The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-02
PURSELL' DEATH
 RECALLS STORIES Interesting Tales About the Washington Monument DECAY WAS RUMORED Charlie Street Caught Ball Thrown From Top and Cat Was Once
 Dropped to Test Nine Lives
 Saw-It Died
DECAY WAS RUMORED
By RoDERIcK CLIFFORD

Washington, June 1-(SpeciaI) )-When Thomas s. Purcell, the builder of the Washington Monument, 555 foot obelisk which dominates the buildings at the capital, died few days ago the renin- iscences which cling about the marble shaft were recalled to mind. Purcell was part of his life in experimenting the building of stone edifces.
 Every year or two the monument does something to draw attention to it. For instance. freak story was circulated about the shaft a year ago to the effect that it's material was rotting. This libel gained the most extensive credence. Stories were printed by practically every newspaper in the country and photo graphs of decaying blocks were shown. It was claimed by some geologist that the poor quality of material with which the walls of the monument are filled was going to bring about the destruction of the building. He claimed that this filler was rotting and causing the decay of the outer walls. He went so far as to point out the decayed places. There was a vast deal of newspaper talk about tho matter. but after a while the story was forgotten, laid on the shelf with all the other freak tales. The monument still stands.
 Then when Charlie Street, a baseball player, wanted to prove how clever he was at catching the emblem of his pro- fession he picked out the Washington Monument as the. proper structure to im- mortalize his achievement. Street sent a confederate to the top of the monument and had him toss baseball out one of the windows, 800 feet in the air. He caught the ball and the old monument again enjoyed a short season of publicity.
 At a still remoter period somebody chose the Washington Monument as the g only proper medium to test the truth of the saying that a cat has nine lives. A feline in the prime of life was selected for the test taken to the top of the shaft and dropped from one of the win dows. The cat followed the lines of the structure all the way to the ground. On alighting it got to its feet, walked a few steps and laid down and expired It's back was broken.
 These are instances of what sort of an- ecdote the Washington Monument is pill ing up as adjuncts to the story of It's life and there are older stories which arc nearly ancient enough to be labelled legends.
 The obelisk itself was built in two sec 
 part and then ran out of funds. Work stopped for a long time and then the gov ernment appropriated money for the com pletion of the shaft. From the Inside may be seen blocks of all shapes and sizes bearing inscriptions In all languages, the gifts of foreign nations. organizations and individuals.
 One of these, about which clings an in teresting tale, was donated by the Pope tof Rome and later lost. This was a tre- mendous block, weighing a ton or more, which was to have been inserted in a very prominent place. The stone was de- livered to the monument base and re- posed there for some time. What be- came of 1t is a mystery. The pope sent no other block.
 So the wealth of legend, late and anec- dotes about the Washington Monument increases, and probably will increase so long as the shaft stands.