davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
Race Education In Birmingham

No negro school has been built in this city in 15 years, although in that time one was destroyed by fire. As a result of increasing population often times 90 negro children are crowded into a single room, to be taught by one teacher. There is lack of sanita- tion, lac kof educational advantages, lack of all things that lead to and promote more wholesome living.
 Compulsory education will doubtless be provided for speedily by the legis- lature. It will become necessary in order to lift Alabama from the foot of the ladder. When it comes how can Birmingham enforce it when it lacks schoolhouses in which to ac- commodate its negro children?
 These questions should be consid- cred and decided, not by demagogues, but by earnest, thoughtful citizens who are brave and capable enough to face and solve Alabama's prob lens. Mayor Ward presented the sit uation in his closing message, and the time has come for action unswerved by mere demagogy.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
Condition of the Treasury

m the first day of May the deficit of the fiscal year stood at $92 ,403, ,OO0, thanks to spurts in imports caused by the upward twists of the new tar if bill These spurts will be oper- atiye to some extent in May and June and the years deficit may not greatly exceed s1OO,OOO,Ooo.
 The receipts of the government will be this year about $595,O00, 900, while it's expenditures will be about S70O- 100000. Even the New York Tribune says that neither the Payne bill nor the Aldrich bill will raise S700,00o, ,OO0 In the next fiscal year, and yet the appropriations already made call for expenditures exceeding $700,0o0 00O0 Another deficit after July l means a bond issue, and the republicans will have to meet that issue with their ultra-Dingley rates and their refusal to bring in an income tax. Things are, in short, ripening for next years con- gressional elections and for the na- tional roundup in 1912.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
CIRCUS MORALS,

Ralph Bergengren, in the Atlantic
 NO young woman is more carefully chaperoned than the girl of the circus. A circus mother Is often honestly scan- dalized at the latitude which mothers out side the circus allow their daughters. The purely mercenary desire to keep together the several performers in family act tends to extreme watchfuiness over the members lest sex attraction should draw them into other affiliations. The manage ment itself is zealously watchful, divides It's employees into married and unmar- ried, and keeps the sexes carefully sep arated, except where matrimony has joined them together and man or manage ment may not put asunder If this matri- mony is fictitious, it must at least last out the season. and that this sometimes happens may fairly be conceded to ap- pease the popular notion that all circus people are disreputable. But genealogies, although the best of them have their black sheep, cannot be founded on ficti- tious marriages, and the aristocracy of the circus Is singularly free from either the convenience of divorce or the ire sponsibility of race suicide. Said young trapeze performer, in a confidential mo- ment: Real circus families are like that Four Hundred you read about only 1t aint so easy to break into one of 'em.'' Which was meant as a deserved compli- ment to the circus but is merely an un- deserved tribute to the Four Hundred.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
The Summer Schools.

"No modern feature of educational work interests me quite so much as the we'll conducted summer school" said a lay man. q used to think that summer was a time only for rest in the educational world, but since I have observed the good that is being accomplished by sum- mer schools and have learned of the in- vigoratng atmosphere of such institu- tions, I have reached the conclusion that the most delightful way for educators and seekers after knowledge to spend their vacations Is at school in June and July, where the faculty Is made up of distinguished professors and specialists in science. The summer school at our own State university Is one of the best in the land and will be more and more ap- preciated every year. The summer school under the auspices of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville is growing in popularity. A splendid faculty is chosen for the coming summer, and in looking over the catalog l find that music has received a good share of attention. Able pedagogues in voice and piano culture and in harmony have been secured, and Maud Powell, the greatest woman yiolinist in the world, is to give series of rectals. Altogether the summer of 1909 will mark a decided advance in educational achieve ment in the south"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
THAT cIRcAssIAN FAvoRITE.

