davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-12-18

A FRIEND whom I have not the
 A pleasure of knowing personally 4 \ has written me most agreeable note about books. She is evidently i, woman of culture, of much reading, and of loving solicitude for the mental and moral development of the hearts ana minds of her children. In the course of her note she touches upon one of the most delicate and difficult problems which parents are expected to solve, and of which, alas, so many never attempt solution Said this good mother, My problem is to get literature for my three girls which will hold their interest, and yet meet with my approval. Our mod ern authors of fiction are almost invar1- ably out of the question"
 I have deep sympathy with any parent who is called to ponder this profoundly in. portant problem. For, in very vital sense, we are made by the books that we read; and, what we are in our inner nature may be determined, later in life. by the quality of the books that we love most The right books placed In the hand of a child may awaken a love for high est forms of ideal character and achieve n,ent; while the wrong book may turn the mind to thoughts of the lowest things and the feet to paths that lead to darkness and death.
 European, living in India. reached I'D his hand to take book from his hook shalves His hand came into con- tact with a cold. slimy object. Upon looking closely he saw that deadly snake had climbed up among his books In many a. book and in many a library there are deadly snakes in the forms or words, thoughts and pictures, which bite or sting worse than an adder.
 Sometimes such books never see the home library There are publishers of the most degrading and destructive books whose custom 1t is to send to schools, academies and colleges for catalogs of the institutions. They are ostensibly- inter ested in the curriculum. But what they really want is list of the names of the students. In short while certain stu cents will receive printed slips contain ing lists of their publications, books and stories which are the vilest productions of the most depraved minds. The boy o- girl is advised by this pink slip that each book or story contains so many highly colored pictures" and that 1t is the rsciest story ever told.'
 Sometimes these books are sold by walking vendors to boys, mostly after nightfall I was approached by one of these night fiends. when boy. He came toward me with an air of mystery and asked if I wanted to buy book. I saw no book in his hands, and asked, What sort of book?" He then looked up and down the street to see that no po- liceman was near, and took from an in ner pocket his book. which he at once opened before my eyes. It was then my time to look for policeman But, un- caught of justice, he stole away, and yas lost in the darkness, the larger serpent with the smaller one concealed in his pocket.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-12-18

way of eultivating hobos. The railreszzs conductors or brakemen who hesitate to check the lad who is learning to flip the trains," 1. e., steal short rides, the housewife who will never turn a hun gry man from her door," the builder of Salvation Army refuges or municipal lodging houses. all are of one good, sweet, Anglo-Saxon breed, but they are all encouraging the tramp, all making 1t certain that tramps will multiply. And the cause is not difficult to perceive For lodging one or two nights, say in Birmingham. gives comfortable rest to this ''uncommercial traveller" and when he has clothes nicely washed into the bargain he Is ready for the road to Mo- bile, via Montgomery, or for Jackson vile, certain that on the way his serene soul shall not lack sustenance. If he can strike a bunch of his fellow-pilgrims, happily one produces a pack of cards and all their pipes; for though they will not work, kindness has permitted them both to eat and smoke. Behold them sitting in the soft sunshine. happy as chipnunks among leaves.
 Perhaps in the present stage of our civ ilization our smiling tolerance of the tramp Is inevitable. But when one looks at the spiritual aspects of the problem, and particularly at the speed and cer- tainty with which decent man out of work becomes engulfed In the same black morass of stupidity and stoid de- spair, tolerance itself is rebuked. One wonders whether MT. Lloyd George, in his present campaign against unemploy- ment, will not be compelled to overcome ha difffcttlf, fo1I we not wonder too that American cities should be content, that the various com monwealths of America should be con tent, to harbor vagabonds, lazy wander CTS whose hand Is against everyman, the lure of romantic boNs. the neriI of m.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-12-18

\ HOSES wrote a pretty full and ac- MI curate account of his own death, M which is familiar to every care ful reader of the Old Testament scrip tures The fact that 1t was written by himself, and during his life, does not by any means detract from its interest Moses, however, we shall be told, was inspired, and for wise purposes was al- lowed to foresee and to foretell the cir cumstances of his own death. This is the current theology of the day, and I am strongly inclined to the opinion that the current theology happens to be right in this case. I shall, therefore, accept its dogma.
 But how is it that so few cases are to be found in all the writings of the world fin which men have attempted to describe their own exits from this scene of mor- tai joys and sorrows? I know of only one case in modern literature. in which any attempt seems to have been serious ly made to depict the actual onset and appearance of the King of Terrors 'Thanatopsis, a modern production, said to be the best poem of it's day and generation, created I suppose, no small stir among the literati of the days of Bryants ascendancy. confess that l know nothing of it's merit; for I have never read line of 1t.
 Somebody else Swift perhaps) wrote a very clever piece to show how his death would be received by various persons among his contemporaries; but as to the real essence of his death. in itself con sidered he has not a word to say.
 I have dim recollection of having ! seen somewhere little poem, entitled Lines on My Own Death; but who the author was, or what was the purport Of his lines I have entirely forgotten.
 Now we have strong objections to the so-caled literature of death, not only in this, but in another respect; and that Is that neither obituaries nor funeral ser mons are really devoted to the subject of death at all, in itself considered.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-12-18

