davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
Thieves Following Circus

ut is but natural that petty thieves
-pickpockets and such-accompany
large circuses, for they find their best
picl<ings in the crowds that come to
town to see the show, but it is said
that a very bold class of crooks who
ply their profession are known to be
| with the big circuses this season." said
sissippi.
81 have just been reading the Yazoo
Sentinel of last Thursday. 1t contains
an account OF rich haul made by bur
glars during the parade of the Hack
enback Wallace show in Yazoo City.
The thieves entered the residence of
Mr.. J. f. Gardner and stole property
valued at about $500. The loot consist
ed largely of diamonds belonging to
Mrs. Gardner. Thieves entered the
houses of many other citizens and were
successful in carrying off valuables
and some cash. 1t is said that in
Greenwood, Canton and other towns in
Mississippi visited by the circus rob-
berries were numerous.
when the circuses come to Birming
ham in the near future, Chife Bodeker
will have his best men on the lookout
for thieves, but 1t would be well for
householders to leave some one at home
on circus days. Burglars would ask
nothing better than to have a house
locked UP with no one in it,"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
Taxing "L6aded Candies"

United States Commissioner of In
ternal Revenue Osborne has put the
ban upon the "booze" bonbon. He
announces that in future "loaded" con-
fections, such as rum balls, brandy
balls and mint lozenges, which are
followed candies filled with spirits,
will be subject to the special tax ap-
plying to rectifiers of liquor and to
retail liquor dealers.
Many males addicted to sweets will
protest-despite the fact that it is Of
Ten humiliating to confess ignorance
that they did not know that such con-
fections as above described existed.
Yet they must be disposed of in fairly
large quantities, as is shown by the
order issued by the commissioner of
internal revenue.
There is no reason why 'loaded
sandies" should be exempt from the
esxation imposed upon vendors Of IL
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
A RUNAWAY LOCOMOTIVE

| thing had to be done in the dark. Di-
rectly they sighted the engine looming
vaguely through the gloom the hand car
was quickly thrown from the rails, and
had hardly reached the ground when the
runaway was upon them. Dashng along
side, Mr. Allen made a snatch at what he
took, in the darkness, to be the grab iron
on the back of the tender. 1t was then
discovered, however, that the engine was
hacking up"--running tender first. What
Allen took for hand hold proved to be
a loose hose lying on the woodwork sur
rounding the tank platform, and this hose
gave way, throwing Mr.. Allen just outside
the rails, the massive wheels barely miss
Ing him as the tendesr thundered on.
Realizing that the lives of those on the
freight train, now drawing near, were al
stake, and regardless of the risk to him-
self, Allen recovered his balanAe and
caught the pilot as it passed him. Run
ming like monkey along the footboard
OF the swaying engine, he reached the
throttle, shut off steam, reversed the en-
gine, and started 1t back north ahead Of
the freight train. the engineer of which
had In the meantime noticed the signal
board and had begun to slow down. But
for the timely stopping of the wild en-
gine, however. nothing could have pre-
vented a disastrous collision, which would.
no doubt have cost the engineer and fire.
man of the freight train their lives. If not
those of the whole train. crew, in addi.
ton to several thousand dollars worth of
property.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
New Form of Rlackmail

The art of blackmail has progressed
with the advance of medicine. A Chi
cago dispatch tells of an attempt at
extortion that is unique so far as
known. All are familiar with the
methods of Catherine de Medici, and
the name of Lucretia Borgia is very
we'll known. But these historic per-
sorages poisoned to rid themselves OF
their enemies or just to try out a new
way of producing death at long dis
tance.
Mrs. Frederick A Steele, wealthy
resident of Chicago, received letter
which she opened and read. The let
ter warned her that it contained
2,000,0 900 malignant bacilli with which
she would be infected by opening it,
and demanded money for supply OF
the only serum which could cure her
of the disease she would contract in
this dlabollcal way.
1t was not a hoax. Government
chemists haye examined the letter and
found that it really does swarm with
germs, but they so far have been un-
able. to tell the nature of the malady
they might produce.
Every effort will be made to bring
to Justice the originators of this hor-
rible form of blackmail, and all will
hope that the guilty persons will be
caught and punished. 1t is a grew
some story and it is read with shud-
der
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
BIG LEAD IN COOSA

