davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18

the polytisians and hand part of them a perminint vacasion, but theere is always anuther crop reddy to take theere phases and theere is really nuthing gained by this. to, but he owes it to sum one He ought to take a vacasion and attend Billy Sundays revival or sumthing like that, so that he can summon the fortitude and corrage to get his own consent to be satisfied with 10 per sent less profits. His is gloomy bizness and he ought to be well paid for it, but the high cost of dying is most discorraging, and has the high cost of livving skined block. If he would put them moor on a par, his bizness mite pick up. Few peepul can afford to leash in' theese days, it is too expensive.
 Then everybody gets lot of fun out of vacasion-all during the yeer before va casion time cums they air bizzy figgering out what they air going to do, and in this mannur derive reel pleasure from the meer antissipasion of it. No vacasion cums up to advanse notises; the actuel vacasion it. self always turns out a bittur and ex- pensive "frost.'' You can always get plenty of advise about your vacasion, too; one should not plunge rite in on his vaca- sion without furst consulting his trends about it. Fore millyun peepul will voun- teer to advise you fully what you ought to do. A total strangur will go out of his way and put himself to all sorts of trubble and inconvenience to tell you just exactly
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18
UP AND DOWN BROADWAY--By Allen Griffin Johnson

When in Rome, do as the Romans ? believe, but as matter of modern fact, it is one of the most difficult things to avoid doing. To fall into the habits ways and even thoughts of those among whom we live Is the natural tendency, and it is especially strong when we live among so many as New York city holds.
 To conform to New York's ways, at least in outward seeming, becomes almost necessity as sort of protection from the r.dcule accorded an eccentric. And even therein lies sin unsuspected, for if we conform outwardly alone, are we not already become hypocrites? No, this is not sermon, but merely an effort to show that the life of New York city has an irresistible effect upon all those who come under it's influence, and to do that. one has but to reside upon Manhattan Isle, it matters not whether he make his home in the lower East Side or in one of the costly "morgues" that grace upper Fifth avenue.
 Watch your step" Is what we hear upon our arrival here. It may be interpreted to mean catch step;" and why catch step unless we intend to fall in line and march after the fashion of those among whose ranks we find ourselves? Many of us do this quickly and readily. some of us hesi- tate and hang back, but, soon or late the vast majority of us find ourselves in the column obeying the commands of General Custom and marching to the music he demands
 As we feel ourselves going under the influence of the life of Gotham, we are not unlike the drinker whose still fight ing better Judgment tells him that the next drink will be excess, yet who drinks 1t because of the very insistence of the
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18

nervus system. He sed to cap the climax that 1t was verry dry weethur and he could find no wurms for fish bate; two small boys told hm he would find wurms in plenty in the middle of sertain pasture, and he armed himself with pick and tin can and proceeded to go on the look for sed wurms. He now doubts that theere weer enny wurms theere and suspects deep laid plot to get him into trubble On his way to the habitat of sed wurms, he sed, he met gentulman COW; this COW, he sed, did not impress him favurabully when he furst notised him approaching, still he did not think for momint that he was hostile. He sed that the COW stopped about 40 feet away and maid deep, hoarse obsurvasion of sum kind, and began to paw up the pas ture in hurried and peevish sort of way like he had only few minnits to dig trench for the hole Gurman army This, he sed, rathur startled him, and following the practise of the country ladies wheere he was bording, he addressed the COW, using exactly the same language they had used when they weer milking the feemales of the speesies, he sed, "Sow, SOW, old feler,'' in a soothing and gentul tone. This, he sed, was probabully mistake; the COW seemed to resent it, and let terribull below and charged at him with his he'd lowered and his tail elevated and pointing in the gen. desided that it was time for him to flee, which he did. He maid for tree about hundred yards away, he sed and though
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18

army doctors and still more army doctors At some of the medical schools whole classes were graduated a year in ad- vance, and the young men within a few days of receiving their sheepskins were gazetted lieutenants in the Royal Army Medical corps at $25OO year. Much larger salaries were paid to surgical and sani- tary specialists, and hundreds of men in established practice felt the call of pa trlotism and, placing their practice in the hands of locum tenens, donned the Kings uniform and went to the front This created still further demand for qualified doctors to act as locum tenens and continued to drive up the market against the hospitals What the scarcity of doctors means is shown by the rise in years ago a general practitioner who wanted to take a holiday could obtain substitute for about sl5 a week. After the passage of the insurance act the standard price for a locum tenens rose to S25 week. Today it is difficult to find one at $50 or $60 week, and the price is still rising. This is much truer test of the scarcity of doctors than the experience of the hospitals, for the advantage of hospital experience is still strong at traction to young men who are keen on their work.
 There Is little likelihood that the supply of doctors will be much more plentiful after the war. The mortality among the army doctors has been far heavier in proportion than among the combatant offi- cers, so that we may expect thousands of them to have been killed off or inca pacitated before the war is over. The army will continue to demand a much larger number of doctors than formerly for many years to come. for no one ex- poets that it will return to its old propor- tions for long time. The state insur- ance work will continue to absorb an in- creasing number of young men, so that the plight of the hospitals is likely to be- come more, rather than less. serious
 The only remedy is reform of hos p!tal finance and that is a task pre- septing many difficulties. Practically all the hospitals in London are run purely on charity lines. Only one or two take
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18

