davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

"HE psychologists tell us that
 memory is that faculty of the
 X mind by which we retain the knowledge of former words. events and thoughts Locke calls 1t the power to revive in our minds those ideas, which, after imprinting. have disap- peared, or have as 1t were been laid aside out of sight Such a definition may be cause for discussion, for in truth 1t does not tell us precisely what memory Is, but rather describes what memory does. This is about all, how ever, that anyone can do. One will lay aside Sir William Hami1ton's meta physical discussions with the same con- yiction, namely, that he knows better what memory does than what it is. Is the mind complex and divided off into various faculties that perform certain functions? Or is the mind unit. and. therefore, acting without divisional taculties--the whole mind doing what Is done? Some learned men hold to the first view, others contend for the second. But much abstract argument Is here involved, unsuited for this paper; so I shall dismiss the whole dis cussion and affirm that memory Is what men generally know it to be. That is, the ability to bring out of the past events, forms and faces and 
 ago, and so to attach words and sen tences to our minds that we can recite them from memory" with the same readiness that we could read them from the printed page.
 We all know that memory operates as it is influenced by the law of as- sociation. This law associates a deed 3 song, or a person of the present, with similar ones of the past. There fore, we say. it or he, reminds me of 3 scene or a person I saw 10 years ago, because there is some point of resemblance. A single bar of song heard today may recall a melody that we heard 20 years ago and of which, Indeed, we have not thought for a score of years. It is upon this prin- ciple that all books on the subject of mnemonics, the art of assisting the memory, are written. have taken but little stock in such books, for the rea- direct the thing you would recollect as 1t is to memorize the mnemonic aids My opinion Is that the best and only way to acquire good memory Is to use it, to work 1t for all it is worth In memorizing, first poetry and the,. prose. Practice in this, as in many other things, makes perfect.
 Ruskin began to acquire. his remark able memory by memorizing certain Psalms which his mother insisted he should learn as a little boy. In the fourth chapter of his Modern Painters he pays tribute to the memories of the great artists which one might. wish truth, apply to Ruskin himself
 One of the most wonderful things that memory does is the bringing back
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

ory, the warder of the brain, shall be a fume. Well, 1t will do it. I have a per feet memory, for I never drink nor smoke and yet, memory seems at times to be a being outside of you that plays pranks with you. I was playing in Chicago glorious audience. I took my cue from Miss Gray. and proceeded upon a very long speech. When I got half way through my mind became a blank. I word. I got hot and cold by turns. No one would prompt me. I would have been lost but for one thing I asked, what was that?" My tongue was left to me- and began to talk. I talked nonsense and for quite a time, when, as suddenly as they had left me. my lines came back to me. This is the only experience of the sort I ever had. and I never have been able to account for that one." Dear old Langdon, as true as love and gentle as a woman.
 Samuel Rogers in 17s2 wrote The Pleasures of Memory. He knew some thing of its pleasures in his early manhood. But the fullness of memorys pleasures is reserved for those who have attained the eventide of life. The old live in the past, in the land of by-gone days. They are then young again. Then 1t is, as Goldsmith says, Remembrance wakes with all its busy
 train"
 Former scenes arise, old friends who
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26
TAFT'S. POSITION-By Savoyard

are after him and he is sure to fare like Thurman, so far as Ohio is concerned. just as Taft will fare, this time. like sherman, so far as Ohio is concerned
 There was story that while the repub- lican national convention was in session in 1880 Tom Young. delegate from Ohio and a loyal Sherman ma-, one night burst into the room of Garfield, whom he found in company with another delegate from Ohio, and roared out, Whats this hear, Garfield, that you are to De nominated to- morrow?'' "Nothing in it, governor. noth- ing in it--all idle talk" Young gazed at him a moment and retorted: I'm glad to hear it, but if such report got out about me I'd be a - sight madder about it than you are! Then he turned on his heel, bqlted out, slamming the door. The next day Garfield-Shermans representa- tive--was nominated, though not before the nomination was offered to Conlsing-- Grants representative-who indignantly spurned it.
 His enemies said that Sherman failed of the presidency because he was a 'cold" man; but he had one admirable quality that is wofully lacking in many a warm.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