designed and decorated by the tramps. The statuary and carpets, architect plans and electrical plant were wholly the product of the tramp brain and hand. But because the population is about 5000 souls military surveillance seems nec- essary, and reformation counts for less than restraint and economy. Moreover there is some conflict between the well fare of the colony and that of free lapor' by competition in manufacture The only way out of this would seem to be Tn almost rigid restriction of the colony s labor to agriculture.
 Switzerland has gone most fruitfully into the business of labor colonies. Mr. Kelly quotes and refers to the report ot an English are preparing themselves Tor some effective, humane, Christian soiu- tion of their phase of the tramp prob lem. The Swiss, it will be observed, have two types of colony. that for free labor and that for forced labor. tramp is taken before a magistrate, accused of begging or of having no visible means of support The magistrate is able to hand him over to the free labor colony, if he will agree to work there Tor two months. If he refuses, he may be, and usually is, sent to the forced labor col ony, from which there is hope that he may graduate, in due time, a man will ling to work. If he rebels, the last resort is the penitentiary. The Swiss have de- yised system of travellers relief books" which are designed to serve the genuine out-of-work as guarantee and introduction to employers. This book distinguishes the man who has lost his iob and wants another from the fellow who would be most unhappy if he had one: and it Is an argument for every honest mans sympathy.
 xva Applo-Saxons have an unfortunate
The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-12-18

brag and his yelled indecencies. 'vag- abondage." says MT. Kelly, "is a verita- ble University of Vice"
 Now the fact has been made clear that huge as are the proportions of the cured, eradicated. The constant loss of boys from homes is unnecessary. The filling of our streets and highways with mendicants, more or less miserable, is no kindness, but a remediable cure. America and Britain, nevertheless, with their praiseworthy but exaggerated sense of personal rights and liberties, have as yet done little to grapple with an evil which Is singularly their own. Is not the tramp within his rights to be hobo? Ought we not sympathetically to give him food and shelter, and send him with benediction on his way?
 Holland was the first of modern lands to add a better alternative to the tramp than tramping, bumming, or begging. But the Dutch, being very matter-of- fact people, thought it enough to pro- vide something little less than a prison, though it was something more than a farm house. Instead of temporary lodg- ing, they began to give the vagabond permanent work, the work being upon the land, and the headquarters a labor colony" Beggars and tramps have dis appeared from Holland.
 Necessarily Belgium, contiguous country was compelled to protect itself from the influx of men dislodged by the Dutch law, because unwilling to work on any terms. Belgium labor colonies proved again that at comparatively low cost the tramp can be eliminated. MT. Kelly describes the huge Belgium nsti- l tuition at Merxplas, whose extensive h1ildinas and annaratus Were manned.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-12-18

The Rev. Dr. Deems. the founder of the Church of the Strangers, in New York, of which he was pastor for many years, told me this incident 'I visited the home of an extremely
 The servant conducted me to the library.
 where I found the young daughter of my parishioners She was so absorbed in a book that she did not know that anyone was near her. I spoke to her. Where upon, with confusion, she suddenly sprang from her chair, hid her book under a sofa pillow, saying, I'll tell mother you are here,' and left the room. Interested to
 know the character of literature that the
 child read, I lifted the pillow, and be- | heath it lay loathsome serpent in the form of book"
 I have thus far had in mind the most pernicious class of books and stories. l TOW refer to another style of reading er- roneously called literature. mean real istic" novels. Sometimes books of this nature are more fatal to innocence than the pernicious and degraded sort to which Dr. Deems referred and of which I have written. This style of book is subtle, and by insinuation makes the mind fa- niliar with social filth almost before one
 realizes that his mind has been soiled. 'realistic"- novels. But what does this mean? Is. noth truth, or decency, or fidelity, or cieanness. or domestic purity, or integrity, realisticf Do those who cry aloud for realism mean these things? No; what they want is the story of inde- cency, of domestic impurity, Of martial inf1deIity, and the like. Goodness is as
 real as badness; but it isn't of goodness
 mean? Is not truth, or decency, or
 these lovers of realism, ''Who are your
 favorite authors?' The answer, in most cases, will be, the writer of Lady Roses
 Daughter" Zola, Ouida, George Sand,
 the creator of Lilly Bart" Hardy, Tol- stoi, etc.
 But am I not in error when place Tol-
 stoi along with Zola? Mo- am not For
 mean not the Tolstoi who wrote My Religion" Childhood, Boyhood and Youth" and My Confessions but the
 Tolstoi who with the strength of a giant wrote the quite unnecessary story of ''An- na Karenina," and the disgusting realism
 