paying patients and in these cases the accommodation is so insignificant that 1t Is not worth considering. They are SUD- ported entirely by charity contributions and by endowments. usually the result of charitable bequests It is these endow- ments which form one of the stumbling blocks in the way of reform. In nearly all cases they specify that the hospital is to be for the exclusive use of the sick poor, and number of acts of Parliament would be necessary to set these stipula- tions aside. Any one who knows Eng land knows that to secure the passage of a private" act of this kind Is more diff fioult than to carry the most sweeping general reform.
 Any increase in the income from char ity is most unlikely. The springs of Eng fish charity were partly dried up by the insurance act which enabled wealthy people to salve their conscience with the thought that they were still doing through the taxes what they had been doing before by free will offerings. That feeling still exists and in addition to it there is the far stronger argument that the increased taxation caused by the war will make it necessary for most people to cut down their expenditure. In such cases charity contributions generally go first.
 If the war, even indirectly, brings about a reform of the English hospital system 1t will have worked a great boon to the English middle class and even to the rich. Today the London poor have at their command the services of the greatest doc tors and surgeons in the land. They have institutions which in equipment are second to none in the world. and they have nursing that is equal to any. If the middle class man falls i'll there is no in- stitution to which he. can go. He must be nursed in his own home. which. of course is the last place suitable for a sick man, and he must pay the high fees of the eminent specialists who are called to attend him. Even the rich man is little better off. He may transform his home into a makeshift hospital or he may go to one of the expensive London nursing homes. which are all far behind the charity hospitals in convenience and eQuip- ment
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18
Financial Plight of London Hospitals Increased by the War

hospitals will be retained for the men re- quiring skilled surgical treatment
 The pressing financial problem for the London hospitals has been solved for the time being by the payment made by the war office for the soldiers treated in them, and the assignment, where it Is necessary, of army doctors and surgeons to look after the wounded. When the war is over, however, there can be no doubt that the old problem of making ends meet will return with increased pressure. and at present the hospital managers see no way out of it.
 The fact is that for hospitals, as for every other activity, the cost of living has been steadily rising. Modern science de- mands greater outlay than was thought or when the great London hospitals were established. Great surgeons and doctors, it is true, still give their services for nothing, but the internes must be paid and they are becoming creasingly diffi- cult to get and are demanding more and more pay. A few years ago young doc
 tors who had just qualified competed eagerly for hospital appointments at s25O year and board. They knew that a few years experience at a great hospital was an invaluable asset and in addition to that the s a week was really an object to them while they were looking around and completing their medical education Lloyd-George's insurance act went a long way toward changing all this. It brought homethe fact. partly realized before, that England was terribly ''underdoctored and that, given the ability of the patients to pay, there was work for two or three times as many doctors as were in prac- tice. The insurance act provided the abil- fly to pay, and, the young doctor discov- cred that by merely hanging out his shin gle in working class district and placing his name on the insurance panel, he could jump at once into practice worth $200O or $2500 year. The immediate effect of that was slackening in the competition for appointments as hospital internes and the necessity in some cases for hospital managers to offer higher salaries. better quarters and other inducements, all of which cost money.
 Then came the war. with its demand for
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18

drinks which had preceded it. We accept many things with the mental iteration, "Oh. well, this is New York, and here such things are customary" And so they are so they are-I mean the things that once we would not countenance-but there are those. among us of Manhattans s shores. who have lived to look back upon the old and purer days with a vain long, ing, and have wondered how we could have changed so completely.
 For what is generally meant by "the life of Gotham is not elevating. It in Vltcs always with a smile behind which Turk subtlety and a seductive power. It's chief attractions lie in sin, but often sin so well made up to play the part of virtue, that we are won (and losD before we recognize 1t.
 Ii does not necessarily follow. in &C., cordance with the foregoing views, that to live in New York means the loss of ones eternal soul. But it were wiser for him who thinketh on such things to live in New York without being of New York. This, some accomplish either through strength of will. or as result of a na- ture so constructed that the life" has no appeal to 1t.
 There are homes in New York city with in the walls of which there is an atmos- phere as clean and pure if the homes themselves were surrounded by the sparsely inhabited hills, instead of being situated in what was once the heart of Manhattan. The dwellers therein know Broadway little better than those who live in other cities, They may go to a the atre at rare intervals, but they select plays of high moral tone. and there are no stops between the theatre and home after the performance.
 These, 'tis pity, are in sad minority
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18

