The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-09
GLOOM HUNTING
 OF GRI[LBINEAR tmuIates Mark 1afIey's Sys-
 tenn of Crouch BUT MAKES A FAILURE Cannot Possibly Get Rid of His Fund of Cheerful Dlsposition-Desper-
 ate Measures Without
 Virtue.
From the Boston Herald-

From the Boston Herald.
 Tn the last year. said MT. Grill binear, T have had some curious eN- periences
 Perhaps it may seem strange to you. but am overstocloed with cheerfulness. My inclination to laugh even In situa- tons that might strike some other peo- pie as serious has actually hurt me in my business. There are lets of people that think all business must be con ducted in manner very solemn and don't want to deal with anybody that sees any humor In it.
 "so I made up my mind that I'd have to do something to check my spirit of cheerfulness, and with that end in mind l took a room in the same house with a friend of mine in musical boarding house. Why from what he told me you'd have thought that a cast iron man couldn't get wink of sleep there from one weeks end to another, even if he'd been cast without ears.
 Piano in the parlor, he said, with half the boarders standing around it three quarters of the night singing songs, and the rest of the boarders in th cir several rooms, each one playing on some sort of musical instrument. Man in the room over his played a bas- soon and the man under him a clari- net. Man up near the roof somewh ere played an accordion, and on that same floor there was another man learning learning, you understand-to play the cornet, and one floor up from him in the back room there was man that used to poke a trombone out of the window and play oft in the Silly Night and Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still' and that sort of thing at quarter past in the morning.
 Now, that" I thought, was about the sort of place was looking for, for my purposes-a place that murdered sleep. But, you know, it didn't affect me that way at all. Not a bit!
 "The first night l slept there the up- roar struck me as about the most amus- ing thing In the way of noise that I'd ever heard and then, when I'd been there a few nights, why, practically didn't hear 1t. I could go to sleep and sleep soundly with the whole outfit booming from roof to cellar; the only thing that would wake me up and keep me wakeful was the conglomerate sounds cessation, and Sometimes the house was as silent as could be.
 "That would be when all the boarders went out, as occasionally they did to concert or something like that, and then the house would be so still couldn't sleep at all; .and there I'd lie and toss around till the folks came home. But when my friend with the slide horn polxed his trombone out of the back window and started up on Even of Thee I'm Fo-o-ondly Dreaming why I'd be sound asleep before he struck the second stanza.
 ''So really the discipline here did me no good and I made up my mind that I'd try life In the tenements. I'd read 80 much about the squalid misery of the poor that l thought that would rack me into some sort of soberness of spir><
 "One indulgence 1 did permit myself this trip, and that was to find place that was clean. I don't suppose I ought to have done this, but if the folk went to live with were clean they were poor enough, goodness knows
 Family of i've father and mother and three children-the oldest of these, a girl, at work; the two others, boys, at school. Father earned $9 a week, girl $3; total income, SIP. When l came in I paid $5 week, another thing don't suppose I ought to have done be- cause l guess I could have got 1t for S4; but considering the way I was crowd ing them up by taking one of the four rooms 1t was what l thought I'd like to do.
 80 WlIn me InlS gross income was raised to S17 a week. Of course there's plenty of thousands of families whose in come Is less, and 8 good deal less and still they are what you might call poor, all right. If you don't think so, you might try finding food and lodging for six people out of that amount and providing five out of the six with clothes and shoes, If you don't think you're poverty stricken you'll think you are as near it as you want to be. But my family wasn't miser able at all; on the contrary, they were happy and hopeful.
 "The father worked long hours and the mother worked at all hours except when she slept, though she found time to hear the boys lessons at night. and the boys worked hard in school and were coming along in great shape. and the whole fam fly thought they were as good as any body. They had profound contempt for some people. but they didn't envy anybody on earth. When I looked at those two boys plugging away faithfully at