they fail in the attempt. Ohio is the very place for it. Chase might have been nominated in 1860 if he had been given q solid delegation from his own state of Ohio. At least one of three different times John sherman would have been the nomi- nee If he had been upheld by solid and loyal delegation from Ohio. Hayes had a solid delegation from Ohio, something he would not have had if his candidature had been above the dignity of a dark horse" Mckinley got solid delegation from Ohio in 1894 but ne had to buy 1t with senatorship and he was sure he paid big price for it.. Four years latcr he had no opposition TOT the nomination from any quarter ard thus the republicans of Ohio had no election but to give him what every state gave him. a solid dele gation. 4-4N.. '
 The democrats of Ohio are just as bad If not worse. They were false to Pende- ton, for whom they were instructed sin 1868. They were false 70 Thurman In 1s1e, 1880, and in 1884 But what could be thought of democracy that set up Henry B. Payne, who represented Standard oil and nothing else, over the "Old' Roman ' the grandest democrat Ohio ever pro- duced? And now there is Harmon. They
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

hearted, magnetic fellow-no man ever held John Sherman's unredeemed promise. It is written in Don Quixote that 'tis writ ten: 'Inebriety never keeps secret nor performs promise" sherman was q total abstainer. He was slow, the slow est to promise; hence they called him cold" but once his word was given 1t was always redeemed. Let those who call him cold read his book, written by him self and they will find that he could nate as few men did, or could. It takes a heart of fire to hate as he hated the man who snatched from him the presidency. Taft would get on better if he had a share of Shermans "cuidness."
 Arthur was defeated for the nomination in 1884 by the then best loved leader of his party, MT Blaine who was defeated for election. Where Is there a Blaine to get the nomination from Taft? Roosevelt might succeed in the convention. but he is greatly handicapped by three things-the third term. the defeat that overlook him in 1910, and. if nominated, the Taft ad- ministration would not only be apathetic, but hostile. Had Colonel Roosevelt kept out of the fray when he got back from
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

life in my own way, and would have no truck with His Don't do this' and You mustn't do that and You'll go to Hell if you don't do the other I did without Him all these years, but He caught me out at last. The laugh Is with Him as far as hanging goes.
 ELDER DANIELS-Well, even if you want to be hanged. is that any reason why Strapper shouldn't have his horse? Act like a brother, Blanco. Tell mo what you done with it.
 BLANCO-Never you mind what done with it. l was done out of 1t. Let that be enough for you. It wasn't a man.
 ELDER DANIELS-Then what was 1t?
 BLANCO (pointing upward).-HIM.
 (Those who are interested in the black guard Blanco and are not familiar with the play, will find the conclusion of this paper in these columns on December 5. Tn this last preachment of the British playwright we are given a hint of tho Christian Socialism-the new democracy that makes for remoulding society-a sort of key to the riddle of human living. To you who have been 'shewn up' as well as to you who yet grope blindly. hating fife, hating the scheme of things entire, there will be message from red-crest- ed, dirty, unkempt Blanco Posnet)
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

and it would reguster 40oO killo- watts second.
 Then there air the snobs who hang on to the outer edge of society with there fingernails. By "butten in" they occasionally get bid to sum swell function, and about once yeer, by putting a mortgage on next yeer's incum, they give one like it and in vite hole drove of folks that they don't know and who don't know them and don't want to, and hand the ice pitcher to the peepul in there own class. Its awful hard to be snobs and ride in oughtermobiles on wheel borrow incum.
 In this land of the free and home of the trusts according to the con- stitution, in which no one believes, evvery boddy is as good as enny boddy else, if not better, unless he is
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