they are in New York, but hardly of it. They live lives that are, in sense, se- cluded. But Broadway doesn't seem to care; it has plenty of people to draw from, millions who are here and others who ar- rive daily. General Custom does not lack recruits and he knows the power of en- vironment and association He under stands, as well, that when he cries "Everybody's doing it. many who are not will accept that statement as good and sufficient reason why they should catch step. fall in and march with his column to the tune of This Is the Life"
 No need to worry about hot weather here after next Sunday. The regular pas senger service by hydro-aeroplane between New York city and Albany will be inaugu- rated, and one can then take an evening flight and cool off beautifully for the in significant outlay of Sl5o If an accident should happen there would still be no need to worry. as the hydro-aeroplane will fly directly above the Hudson and the pas sengers would be given merely a cool dip into the waters thereof.
 A great many Manhattanites are great ly worried over possible declaration of war on the part of the United States They have it figured out that the many foreigners living in this city would start in by blowing up everything from a sub way to skyscraper. The Melting Pot' Is hotbed of malcontents, and those anarchistcally inclined, and even persons high in the police service, are of the opn- icn that in the event of a declaration of war it would be the most dangerous little island in the United States to live upon. Buns and bombs. they argue, are often found in close proximity.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18
Everyone Should Take a Vacation

lie was sumwhat stout and unused to sprint ing, he felt rathur proud afturwards of the time he maid. He sed there was no way O. getting the offisial records of the run, bu he believed he redused all preevius time for run for that distanse. He sed h. landed amung the lower boughs of !he tree assisted by the COW, who arrived at the tre about the same time he did. Still he scram pulled up to the top of the tree and sa straddle of a limb, making fases at the COY below, who gave evvery evvidense of lay ing siege that would put to shame the eff forts of the Gurmans at Prezysmle. He see he spent about fore hours up theere in tn hot sun and was beginning to figger tha the remaindur of his vacasion was going t. take phase in that tree, when he succeeded in attracting the attension of sum passin; farmurs. They organized party and cun to his rescue. He sed 1t took 16 deputl sherriffs and the town cumstabul to indus| that COW to depart. He newer in all hi| life saw a moor reluctent COW. This ad venture cured him, he sed, and he cuII home sevven days ahed of time. It is on| of his grate delites, he sed, that yon nevvd| see COW on the streets of Washington.
 Still, so far as I am consumed, l don see how we could possibully get along witt evver, am going to tell the truth about i At the same time will also break rccoro
 Yours troolv,
 BILL VINES. Washington, D. c.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18

Funny thing. human nature. Over on Riverside Drive in these warm days there cooling breezes, a delightful view and surroundings to make life very pleasant, yet many of the handsomest homes on the drive are vacated for the summer. When winter comes. and the breezes from beyond the Hudson are full of pneumonia, agues and chills, these houses will be reopened to receive their owners once again.
 On the other hand, in the poorly venti- lated tenements the families are packed In like sardines.
 If you want to commit social and busi- ness suicide in New York city, just an- nounce to few of your friends that you are without money. You may tell them of almost any other trouble-that you have just beaten your wife, killed an innocent man. robbed a bank-and you will be for given and retained, particularly if you got any money from the bank you robbed, but to be without money is the unpardonable sin here.
 But if you have s1,0OO,0OO keep out of Manhattan. Elsewhere that is enough money to purchase you a good "sociap' standing, but here 1t is merely sufficient to tempt you to try to keep up the gait some of the really wealthy residents are going.
 If any faith is to be put in the state ments of Gothamites generally, then we must admit them the wisest of the wise and certainly the best informed peo- pie on earth. Ninety-nne out of a hun dred of their answers to statements by others begin, .I know, but"
 There is no attraction in the White Light section today more deserving of
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18