From the New York Times.
 We have been getting a great deal of news from Turkey, and much of it is incomprehensible to the Occidental mind The Turk has foothold in Europe, but he is Oriental in all things. One must allow for fuency of thought and ex- pression, rich Imagery, the habit of fig urative speech, an elusive standard of truth in receiving many of the state- ments of happenings in the Orient. But a definite assertion of an understand able incident, nevertheless, must be &C., cepted. There is no suspicion of figura- tive language in the plain statement that the deposed Abdul Hamid, on the morn- ing of the invasion of Constantinople by the salonica troops shot and killed his favorite. beautiful Circassian girl aged IS years. To shoot and to kill are not ambiguous terms. They mean the same thing in all languages and cli- mates. If the statement had been made that the Sultan had eaten the Circasslan one might have felt a suspicion of mis- interpretation of the fact justi1able. He might only have invited her to take luncheon with him. 'I'm sorry" Mrs. Brown will say, declining an invitation to bridge, but we have the Smiths for dinner" An Oriental, unused to the strange Inaccuracies of Occidental express sion, might we'll fancy that the Browns were cannibals.
 Incredulity as to the latest statement touching the downfallen Sultan must be based on other grounds than fuency of expression and imagery. Yet we are in- Inclined to disbelieve the tale. To begin with, all the Gircassian girls are in Amer ican dime museums and circuses, though their frizzed hair no longer excites won der in comparison with the atrocious coiffures of American women. Also, Cir- cassian girls are rarely beautiful, and we do not remember ever seeing one less than S2 years old. Again, this particular Cir cassian has suddenly cropped up in the news. The Sultan took with him into re- tirement wives numbering from eleven to four, according to various reports; let us strike an average and say seven and a half. None of them was in mourning. The strongest proof against the state ment, however, Is that Abdul Hamid is now the under dog. He has been a bad man and he is justly punished He will not live long. We do not believe he shot the Circassian.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
A Festival Year.

Not in the most prosperous of years was so much fine music heard in the south as We are having this spring." said Claud Anderson of Louisville Nearly every city of importance has had or is about to have a festival
 ''The Louisville festival under Walter Damrosch's direction is being held this week, and it will be the most extensive and altogether the best ever undertaken in my town. Damrosch drew record breaking crowds at the St. Louis festival, and I understood he had splendid aud fences here in Birmingham last week. It seems that in every southern city the fes- tival audiences this spring have been unusually large. All this indicates grow ing interest in good music, and 1t also in dicates prosperity.
 My old friend, MT. F'reund of New York, editor of Musical America, re- marked several years ago that the south was destined to become the most fruitful field for the development of music in this country; and I believe his prophecy will be fulfilled"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
WORD WORTH STEALING.

From the New York Times.
 Again the French language, despite the poverty of its vocabulary in comparison with English, seems likely to give us a new and really needed word to add to the others which we have accepted by the hundred from the same source
 The dispatches about the labor troubles in Paris are applying the term ''sabot- age" to such acts of the strikers as tend to interfere with or prevent the conduct of business. The derivation Is obvious, but the road to this significance is ob- scure for those who know the word 'sabot'' only as meaning a wooden shoe. It is, however, also the name of the metal plate, usually called drag" we be- lieve, which, hanging by chain from the body of a heavy cart. is placed under one of the wheels when going down a steep hill That stops the motion of the wheel and controls the speed of the cart.
 From this the extension of "sabotage" to the doings of strikers Is easy, and, as we have no one word to express the same meaning, we might as well adopt 1t. Apparently the usage Is new, or at least rare until recently, for 1t is not re- corded In any one of three or four French dictionaries that have been consulted.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
Bacon or Shakespeare