B '%5s% :,;s :,; s;;.: ss; ..S promised sketch of the scapegrace Blan- co Posnet Its the worst Shaw has done and I can't blame the Lord Cham nerlain of England for censoring it. For my part, I could more zestfully watch a performance of Ten Nights in Bar room by troupe of fourth-rate players than sit out a production of this raw. crude thing C. B. s. miscalls play. None of Flauberts tales are half so 1lsque, either" he continued. "Gautier' s wallowngs are white as samite in com parison with this devilish thing. It is enough to crimson the cheek of Gabriel d'Annunzio.'
 Elsewhere we have talked of the eter- nal stubbornness in mems natures, and this diatribe of my friend, unalterably fixed in his dislike of Shaw. strengthened me the more in my resolve to talk with you about it. For its effect on the writer was of the intensely gripping sort that the first reading of Kennedy's Servant in the House. yielded him. Surely, l thought then and think now, here is one of the final words for men. Four times in my life I have known this thrill of truth once as lad when Dawson, the
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

Baptist minister at Tuscaloosa, preached (for me expressly, I thoughD a sermon on Love; once when l saw the recon ciliation between two enemies who had iong hated each other; again when I heard a nearly perfect reading of those lines by Servant Manson. which describes the church of humanity; and. finally. the shewing-up of Blanco and the circum- stances that brought it to pass.
 The scene is in western town of the type so well described by Alfred Lewis, where Vigilance Committee watches after the towns welfare. and where the stealing of a horse is the unpardonable crime In the first scene three or four Gossipping women are awaiting with eag- erness the trial of horse thief, Blanco Posnet--a ne'er do well who had but late ly came to the village. While the guest of certain Elder Daniel, Blanco disap- peared in the night. With him also dis appeared a horse which had been loaned by Sheriff Kemp to his brother, Strap per Kemp, who in turn had loaned it to the Elder. None doubted Blancos guilt, though he strenuously denied the theft, and tho trial was to be no more than the assembling of a jury to declare that he must be lynched.
 Lottie, Babsy, Emma and Jessie, frow-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

the arrangement of his hair in a crest on his brow, proclaim the dandy in spite of his disreputableness. He carries his head high and has a fairly resolute mouth, thought the fire of incipient delifium tre- mems is in his eye.
 BABSY (spitting at him as he enters) Horse thief! Horse thief!
 OTHEES-You will hang for it; do you hear? And serve you right. Serve you right. That will teach you. I wouldn't wait to try you. Lynch him straight off, the varmint!
 BLANCO (mocking)-"An ever bright and fair"
 BABSY-You call me an angel and I'll smack your dirty face for you.
 BLANCO-"Take. oh take me to your care"
 EMMAThere won't be any angels where you're going to.
 RLANCO-Do women make the law here, or men? Drive those heifers out
 STRAPPER-If I hadn't promised Elder Daniels here to give him a chance to keep you out of Hell, I'd take the job of twisting your neck off the hands of the Vigilance Committee
 In spite of the unanimous wish of the crowd to hang Posnet up at once, it is reluctantly decided that they must first have witness. This witness Is prom
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

ised by Snapper Kemp, who together with the women and the hangers-on, leave the prisoner alone with Elder Dan- iels. Alone the two men assume quite different air toward each other.
 BLANCO-Well, brother? Well. Boozy Posnet alias Elder Daniels? Well, thief? Well, drunkard?
 ELDER-DANIELS-It no use, Blan- co. They'll never believe we're brothers.
 BLANCO-Never fear Do you sup pose I want to claim you? Do you sup pose I'm proud of you? You're a rotten brother, BooZy Posnet? All you ever did when I owned you was to borrow money from me to get drunk on.
 Blanco, who had been disowned by this now respectable brother, had come to the village to claim a share of what their parents had left them equally. T didn't steal the horse" said Blanco. T dis trained on it for what you owed me. I thought it was yours. I was fool to think you owned anything but other peo- ples property. I asked you for mothers old necklace with the hair locket on it. You wouldn't give me that You wouldn't give me anything. So as you refused to give me my due 1 took it just to give you a lesson.
 ELDER DANIELS-Why didn't you take the necklace if you must steal some-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26
BILL VINES WRITES ON SNOBS