From the Montgomery Advertiser. -
A leading citizen of Coosa county, writ
ing The Advertiser. says that after a
careful canvass OF many voters he is alb
solutely confident that Oscra Underwood
will carry that county by a vote of at
least two to one. Writing The Adver-
tiser, he says:
Il have taken some pains to sound the
relative strength of the two candidates
for United States senator in Coosa county.
have canvassed a large number of our
voters, so that / would be able to know
and not guess their sentiments. If the
vote were held held tomorrow Underwood
would get at least two to one. FIobsor' S
wild and undignified attacks upon peo-
pie who have dared to oppose him
have lost him many supporters, since
the race started. Perhaps nothing has
driven away from him so many of his
former supporters as his uIwarranted ef-
fort to get Underwood in false position.
Our people resent mud Singing which
has featured Hobsons campaign. Put
Coosa county down as being safely for
Underwood by a large majority"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
IN HOTEL LOBBIES
of Nationwide Interest

Not in a long time has any sena-
torial contest been of such nation
wide interest as that in Alabama,
where the great democratic leader in
Congress, Oscar Underwood is cam
didate for the United states Senate
with Congressman Hobson as his op-
ponent.f' said William NJ. Tarlton of
Philadelphia.
Those of us who vote the democratic
ticket think that Mr.. Underwood should
receive landslide majority. He is one
of the greatest democratic statesmen
that this country has ever produced,
and in recent years few indeed have
measured up to him. Mr.. Underwood
has unquestionably added 1ustre to the
democracy of the whole country. 1t
would be almost unthinkable that any
body in Alabama could beat him"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
SENATE PLAYING WITH FIRE
By BILL VINES

he wouldn't know snational reserve
from a Mexican insurgent.
What he wants to know is what makes
our currency so scarce when he most
needs it. lie also knows that the people
who have the most money are not very
actively engaged in advocating any prin-
ciples or measures that would tend to
loosen their grip on the control of our cir
culating medium, from which they are
constantly reaping great returns. Wild en-
'thusiasm by the big financial interests for
certain currency reforms strikes the ulti-
mate consumer as a rather suspiciouv
circumstance, and he Immediately grow
cold and unresponsive. The less joy Ell
pressed by the bankers convention, ami
the associated orders of predatory
wealth, over the possible enactment oil
the administration currency bill, the morel
firmly convinced is he that the admins
tration is his friend, and is about to slip
one over on the interests that will give
the struggling masses the chance which
they think is coming to them.
However, no one should be deceived. IL
the President succeeds in getting through
HIS CuIftHty Dlli lllt dNtid5c ohc-uoildi
William will be just as foxy as ever
and just as hard to run into a corner
and stand still while you tag it. 1t is GO
ing to take just as hard work as 1t ever
took to first accumulate and then domes-
lticate and hold in captivity bank ball
ance on the right side The only diff
ference that 1t will make is that when
you have something that stands for money
you will have wider field in which to
try to obtain it.
IN the meantime the Senate banking and
currency committee is playing with fire
also the business end of the big stick
when they are annoying the country and
peeving the President with their Irritation
with the situation. The people are be-
hind the President, and the people will
have the say In the selection of the per-
sonnel of the next banking and currency
committee. and they might forget to name
some of the present members The peo-
pie have a habit of remembering these
little annoying things and when they do
their disapproval is often emphaticaly
expressed in the returns from the rural
districts.
Trot out the currency BILL Messrs. Bank
ing and Currency Committee, and let's
have done with 1t. The country is get
ting tired of pretense
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
City Government