 of 'The Resurrection Scott, Dickens, the Brontes, Hawthorne, and many others
 wrote realistic novels, but their realism
 was decency, while the realism of the others named is indecency. Even 'The Scarlet Letter. is written with such deli cacy that a pure mind thinks not of the sin, but of the outworking of It's awful results of horror. Given such plot to the mind of Tolsto. or Hardy, or to, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, and you would not keep the book in your home, because of its forbidding minutiae.
 Yet, am asked, Should not these books be read to teach us life? No; the phase of life they teach we are better off by not Knowing. You know that water will drown, without your leaping into the sea. You know that fire will burn, without your plunging your hand into the hot coals in the grate. Likewise. you need
The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-12-18

sage from one world into the other. She says: "The papers (for more than one) published the notice of my death: made their way to the world in which l now live; and you may be sure it struck me with very strange feeling to see my own death spoken of. They mentioned the time and place of my death; stated the name of the minister who was supposed to have off1ciated at my funeral q didn't have any funeral, and don't mean to), and I can very passing through the valley of the shadow of death-though in my case it had no very perceptib1e shadow. How all this was, however, will ap- pear more fully in the sequel I remem- Der that the various persons men toned in the obituary were actually present during my last moments, and held conversation with me on that solemn occasion.
 But l must now mention some things In connection with the published account of my death, which, to one in the world from which I lately came, will seem to be peculiar, and even un- accountable. but which I, with my pres ent light, can easily understand. One of the most striking of these was the fact that the obituary actually spoke of me as a married woman-and very confidently, too; and (still more unac- countable to the unenlightened) it spoke thus on the written authority of my pastor, who knew me intimately and who was certainly aware of the fact that he had been notified to at tend my marriage (fixed for the veyy night on which l died) and to join me, a girl of 20 summers, to a young man whom I loved devotely.
 Tt is very certain that the young man to whom I was engaged also loved me; and yet, strange to say, when the pub lished notice of my death met his eye. he was rather pleased than otherwise. Reader, can you account for this In any way? With the light which have in this world, to which my death brought me, can easily see the reason of it.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-12-18

period. Over 49000 persons, mostly tramps who were stealing rides, damaged or dead in four or five years! Major Pangborn, speaking for the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, has said that some roads keep up private burying grounds on their right-of-way, in which tramps are inferred, having been killed by trains while trespassing. He estimates that to the railroads alone the tramp in Amer lea causes damage by fire, by accident by robbery, by interference with signals, by murder of employees, and in other ways, to the extent of s25,000,OO0 annually.
 Surely some causes must be at work steadily, relentlessly producing tramps. More than one in every 200 of our popu- lation lays down his burden and takes to the woods, leaving someone else to lift his load More than one to every 200 of us is broken down in soul, or lack
 ing in the feeling of responsibility. re- bellious against the simplest restraints of duty, and becomes that picturesque but despised wretch, the hobo and the bum
 I am not trying to answer the question how we reach this result of wasted soul stuff. Rather, with the guidance of such investigators as MT Kelly. who has a remedy to offer, and who has spent many years at his self-imposed task of mastering the methods of other nations and the needs that are peculiarly our own, propose to indicate in outline what he calls the Labor Colony, as it has been worked out in Belgium, Holland, Switz- erland, Germany, from the first three of which lands the tramp has prac- tically disappeared.
 Neither Is this strictly an academic discussion. Every city. every village, every lone farmhouse, has Its share of 4l. of l....z<
The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-12-18

worshipper of the old days by the hand. and, as 1t Is midnight. I mean him no harm by giving him absent treat- ment." I shall bid him dream of In- dian scouts, tall chiefs, squatty squaws, lovely white captives, long vistas of virgin forests, and the songs of birds he heard in boyhood, and none as sweet has he heard since.
The Calumet news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 1907-1938, 1910-04-26
He won both handball games against
Sam Berger and Billy Papke.
WILL eoTcH RETIRE SOON?