One of the popular weeklies is reviv- ing the Shakespeare Bacon controversy" said professional man. Did William Shakespeare write the plays attributed to him, or were they written by Lord Francis Bacon? This old question is to be threshed out again, and while it may interest the younger generation and those persons who revel in fine-spun speculation it will be very wearying to the average reader.
 The theory that Bacon was the author of the Shakespeare literature was started in 1856 by Miss Della Bacon. an American lady of high literary reputation and a friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathan iel Hawthorne and Thomas Carlyle Her contention was that Bacon wrote the plays and adopted the name of Shakespeare as a mask, as play writing would have en- tailed on his lordship social and political ruin. In 1888 Ignatius Donnelly, who had been a member of Congress from Minne- sota published a book entitled the Great Crytogram, in which he sought to prove by cypher he claimed 10 have discovered in the body of the plays that Bacon was the real dramatist. Several other books advancing the Baconian theory were pub lished, but Donnellys had the widest reading and his discussion was regarded as the most plausible. The great pre- ponderance of opinion among educated actors and men of letters who have made a special study of the history of the plays is on the side of Shakespeare; and 1t will be so to the end of time.
 Every time I find a writer who at tempts to rob the immortal bard of his reputation I recall Artemus Wards sly remark. After looking into the matter he said he was forced to the conclusion that the plays were not writ by William Shakespeare but by another man of the same name.'
 By the way, Frederick Warde, in a charming lecture delivered here in the ly- ceum course last fall, worked in Arte- mus Wards dry humor but credited 1t to an Irishman'
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
CONCERNING MARY'S LAMB

These lines and no more, Mary stated to credible witness along in the late 'S0s just before her death, constituted the poem it was stricken from the white hot anvil of John Rollestone's in- spiration. So far as Mary knew Rolle- stone wrote no more regarding the ad- ventures of the lamb. It was not until some years later that Mary read in a newspaper some verses accredited to a certain Mrs. Sara J. Hale and entitled 'Mary's Little Lamb." It should be said, by the way that the poet Rolle- stcne had handed his verse to Mary one day when he had been after pond lilies and was on his way home She lost tho draft, but the verses remained indelibly engraved upon her mind.
 But to get back to Mrs Hale, she had used the Rollestone verses, with one or two slight changes, and to them had added these lines, which are obviously inferior in style and for which there is, moreover, no historic basis whatever:
 And then it ran to her and laid
 It's. head upon her arm,
 As ifAto say, I'm not afraid;
 You'll keep me from all harm.''
 What makes the lamb love Mary soT'
 The eager children cry.
 Why, Mary loves the lamb you know,'
 The teacher made reply.
 And you, each gentle animal,
 In confidence may bind,
 And make it follow at your will,
 If you are only kind.'
 It will be noted that in the Rollestone lines the lamb is always referred to as "he," while the Hale stanzas describe the celebrated creature as '-it," quite as though it were an infant. As a matter of fact the lamb was female, for Mary, in the interview already referred to and sufficiently well attested, states distinct ly that the lamb grew up to a noble maturity, and when she had become a regular sheep gave birth to three lambs before she died and was gathered to her fathers, long and bitterly nourned by Mary.
 The lamb, which never had a name of her own, being always known through out her long and useful life as Mary's Lamb," continued her beneficence in a posthumous manner. For when there> was talk of tearing down the Old South church in Boston, Mary gave pair of socks made from her lambs wool to the committee engaged in raising a fund to save the church. The socks were un- travelled and the yarn sold in little frag- ments for a total of s170. One such frag- ment, duly attested, Is included in the collection. Mary survived her lamb by something like 65 years passing away in Someryille, Mass, at the age of S3, hay ing in the meantime married man named Tyler.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
KISSING DAY AT HUNGERFORD.

From the IondOn Standard.
 Curious ceremonies which date back to the time when John of Gaunt granted the manor to the townsfolk were duly ob- served at Hungerford yesterday. People were awakened at sunrise by loud blasts on John of Gaunt's horn. which is the symbol of the liberties of the borough. and while the Hoclztide jury were sitting in the town hall to appoint numerous of- ficials, most of whose duties are now ob- solete, the Tutty-men, armed with flower adorned slaves, set out to collect head penny from each burgess and a kiss from such of their wives as they might meet. Luncheon, with punch hrewed from an ancient recipe, followed, and the school children who had the usual half-holday, received gifts of oranges and halfpence.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
JaDan'S Present Ambition