The Saturday Evening Post remarks
editorially that hardly anybody knows
anything worth mentioning about the
government of a big city, yet nearly
everybody feels in duty bound to hold
an opinion on the subject. The Post
goes on to say:
| Ask an intelligent New Yorker about
the present administration. Excel
lent he will tell you, lone of the best
we ever had" Ask another intelligent
New Yorker the same question and he
replies: "Rotten-perfectly rottenl" The
first man meaps that he admires the
late mayors epistolary style, or that
the newspaper he habitually reads was
a Gaynor partisan. The second man
means that dissolute women, being
driven from Broadway. invade the dis
| trict where he lives; or he has the
Lieutenant Becker episode in mind Ask
both for balance sheet showing ap-
proximately the money spent and the
results obtained, as compared with any
other administration and neither can
answer.
| A city government is judged largely
iby more or less accidental relations to
vice. II there happens to be a scanda-
lous exposure it is condemned. II there
does not happen to be an exposure il
passes muster with many voters-and
an Investigation years afterward may
show that all the time it was squander-
ing money. skimping construction, stuff
tng payrolls, and so on. There is-real-
ly little intelligent criticism of city
government that reaches the public To
fool people about an administration is
shockingly easy.
A good deal that is true and just is
contained in the above. The public
likes the glaring, the bizarre, much
better than it likes the solid and the
sombre. The people now, however,
are more than ever taking an active
and intelligent interest in government.
They are getting so they want to see
the books.
This disposition is largely respon-
sible for the growth in the number of
cities governed by commissions. The
concentration of authority enables the
citizen to find information when he
goes out to look for it. There is no
longer the proneness to equivocate; it
is not longer possible to hide behind
aldermanic committees. If the desired
figures are not available, the respon-
sibility for such condition is very
easily placed.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
From the New York sun,

From the New York SUM
INK Africa semper aliquid novum"
(from Africa there always comes
- something new was popular say
ing in Rome 2000 years ago which IL
equally apt today. The dark continent has
been traversed in so many directions dur
ing the last so years, has been visited by
so many exploring expeditions that people
We're tempted to believe that all it's mys-
teries had long been exhausted. Yet
barely a decade has elapsed since the dis
covry Of the akapi, a creature partaking
both of the giraffe and of the zebra, the
existence of which had until that time
been wholly unknown to the biologists of
the civilized world. Nature may have
other revelations of the same character
still in store for us in the remote regions
OF Central Africa.
Only within the last quarter of a CEN
tury has it been ascertained that the
pygmy tribes of the darkest recesses of
Congo valley forests, vaguely referred to
by Herodotus 400 years prior to the Chris
tian era. are not mere myths. Stories of
purely native origin insist that there are
IN tile mountain 1aStnesseS OF equatorial
Africa races of white skinned, blond hair
blue eyed men and women entirely cut
off since time immemorial from any con-
tact with the outer world-stories used as
themes for romance by Sir Rider Hag-
gard and other novelists. And now comes
Maj. C. Percival, an officer of the Brit
ish army, who in a most interesting ar
ticle in the Geographical Journal for Sep
tember discusses, on the strength of the
experience which he acquired while re-
Gently employed by the governor general
of the Sudan, the native stories, accord
ing to which there are in the Mungaiyat
hills of the Bahr-el- l-Ghazal and also in
the French spheres of Central Africa en-
tire systems of temples hidden away in
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
Change md Progress

ut, does not take much of q prophet
to visualize the great change that will
take place in downtown Birmingham
within the next four or five years., said
an old citizen. Hundreds of boarding
houses will be turned into business prop
erty. The greatest change and progress
I In the near future will be on Fifth ave-
nue.. Within the past two or three years
this popular thoroughfare has been in a
state of transition.
'At Fifth avenue and Twentieth street
we find a scene of great hustle. The
magnificent Tutwiler hotel, which has
been in the course of construction for
a year or more, will be completed next
spring or early summer. Opposite the
Tutwiler the Hotel Motion, very i'm
posing building, is being hurried to COM
pletion. Across Twentieth street at the
northwest corner of Fifth avenue the
Southern club is being enlarged and inn
proved every day. 1t is probable that
within the coming year ground will be
broken for the new postoffice to occupy
an area fronting 400 feet on Fifth ave-
hue between Eighteenth and Nineteenth
streets and extending back 1870 feet to
the alley The site has cost the govern
ment nearly 100000 and the edifice will
cost about $1,OOOOOo before it is ready
for use.
There are already several business
houses on Fifth avenue. After the two
new hotels are opened-the Tutwiler and
the Molton-mercantile buildings will
spring up fast, and before the end OF
the present decade Fifth avenue will be
a distinctly fashionable shopping street.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
TEMPLES OF AFRICA

