The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-10-12
FORMER NEWSBOY WRITES OF LONDON Birmingham Lad Is Seeing the
 Sights Abroad TELLS HIS OWN STORY Fanny Mcouaid, for Years a FamIllar Figure Around The Age-HeraId Building, Is Now Successful
 Vaudeville Star.
TELLS HIS OWN STORY

From London, from merry old England across the pond. comes a letter. which
 Is little less than masterpiece. from
 Fanny McQuaid former newsboy of
 Birmingham who Is now playing at the
 pest theatres in Europe in a pantomime Juggling act with his brother, Eddie Me
 @uald, known on the stage as Eddie Emerson, and who. like Tammy, grew up and started upward in the world from
 Birmingham.
 Iammy has many friends in Birming-
 nam who will be glad to know that he is
 oolng well. The boy says he has been
 III London nine weeks and is still "a riot
 every night It will also be noted from
 the letter that he and his brother and
 their teammate are booked for engage
 ments more than year ahead. a fact
 which emphasizes the superior quality of
 tieir act The team will play during the
 remainder of this year, and the greater
 part or next in Europe, coming to Amer
 lea in October, 1s1O for an engagement of
 ~ weeks, after which the trio will go to
 south Africa to fill engagements there.
 Iammy left Birmingham less than three months ago and made goodp in Lon
 don from the very start. He is still n
 mere boy and in the comedy role to which
 ne Is so well adapted in manner and
 physlque he will not doubt become as
 famous as his brother, who stands right
 up among the best in his profession.
 Fanny has not yet eliminated from
 his system all of the ''newsboy'' that
 was in him when he left Birmingham | a fr,a Utt.a
 been received by an employe of The Age
 Herald, Is just simply Tammy, and with
 the vernacular and personal element which
 is so characteristic of the writer the | epistle is simply "one big scream" as Tammy would probably express 1t. It 1 gives his impression of the sights he hss seen in London in nine weeks and the let ter. extracts of which follow, is, indeed. a very interesting one:
 Well, am still in the biggest town
 in the world and of course am enjoying myself as only an Irshman can in for eign waters. I have done this town from one end to the other, seeing everything of interest that can be seen with the naked eye.
 T have seen the famous slums of Lon don of which you may have read so much III socldiisl Works, ana 10 say the least 1t has been pictured none too vividly for the sights I have seen In this part wera something awful. l saw women and chii- dren running about half naked, filthy, half starved and consumptive looking I have never seen much distress and poverty in all of my whole existence. It Is a terrible place. As many as 20 peopla sleep in one room and, of course, con sumption Is getting this class of people by the hundreds every week. I was very glad to get away from so much misery to my little room at the hotel, where l
 certainly felt better.
 "I have been to the British Museum. which Is considered the finest in the world, and spent a very pleasant day looking at the ancient curiosities of antiquated days. They have here relics of the year of 5000 B. C., at least that's what the signs said on them. They have in this museum 200 Egyptian mummies that are the remains of men who lived before Christ. This is cer- tainly very interesting joint" and scientific men come here from all over the globe to look 1t over. One feature that caught my eye was the statue of Rameses. a very old king of Egypt. Along with his mummy were five others and nearly all of them were about as tall as The Age Herald building. They were certainly imposing.
 "I also saw the famous Tower of London, where the kings of merry old