Instead of hastening to build an extraordinary number of Dreadnaughts Japan is content to build cotton mills, to build up general trade, and to pay off her debt as rapidly as she can. Governor Draper of Massachusetts, who Is president of the largest cotton manufacturing company in this coun- try, says Japan is rapidly gaining con trol of the cotton trade of the far east. In all other ways Japan is promoting her commercial development. Cheap water transportation gives her many advantages in Manchuria, and even when she has to buy our raw cot ton water rates are low. Governor Draper is not confident that Japan can be outdone in the far east.
 In the Review of Reviews Adachi Kumosuh shows that Japan is set ting aside nearly $1oO,OOo,OOO year with which to redeem the war bonds she issued in the war with Russia. The public debt was carried by that war to s1120, ,5e5 ,O00, but MT. Kumos- uki says every bond will be called in within 30 years. The country is heay- fly taxed, but the people pay taxes willingly, knowing that by so doing they are getting ready for defense and new wars. By the time Russia is ready for aggressive action Japan will have no debt, and she will be ready to give her old antagonist another trouncing.
 The revenues are derived from tax ation and monopolies, as follows; Land tax. s42.S5s,22s; liquor. ss5.9o4,A s42; income. s1S.7s5.757; textiles, s1o.-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07

100000; sugar, s8,0OO,OOO public un- dertaldngs and state properties, $72,- 140,612; postals and telegraphs, S19,- PIP, ,799; customs, $2O,715,4 ,46O; monop- olies, 25,286,000. and railways, $1s.- 527O00. Total, s271,491, ,699.
 The country is not rich, but the people are patriotic, and the public debt will be rapidly redeemed, while at the same time the industries anu commerce of the country are extend ed. This plan is better than the build ing of Dreadnaughts.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
Need New Church BujIdinu.

Auburn is certainly in great need of an Episcopal church building" said the Rev. M. E. Bethea, rector of that parish, yesterday we have little barn down there, without ceiling. that is so cold in the winter that the college boys refuse to attend
 ''The church In this state needs the ac- cessories of religious worship at Auburn. where 700 young men in the formative period are under the influences which will make or mar their future lives, more than anywhere else.
 We are making great effort to do something at the council now in session here. I will have a conference with the bishop tomorrow, and 1t is probable that steps will be taken to meet the require ment of the lady donor of Montgomery who offers s500O if it will be duplicated This is an opportunity which should not be allowed to go by"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
$500 FOR A HOLMES POEM.

From the Boston Globe.
 The observance of the Tooth anniversary of the birth of pr. Oliver Wendell Holmes calls to mind how brilliant a writer he was both in prose and verse, and also suggests some reflections on the prices paid great writers of the past and present.
 The highest price ever paid pr. Holmes for any single poem was s6O0 which was paid him by the editor of the Globe for poem on President Garfield, written es- pecially for a memorial edition of the Globe, issued September q. 1881. That was six times the price paid him by the Att lantic for similar work.
 Yet if pr. Holmes were writing today he could command more than 5000 for one of his poetic gems. Ten times that amount would be none too large for "old Ironsides," '@rhe Last Leaf" The Voice. less" or "The Deacons' Masterpiece"
 Think what Milton would be offered if he were now alive, Milton who received a few pounds for Paradise Lost.'
 Think what Poe would get, Poe who sold "The Raven for S5Ol
 Or Shakespeare, who apparently never got a cent for his published plays al- though he got rich on the stage produc- ton of theml
 Or Homer, who begged his bread in seven cities of old Greecel
 Or Fielding, who was so hard up that he sold "Tom Jones' for a few hundred poundsl For that masterpiece he would receive nearly s5O0OOO today, provided the Watch and Ward and Anthony Comstoclx did not suppress it.
 Wordsworth told Matthew Arnold that he never made enough out of his poetry to pay for his shoestrings. Yet what price could he get at the present hour for another "Intimations of Immortality" or "Laodamiap"
 Longfellow got s25 for one of the best things he ever wrote, '"The Wreck of the Hesperus," but when Robert Bonner wanted 'sThe Hanging of the Crane' Sam Ward, brother of Julia Ward Howe acting as middleman for the author of "Hiawatha," "elosed the deal" for $4000.
 The greatest writers have received the smallest pay, it seems. What strange irony that as literature becomes poorer in quality the price paid for 1t increases. Some day, perhaps, a poet may write so poorly that he will command a salary equal to that of Rockefeller
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
THE HoBeoBLINs OF SCIENCE.