the caves of those regions that equal, il
they do not exceed in splendor, those al
ready discovered in Egypt.
There is no record of these caves having
ever been visited by any white man. They
have never been explored by any Eu-
ropean or American, yet every African
traveller has heard of their existence.
Gustav Nachtigal Schweinfurth and
others who have penetrated in Bornu,
Wadi. the furthest confines of Darfur, and
Bahr-el-Ghazal, refer to them as inn
pregnable strongholds of native rulers, re-
treats to which access is kept as far as
possible secret. One in particular, heard
of both by Major Percival, and three de-
cades previously by the German explorer.
Nachtigal, near Ndele, now within the
limits of the French sphere, has been re-
ferred to by them as the headquarters OF
the grand master of the great militant
Moslem Order of the Senussi.
They were informed that the cavern
was more than mile long. traversed by
subterranean river bordered with rushes.
But they were never permitted to pene-
trate these mountain businesses or to APP
proach even within miles thereof. Hence
the civilized world is wholly dependent
upon native sources for information scon-
cerning them, and If the caves in ques-
tion are used as fortresses today by those
dusky races which have been combating
with the utmost tenacity the advance OF
the white man, with Christianity and
western civilization in his train, there is
no reason why they should not have in
ancient times been likewise arranged for
worship, aid for the celebration of the
rites of those wonderful religions of
thousands of years ago, to which the
world is indebted for such noble ruins as
those at Memphis, at Philae, at Thebes
and elsewhere along the valley of the
Nile.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
WIN Have presiding bishop

81 am glad the Protestant Episcopal
general convention did not change the
name of the church, although judging
fromNt growth of the high-church par
ty, some of the younger generation may
live to see those favoring ,the change
on the winning side, said an old lay
man.
lone of the changes which the gen.
eral convention agreed to will, l be-
lieve, meet with much approval namely,
the election of presiding bishop after
the death or resignation of Bishop Tut
tie of Missouri, the greatly esteemed
senior bishop.
"Up to this time the ranking bishop
In the case of Bishop Tuttle marked
efficiency has been in evidence but ii
can be readily seen that having the
senior bishop as the presiding bishop
cannot be expected, as a rule, to fiji
into the place as well as one especially
selected would do. Senior bishops are
usually very old men. 1t will be better
Ito have a man presiding over the
church in the prime of life. or, at least
under 20 years of age.
Some years ago there was a disposi-
tion among churchmen to divide the
country into provinces with an arch
bishop at the head of each province
just as we find in the Church of Eng
land and in the Catholic churches ali
over the world. The first elected pre-.
siding bishop may, in the course Of
events, become an archbishop or pri-
mate. I have never called myself q
high churchman, but I am rather In.
clined ito favor q system of provinces
1t seems to me that this would work
well. Each archbishop would have q
provisional synod or council from time
to time. and In the general convention
reports on the state Of the church could
be easily digested and complied"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
WE CAN'T FOLLOW THIS

