The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-08-01

' \
 IN I 1t be true that every knock Is a HTs<Si boost" then New York city t6&35Si holds more real boosters than
 any other two cities combined During term of residence here that now seems like an average life time, have heard no more complimentary remarks made about people and things elsewhere than 1 could count on my fingers.
 Those who have travelled with their eyes and ears open, and have remained long enough in the various places visited to enable them to learn something of them, are the most generous. But that is not the way the majority of New Workers travel. They go skimming over this and that section of the country taking and displaying more interest in what concerns their comfort than in any interesting in formation they might acquire.
 Good food on a vessel or a Pullman, great speed and bodily comfort; these things make successful trip or voyage to these people but outside of these things nothing seems to interest them. They seem to be thinking. "Oh, well, we've left the only place on earth now, 50
 
 pare to be boredv And feeling that way, they are bored in the majority of in stances.
 When they return they enter the little cell-like places which they grossly fiatter by the name of home" and heave sigh of relief at being back in New York once again. As a matter of fact they have never been out of New York, men, tally.
 Take the actor, for instance, Cnose busl- ness ds it profession really?) gives him the opportunity to see lot of America. He rushes from the train to the hotel, from the hotel to the theatre, thence back to the hotel and to the train again. When he leaves a city he does not know, as a rule, whether 1t is a village or city of several hundred thousand souls-and he doesn't care.
 And then there are two or more mill lions who never travel at all. and to them New York Is the alpha and omega and all that between them is 1t Is their all, the rest being mere hearsay in which they believe about as firmly as they do in wal rumors. It is the old story: There are only two places on earth-New York city and the rest of the world.
 Of course, this attitude Is unjust, but they are not to be held so very culpable after all, since it is the result of ignor- ance rather than of evil intent.
 In the matter of bootsing lvia the nega- tive of the knock) the south seems partic- ularly favored in this section on account of its alleged peculiarities and provincial isms in the matter of language. I have not yet heard a westerner criticised for his way of talking, but hear the south erner get it on all sides.
 Even the New York newspapers in dulge in it. The intervlewers and "col- umnists,' who conduct daily columns of alleged humor continually refer to the southern speech in a tone of ridicule, ap- parently thinking that those to whom they refer are too dense to recognize the fact that they are being laughed at
 In a current issue of local daily I read an interview with a southern author who has unquestionably made good. The inter view was very fattering in spots, but here and there were dashes of ridiculs which were evidently intended for the eyes of the New York readers and which. Il seemed, the interviewer thought the party interviewed would hardly recognize a; such. One sentence was as follows: "Suf flee it to say her voice had pussy wil low gentleness Teferring to the author and total disregard for gs."
 In other papers I have seen articles referring to cultured and well educated sortherrers as persons who say You all' with reference to one person only, ant who never pronounce an IT. Thes things. southerners themselves know, arr not true. The south's gentleness of ton is true enough, and 1t Is also a fact tha we do not finger over and caress and rol that harshest of all consonants, 'r,' bu we do not entirely ignore 1t, while In th' east, or more particularly in New Yorl city. it is used where it has no real place as in saw" which the average Nev Yorker pronounces "sawre."
 No one is free from this New York ridi cule, from the highest to the lowest typ of southerner On the other hand. no on is more careless in speech than the aver age native of this island, of Create New York as a whole They are provn cial to a degree and there has grown III a language that is so peculiar to Nev York city that it is doubtful if 1t coul' be readily understood elsewhere.
 When they would say 'join," it come forth "jern," and 'oil' is "erl," work is 'woiI,' and it would be a genuine sur prise to many to hear many people wh seem otherwise to be of at least aver age intelligence, using the horribl ''youse' for either the singular or plura you"
 No, I am not knocking them; ism "every knock a boost?" Then doesn't 1 follow that these little truths are helpinl this great municipality and the peopl thereof? The south Is careless in 1t speech, but so is the north and the eas and the west. and there is little room fo New York city, with it's own peculiar dia lect. twang and all the rest of it, to SC itself up as a critic of another section.
 At any rate, having, l hope, made thes