe, but Swift himself could not have written the Memoirs of a Cavalier or Captain Carlton" Only Defoe could have produced them.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
COMMENT.

"If one, why not all?'' asked the Nor folk virginian- Pilot Because. even if bigamy were not against the law, the average fellow couldn't support more than one
 How much should a woman eatY' asks the Charleston News and Courier. That is a matter, we presume, which de- bends altogether on the size of the bank roll carried by her escort.
 Emperor William took off his helmet and proposed three cheers for Count Zeppelin. There is no mistake about it. The Kaiser is the Bwana Tumbo of Germany.
 A Chattanooga girl Is to marry an Italian nobleman whose ancestor was mentioned by Dante in his "Divina Con- media" Whether that fact will give the Chattanooga girl a better husband than he would have been otherwise remains to be seen.
 Tombstone dealers announce that bus mess is brisk. Another unmistakable sign of prosperity. PAUL COOK.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
Returns From Europe.

August Hirsch, the well known head of the Hrsch Millinery company. has re- turned from a European trip. He has been away about three months and comes back in excellent health and bouy- ant spirits.
 T have crossed the Atlantic A times" said MT. Hirsch, but seldom had I en- joyed a voyage more than that of the present summer. I travelled extensively in Germany on pleasure and spent two weeks in Paris on business. I saw Count Zeppelin in his airship and many other notable things in Germany. It is great country"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
SHOW GIRLS LUNCHEON.

From the New York Press.
 Tip was lunching at the Hotel Astor, when in comes a swell. goggled chap fol- lowed by a sheathed skirt, all sliced like a tin shop ornament. He orders the best and they are putting it in storage when through his gold rim he sees an actor looking person sending eyes and signs to his skirt and receiving sly winks and sighs. He picks up the show girls gaudy jeweled purse, takes out one of her cards and sends 1t by the waiter over to the actor-looking person, all before the poor thing could get her breath. Then he set ties his bill, tips the waiter to a brand new greenback, and they walk out. From the cut of his frozen face somebody else will take her to luncheon next time.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
Cases of Suspected Cholera.

The Hague, August So.-Several cases of suspected cholera have occurred at Amsterdam and the recurrence of cases at different points without apparent con nection causes anxiety. Ninety persons are now under observation and the health boards here and at other cities are talk fng the strictest precautions. Tests are being made of the rivers and other water supplies. One fatal case of suspect. ed cholera Is reported at Arnheim.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
HoIIanders Quick To Learn.

''It is perhaps not generally known" said S. Hechinger, that of all the foreign people coming to this country, the men and women from Holland are the quick est to assimilate and to learn our lam guage and mode of life"
 We have several instances of this fact here in Birmingham, but the most re- markable is the case of a young lady nurse at the Hillman hospital, Miss Henrietta c. Gerritsen. This clever Dutch girl arrived in this country one year ago and after stopping with her friends month or so she entered the nurse serv- Ice at the Hillman hospital, not under standing word of English. Today any one conversing with her would scarcely guess that she was not born and raised in this country. She speaks the lam guage fluenty, almost without a foreign accent and she holds the highest aver age in the training school for nurses at the hospital-a truly remarkable accom- plishment, considering the time, and one not easily equaled by any foreign man or woman"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
MIR. CROUCH.

"Do you believe Mars is inhabited" asked Mir Squeers, in an effort to start a conversation.
 "Whether the planet Mars is inhabited or not Is question of no importance to me-" answered MT. Crouch. of there are any people on Mars they must be either away ahead of earth-dwellers in civiliza- tion or else away behind them. If they are smarter than we are they must be insufferably conceited, and if they don't know as much as we do they must be confoundedly stupid"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-31
THE LAST WORD.

By Matthew Arnold. Creep into thy narrow bed, Creep, and let no more be said! Vain thy onset! all stands fast Thou myself must break at last.
  Let the long contention cease! Geese are swans, and swans are geese. Let them have it how they will! Thou art tired; best be still. They out-talk'd thee, hissd thee, tore
 thee? Better men farsd thus before thee; Fired their ringing shot and pass'd; Hotly charged-and sank at last. Charge once more, then. and be dumb Let the victors, when they come, When the forts of folly fall Find thy body by the walll