| From the Anniston Star and Hot Blast.
The Star and Hot Blast yesterday pub.
lished letters from Brooks Lawrence, su.
perintendent of the Alabama Anti-Saloor
league, and Congressman Oscar W. I'm
derwood bearing on the question of pro.
hibition, together with news comments
to the effect that the Anti-Saloon league
VIII, In all probability, throw its influence
behind Mr. Hobson and make an aggres.
slve fight upop the House leader who has
declined to commit himself to the question
OF national prohibition, or a law which
would have that as its aim.
This paper believes that national pro.
hibition is an eventuality, and there is nc
man who will deny that we have favored
and fought consistently for the principle
of prohibition; but we deprecate the effort
to bring about a strict prohibition and
anti-prohibition alignment in the sena.
torial election at present.
We believe that Congressman Hobson's
educational campaign in the interest OF
abstinence is one of his greatest services
to his country but we do not believe that
the time is ripe for national prohibition
and for this reason we cannot follow the
prohibition leaders If it is their intention
to inject the prohibition issue into the
present campaign.
The cause of prohibition is growing In
Alabama, and we rejoice in it. The sa-
loonists are going to hang themselves
with the very rope by which they have
tried to bring about their salvation; but
we believe that the best policy of prohi-
bitionists at present is to conduct a CAM
paign of education in Alabama, and let
prohibition as an issue rest with the sew
eral counties. To this end we are firmly
committed to the keeping of Calhoun
county In the dry column.
II prohibition is injected into the sena-
torfal race at present. it may become
an issue in the gubernatorial race, This
would bring UP the ghost of the amend
ment election and engulf us in another
campaign of bitterness vituperation and
general Generalization, with the result
that prohibition will receive a backset in
stead of a boost.
Education and reason are the great
forces of this age, and these forces would
be defeated by a bitter fight over the
question of liquor as a state issue when
the issue does not rightfully exist.
In fine, every tendency of the political
situation in Alabama at present goes to
reinforce the plea which this paper has
made for an early primary. We are hav-
Ing too much politics. and the best inter-
ests of the state demand that we have an
immediate relief from agitation to prevent
hn iptc -
as the campaign progresses in the direc-
ton 1t has taken
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
TO MY WIFE

BY William Rose Benet.
Braver than sea going ships with the
dawn In their sails,
Than the wind before dawn more beo,;n~
and fragrant and free.
Fairer than sight of a city all white
from the mountain top viewed in the
Wales, 80
Or the silver bright flakes of the moon
light In lakes, when the moon rides
the clouds and the forest awal<es
You are to me!
For you are to me what the bowstrlne Ia
to the shaft,
speeding my purpose aloft and afiame ana
afar.
through the thick of the fight In your
eyes steady light my soul hath seen
splendor and laughed,
NOW, however, I tend 'twixt foemafl, and
friend. through the riddle of Life to
deaths light at tho end.
ride for y1pur stRri
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
Roses Are beautiful Vow

''The roses are blooming again." said
a lover of the beautiful,s "and they are
unusually fine. The Killarneys. pink
and white are the popular roses just
now and well they maybe for in firm
coloring and wearing qualities they arc
unexcelled for they keep their form.
The chrysanthemums are coming In
and they will be in perfection by No
vember l. You know, they are the
THANKSGIVING flower for then they are
in all the perfection of size and color.
They are unusually fine this year,
thanks to a fine propagating season
and a good fall for maturing"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-27
Go to the Polls

|. 1t is the duty of all good citizens
to go to the polls and vote for the
auditorium bond issue. 1t is pre-
sumed, of course, that the bond propo-
sition will carry. This was indicated
when the people by an overwhelming
majority asked that they be given the
opportunity to vote on the subject.
But this presumption does not re-
lease any citizen from his obligation
to vote. Make it as near unanimous
as possible. If there remain any op-
favor it owe it to yourselves and your
they will go to the polls. You who
favor it owe tito yourselves and your
city likewise to be represented.
If you are your own boss, you can
take time to go to your polling place.
If somebody else is your boss, he will
think more of your civic pride and
patriotism if you ask time to cast your
ballot. If he objects, you at least have
learned something about him that you
didn't suspect before, and that in it
self may prove to be beneficial.
Birmingham spirit has never risen
so high before. Do your duty!s Keep
it rising. Vote for the bonds.