Nothing astonished more the members of the Congress of Surgeons of North America held in London last year than this lack of proper hospital accommoda- ton for the middle class and the rich Dr. congress. was quoted at the time as say ing:
 ''The condition that amazes the surgeon of North America is the method of con- duct of the hospitals of London, A group of these great palatial buildings occupy ing the most valuable land in the capital of the world are devoted exclusively to the care of the nonpaying patient, and exclude from the advantages of these equipments the patient of moderate means and render them prohibitive to the pa- tient of wealth.
 The leading surgeons of London spend third of their time and energy caring for individuals presumably unable to pay, under the best possible conditions. and with the most perfect equipment. The same surgeons are obliged to operate on patients of means in private hospitals which cannot afford the equipment of the endowed hospitals or in the homes of the patients with imperfect makeshift ar- engagements.
 Why should a great group of the less fortunate of the population be forced to accept free beds and pauperism when they could well afford to pay the small sum required to cover their hospital fees? Why should the next higher class of in- dividuals be deprived of hospital facili- ties of any kind and why should the wealthy patient be unable to take ad- vantage of a highly developed operating room technique?"
 Dr. Martin then described the Chicago system which Is, of course, the familiar one in all American cities, by which hos pital accommodation in the splendidly equipped public institutions is available for rich and poor alike at prices commen- surate with their means-
 There has been a growing demand among English surgeons themselves for reform of this system for they fully realize that they cannot do their best work under the exfsting conditiong. They also realize, however. that in addition to al tho other obstaclss to be overooma
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18
Dogfish Trained for, War

From the dloDe-DemOcrat.
 New York.-A man who described hi self as Isaac Blake, better known Ike the Inventor" walked into {
 Brooklyn Borough hall yesterday, aft noon and unfolded brand new sche: for protecting American ships from tack by submarines.
 T live down at Hook Creek said Il ''and I own a lot of dogfish, which have tanned and trained. If the gove} ment will hire them will send out pa of my seahounds to escort any Americ' vessel bound for the war zone. When (
 ship reaches there my trained dogfish vj go ahead of her scouting for submarinI Spotting an undersea boat they will co3
 to the surface and bay Justify.
 'The man on the bridge, thus wari1 of danger. will change the course Of ship 90 as to elude the submarine. prevent the submarine from following prey my dogfish will bite and otherws harry 1t until 1t ia driven of. am lc'' ing for somebody in the service of government to whom may properly ss| init this scheme.''
 Ike was advised to co down to the na| yards and ten tt e ~ max1neA
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18

E0EW YORK, July 17.-(Speclal )
 LIN Life in Manhattan has the pow b=,@5S CT not only to present temptation tsSAsn5gI in it's strongest most allurng
 forms, but also to lead men and women into sins, both of commission and omission, while keeping them in ignor- ance of the fact that they are straying from the path of rectitude.
 Is it. after all-here in Manhattan-the ''straight and narrow path which we must adhere to in order to do and be all that our mothers prayed and hoped for us? Here s-n is so progressive, so clever and so bold that it would seem wiser, in some instances, to deviate here and there in order to pass unharmed around the Instructions it places in that path, than to attempt to beat them down and walk over them The brave are often tempted to such conflict only to discover when too late that nature had not equipped them with sufficient strength to insure a Vic tory.
 It is less trite than true that the ma jority of us are creatures of environment few may rise above it through some God-given power, but the great mass of us are it's slaves Certain it is that he who spends his life among the purple hills close to the throbbing heart of na- ture, will never have to answer for the sin of Tango piracy" nor will he ever fill a drunkards grave as result of his in ability to resist the temptations of the Broadway lobster palaces.
 These things are obvious, but can he of the hills come into this great city in his maturer days. spend a few years upon wise old Alba Via, and then return to natures haunts unchanged? I doubt it. if he be not superman.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18

" yeer the tired bizness man; the doc 3s&Ey tur; the lawyer; the guvvermint offisial and polytisan and evven the under takur ought to take themselves away frum the sceens of theere laburs and take va casion. A vacasion Is absolootly necces- sery; the guvvermint has recognized that fact by declaring by statute that guvver- mint employees air entitled to 30 days each yeer, within the discresson of the heds of the departmint, for reckreasion. It is the sollem duty, therefore, according to law, that this be dun The bizness man owes to his customurs, if too nanny of his custu- mers don owe him; the doctur owes it to his pasients; it's trew that sum of them mite fully recuvver in his absense, but with renwed vigger and enterprise aftur his re- turn he can get back on theere pay rolls, particularly if he advises a vacasion for them while he is away. The lawyur owes 1t to his clients; if they air not alreddy in jail the chanses favur them staying out till he gets back enny way, and if they air, he is sure to find them on his return The guy ermint offisial owes it to the peepul; the peepul don't like to see guvvermint of fislals ovverworked, and the guvvermint offisials know this, so they newer under enny circumstances give the peepul ennv cawse for complaint. The polytisians owe if to everybody. The longer vacasion the polytisians take the moor it pleeses the nuhlick; sumtimes the peepul get sorry for