dle of stool at third rate lunch counter eating the ordinery pie of commerce with his nife, and you wun- dered at the time why he didn't get a job as a sword swallerer. You can also remember his wife, who used to go to church with hat on that was the style in the yuthful days of Laury Geen Libby, and the big snobs at church would give her the frozzen fase. Well, aftur while he striges it rich and makes wad, and pays off his crediturs with 13 cents on the plunklet, and bids four story brown stone frunt, with 13 bath rooms in it, when he used to take semmi-munth- ly in a tin basin, and buys him a limmosine with Rushan leather cush- ons and cut glass doo-me-goods, and also 160 h. p. runabout with sy- reen like blast urnace, and he hires a forrain nobleman for a shaffor, and
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

unfortunate enuff to be a millionair, in which case he ought to be in jail, and evvery boddy, including the dog, is better than him, acting on which prinsiple the guvvermint institutes an enquiry as to "how he got it" and if he is not in restraint of trade or sumthing, as soon as he is caught with the goods.
 We have no use in the world for flee-tho' we have freequintly admir- ed his judgmint in the selection of sum of the terrytory on which he poaches-we have always considered him a pirate of low and cunning variety, but when we put him and a snob side by side, his stock goes up in our estimasion until in comparyson we have an affectsion for him bor- dering onto the plumb foolishness. Yours trooly, BILL VINES.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

ful than an ingrowing toe nail, and each yeer brings on new crop. The truble is that snobs air not always born, you can catch it just like you catch the hopping coff or the palagry, and its hard to cure. Enny good, hard working, American citizen is liabul to suddenly develop into a snob, especially if he is unexpectedly elected to an offise, or makes lot of mummy.
 It's hard to fully discribe snob, each one of them is different, only more so. you'll see one for instints who, when he first cum to town it took three munths to get the cuckle burrs out of his hair, and he had to be tied when the first collar was put on him, and he used to run his biz ness in his wife's name to keep the sherriff frum getting his tag, and you can remember seeing him strad-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26
Justice HarIan's Golf
From Tit-Bits.

From Tit-BitS.
 Here is a new golf story about Justice Harlan. He was playing one day with friend who was noted for making long drives. The man found a COW in his paths but, not daunted by the obstacle. drove his ball with great force in the direction he wanted it to so The ball landed in the cows mouth. Straightway the iudgc's friends chased the COW. The start'ea an- imal turned tail and ran, still carrying tho ball Her pursuers began belaboring her with his club as the pair went racing over the links. Finally, the COW, on reaching putting green dropped the ball. It landed in a good position, and the golfer holed out in one stroke. Justice Harlan followed in leisurey fashion and make ie In eight strokes, claiming the hole.
 But I made 1t in two!" exclaimed hio friend.
 Two nothing!'' said the judge. You mean 22. I was watching you, and every time you hit the COW counts a stroke"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

smokes 25 cent seegars, instead of creemows, and trys to forget his grandmother who used to run the laundry. He makes big bluff at digging up fammerly tree and joins all the secret lodges and the clubs and begins to make goo-goo eyes at polyticks. His wife puts on moor dymunds than pawnbroker' daugh- ter at the horse show, and sum classy doings in the way of glad rags, and joins the Colloniel Danes at so much per join, and then you have a pair of first class snobs, but there is no use drawing for you can't fill.
 But evven then they air rank am- maturs, it takes the second gennera- sion to make reel tripple plated, war ranted to ware snobs. The gurls go off to Vasserleen college or sum uth- CT high brow institution of misinfor- masion and there they get the title
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

his name in 1853 for the governorship of Alabama.
 But when the matter was brought with some degree of seriousness to his atten- ton, he frankly declined to be considered for this exalted station, saying that he was engaged in the preparation of an- other work of greater comprehensive ness than that of the History of Alabama, which he indicated as the History of the Southwest Unfortunately. he died be- fore the completion of the proposed work and it was never published. Alabama sustained a great loss when Colonel Pickett died at the early age Of X. Be- sides his history he wrote much for the nress and always with entertainment and profit.
 In 1859 Gen. C. M. Jackson wrote a biographical sketch of Col. Albert J. Pickett, which sketch was embodied in pamphlet form. In one place General
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