From the New York World.
 After Juno l Mantelair bakers must de- liver their bread in "sealed aseptic bags" so that no microbes may get in it.
 The fears of the Psalmist regarding the pestilence that walketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at noon day were merely mild form of vague apprehension by comparison with the vivid alarm now excited by bacilli and bacteria. These microscopic foes of man have taken the places of the giants and the hobgoblins of former days. In the new folklore of fear 1t is the invisible dwarfs of disease that wage eternal war fare on man. They are the terror by night and the arrow that fiieth by day.
 Aseptic boxes for handkerohiefs, asep- tic bags for bread-what next in the evolution of the microbe mania? The wonder grows how the race has been kept from extinction exposed as our grandfathers were to the unchecked raw ages of these subtle enemies.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
IN HOTEL LOBBIES
Business Barometer.

Business seems to be improving in every part of the country" said J. E. Shelby. q learn from the newspapers that the iron and steel trade is becoming quite active again; and from my own experience I know that business in the south is improving in a very substantial way.
 T am selling pianos and I have agents in Texas and several other southern states. Three months ago these agents found it next to impossible to make a sale. The reports from each state were practically the same-nothing doing. But now it is very different. All my agents are doing well. The noteworthy fact Is that improvement came in evidence at widely separated points in the south all at the same time.
 'rhe piano trade acts as a business barometer. In periods of depression few pianos are sold. On the other hand it is safe to assume that when the people buy pianos hard times are past"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07

An expert prepa red this table, first reducing all specific duties to equiv alent ad yalorem terms. These figures show by confess ion of the senate finance committee that revision has been upward in ten schedules and downward in but four. In only one of the four is the reduction material, namely, in the lumber schedule, Even the rates in the aper schedule have been marked up.
 President Taft stands pledged to favor reduction in tariff rates, and if the Aldrich billl should go to him he would be com pelled, by his ante election pledges, to veto it. The AL drich bill is confe ,ssedly revision up- ward, and the table prepared by the Senate finance co,mmittee will, no doubt, be studied by the President before he signs ar eything that Aldrich and Payne have D repared.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-07
THE FOOLS PRAYER.

By Edward Rowland Sill. The royal feast was done; the King Sought some new sport to banish care, And to his jester cried: Sir Fool, Kneel now, and make for us prayer" The jester doffed his cap and bells And stood the mocking court before; They could not see the bitter smile Behind the painted grin he wore He bowed his head and bent his knee Upon the monarch's silken stool; His pleading voice arose: 70 Lord! Be mercfful to me, fool. 'No pity, Lord, could change the heart From red with wrong to white as wool, The red must heal the sin; but, Lord, Be merciful to me, a fool. Tis not by guilt the onward sweep Of truth and right Lord we stay; Iris by our follies that so long We hold the earth from heaven away. ''These clumsy feet, still in the mire, Go crushing blossoms without end; These hard well-meaning hands we
 thrust
 Among the heart-strings of friend. ''The ill-tirned truth we might have kept Who knows how sharp it pierced and
 stung!
 The word we had not sense to say Who knows how grandly 1t had wrung! "Our faults no tenderness should ask, The christening stripes must cleanse
 them all; But for our blunders-oh in shame Before the eyes of heaven we fall. Earth bears no balsam for mistakes, Men crown the knave and scourge the
 fool
 That did his will; but Thou, O Lord! Be merciful to me. a fool! The room was hushed; in silence rose The King, and sought his gardens cool, And walked apart and murmured low, "Be merciful to me. fool"