] have it on pretty good authorit,
that Frank Gotch, the worlds cham.
pion wrestler. will retire after his
bout with zbyszko. which is schedul.
ed to take place at the White SoS
ball park i'm Chicagoelon Decoration
day, writes Otto .Flotos Of the Den
yer Post Gotch intends going into
private business in Minneapoiis. ac-
cording, to those who. are close to
him. He feels. that there arc not
more worlds for him TO conquer. so
far as wrestling. is concerned, and
he wants to retire llf. Jeffies, the
indicated champion az the world.
Financially Gotch is probably bet
ter fixed than any athlete in the
world with a possible exception of
two or three. He does not need more
money and as he is a sensible fellow
and contented with what he has got
he intends in the future to enjoy life
and get what pleasure he can out of
T.
The Calumet news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 1907-1938, 1910-04-26
JEFFRIES HARD AT WORK
TRAINING FOR BIG FIGHT

Rowardennan, Cal, April 26.-Hot
sunshine did not check Jenries in his
training yesterday, and he put in his
longest boxing session so far i'm two
bouts with Berger and Armstrong.
Although the latter was quite willing
to quit at the end of three rounds.
Jenries was keen for more, and Ber-
ger was taken on for two rounds. The
going was fast I'm both bouts, but the
big fighter stood it well and easily
could have made the pace for another
bout If he had found a partner.
Berger while coming out OF the
clinches, frequently landed right
uppercut. This is one Of Johnson's ia
vorite punches, and Berger employed
it whenever possible, coaching Jeffries
in blocking it.
Joe ChoynslIi was IN interested
spectator of the sparring. lie express
ed himself surprised at Jerfries' ply
steal Improvement, but said he believed
the boiler maker needed some good
stir boxing to put him in the old fight
ing trim. Joe's working togs will ar
rive tomorrow morning. and he will be
ready to assume his duties as sparring
partner If called upon
In addition to the boxing Jeffries
went through his usual routine of road
work and gymnasium practice. COW
ering twelve miles on his morning rum |
with two eeesionr of bo,,1ho1t -. -. 4, |
D vigorous attack on the punching bag.
The Calumet news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 1907-1938, 1910-04-26
r. - +41<%-EE=3s- $50
''a|:DPoiR]l,;,'T3!
MINOR Lacquer INVENTS
LATEST CURVE NOVELTY
Bauana Ball Is Said to be High
est Development Of the
Pitchers Art.
SECRET NOT YET DlvULGED

Have YOU ever heard OF the banana
ball?
No-it's not a speciality of the troupe
or Cuban stars now i'm this country
neither do they peddle this luscious
delivery around loose i'm the big
leagues.
II remained for a minor league light
IN reveal the possibilities of the ba-
mana ball Central league batters
claim IT Is Skin game" but true II
IS that often times they slip up on It,
The box artist with this peculiar de-
livery Is not n son of sunny Italy; he
IS n native OF Langbotton, o.. and
proudlv claims the honor of having
mt that community on the map.
His side handle is "Cy"-Cyrus
clyde to be more proper, and ne saw
service with both the Wheeling and
DAYTON clubs of the Central league
last year.
You've heard of the spit ball, the
"fadeaway" ball and the "knucklc"
ball-all the stock and trade of the
best in the big leagues. but the banana
ball is like unto none Of these.
Llstenl Take these directions down
in your diary. They will enable you
to become an expert with the banana
ball
Before leaving for the ball park
dIl a large sized cigar box with fresh
banana Feelings. Carry them under
your arm-left arm preferred Prepare
TO answer all foolish questions.
Just before going on the mound
remember To rub the cover Of the ball
with the inside of the banana peel
This IS important! 1t will serve to
excite the curiosity of the other play
ers
Then walk into the center OF the
diamond-throw out your chest. just |
like a real pitcher and put on the ne
cessary stuff. That's it-"stuff." Ifl
II doesn't work the first time try II |
again. Your efforts are bound to bear
fruit in tho end.
oh, yes Beg pardon. "Cy" has
a copyright on the necessary stuff"
And he won't tell! He says 1t is the
greatest treatment for the hitting
habit he has ever seen. The batters
say It's great.
The Calumet news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 1907-1938, 1910-04-26
American League,
YESTERDAYS GAMES.
National League.

National League.
grounds.
New York 8; Brooklyn I.
e" york, Apr. 26.-In n game
,"o'ked by exceptionally brilliant field
'"e locals defeated Brooklyn.
Now v R.H. f.
Nv" York 20 o 5000 21s-2 8 I
oOh'yn 30 0 0 0 OO1O-1 I
., Da',erles-Wiltse and Myers; Ruck-
" ana Bergen.
~, Philadelphia S; Boston s.
MO-. "''adeiphia. Pa. Apr. 26.-Tbe game
dor,.s Stopped in the ninth on account Of
phIado,., R.H. r..
'''"1 5000 1910 -5 II .
IN. nr.'eries-Moren. Shelter and Doo-
c, Town Mattern and Graham.
nl,as e'nnati. o.. Apr. 2s.-The local
were wild in the early innings.
Cincinnati R.H.E
pa nou's 20 10000 zoos q
Mora,s.c.r'es-coveleskie. Gaspar shade
nahan. nachman and Bres-