bug in there bonnets, and they finally induce Pepper" to take a Uropean trip. Pepper by this time has learned to drink slow gins and shampain, in- stead of draft beer, and can ware a stove pipe hat with his sawed off coat without it falling off. In Rome Mabel meets and takes a "Fawnsy" to Count Valporoso y Spaghette, who ought to be selling pine apples on canal street, who also takes fawnsy to Mabel, aftur he has had report on Peppers assets, and then Pepper, who is the goat, but don's know it, coffs up a million bones to pay the poker debts of the Count, and they give a swell wedding and live happy evver afturwards for three munths, then the Count gives the Countess
 two black eyes, and her Pepper gives her a trip to Reno. About that time you can put the snob meter to 'em
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

ing most plodding one. But in 1851 the author was enabled to issue the two volumes in neat and attractive form.
 So comprehensive was the work, so minute in detail, and so careful were the citations that on its appearance It was greeted with great favor not alone in Alabama, but elsewhere. Had the conditions of authorship been as fa- vorable as they now are the work would doubtless have been more hap oily arranged, but as it Is, it is a monument of labor, skill, industry and fidelity. It was an unusual occurrence that the history should have been fla vorably mentioned in a message to the legislature by Governor Collier and with such favor
 The style of the book Is simple and easy, the statement of fact clear and devoid of ornament or speculation, and
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26
A-ALBERT l. PICKETT-By B. F. Riley

Jackson says of him: He outlived his eI tire family-father, mother, brother and sister--and his offspring now constitutes new generation, without a single liv- ing link to connect 1t with former one. He left a devoted wife. several affectionate children, and many friends to deplore his untimely death: besides the proper appreciation by the public of what may be deemed a great calamity-that of the loss of enc who had so largely contribu- ted to the general welfare. His remains were followed by a large concourse of relative and friends and inferred in the burial ground at the old family resi- dence in Autauga county, which Colonel Pickett had inherited-where are also the graves of father, mother and other members of the family
 uJnselfshly he lived and labored, and peacefully he died-one of the most use- fuI and distinguished citizens of the state.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

thor was able to bring it up to the close of the middle of the nineteenth century. It is unfortunate that this was not done, but he was averse to deal with the political aspects present ed by the different periods of the states history. But in doing that which he accomplished he has furnished a basis for all future historians. That Mir Pickets should have done so much, aud done 4 so well, makes him worthy of the perpetual gratitude of the people of Alabama.
 A gentleman of wide and varied infor
 nation his mind was a compendium of valuable stores of knowledge. He was an animated converser, fluent and enter taining, and a most exemplary citizen. His popularity, greatly enhanced by his valuable history, his universally recog- nized integrity of character. and his un- questioned ability, led to the mention of
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

in connection with the invasion of their primitive domains by the whites The in- vestigation proved fascination and led to his preparation of the History of Ala bama and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi from the earliest period"
 Considering the paucity of material and the difficulty of obtaining 1t, the under taking was a colossal one, but MT. Pick ett gave himself to it with a zeal worthy the enterprise, travelled much, wrote many letters, and spent a large sum of money in the interest of the preparation of the history. For years together, he was patiently and assiduously engaged in the accumulation of data, the sitting of facts, and the preparation of the two vol umes The most painstaking care was exercised with respect to accuracy of statement, and this made the undertake
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26

throughout 1t Is entirely free of bias. The obvious intention of the author was to state fact as he saw it, nor was statement made by him that was not supported by undisputed fact. No book was ever more scrupulously written as is shown by the care with which each statement is made.
 While in the light of subsequent events the unity of the work Is some what impaired and disjointed, still taken altogether, and the conditions attending its preparations, it is mar velous accomplishment. Pickett pro- vided a mine of fact into which all fu- ture historians of Alabama can dig, certainly with respect to the history antedating the occupation of Alabama by the whites.
 The history extends no further than to the period Of the attainment of statehood of Alabama, and yet the au-