The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-03-03
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

pie think it's plebeian to stop and gaze at shop windows?
 Now, this is all wrong. Your true city man or woman knows how to get great enjoyment out of window shopping"
 
 I've heard young couples who lived down in the city boarding houses and apartments say that some nights instead of going to the movies or theatres they have put in several pleasant hours in the shop window district.
 If you haven't acquired the shop win dow habit. get it. I know, from personal experience, that 1t is worth while. have to spend much time out in the sticks. love the simple life. It goes well for awhile But my blood begins to jingle when I see the white lights and begin to glimpse the show windows. I spent year in the mountains of east Tennessee. One day I got hungry for dear old Broadway. I boarded a train, went to New York, started at Central Park, walked to the battery. putting in two days in wondow gazing, and returned home happy and satisfied to work another 12 months with the mountains for con- pany.
 | On my second European tour I spent the first week in Paris just going from window to window. Not for once did I put my foot into a museum. picture gal lery or cathedral until I had asted my eyes on the offerings of the Parisian shops. | Did you ever watch your true Parisian boulevardler how he fits from window to window, sipping the sweets as the honey bee it's wanderings from the | hive? Never hurried, carelessly stroll | ing as if time had been abolished, he fingers here and there while his eyes apprize the beautiful things spread for l his deectation.
 1 For centuries the word artist really carried a definite idea of supremacy in art. Now. it's one of the vagur-t words in the language. It is applied to a Raphael or to sign painter or win dow decorator.
 And yet sign painting and window trim ming have become artistic. To tell the story of pictorial commercial art and the development in window dressing would be to write the history of business. I do not know who was the first man who ever hung out sign to call atten- ton to the virtue of his wares or dressed a window. to attract passersby.
 
 Now, I have no sympathy with those who are crying out against the commer cializing of art If book can be illus trated, why not a bit of merchandise. Take the advertising pages out of the magazines and you would rob them of an attractive feature.
  I remember the time when a merchant who swung a signboard with his name on it across the sidewalk was consid- as devoid of signs as the average church. but as Kipling says: That's another story.'' A display man was unheard of. 
 "John Jones' on sign may give a merchants name, but it leaves too much to the imagination. It gives no idea as to his line of merchandise. John Jones' Groceries" is still vague. John Jones, Fancy Groceries" is a little more defi- mite.
 As the publicity idea grew, men of vision began to make more use of signs. They painted their windows, plastered the walls with them, and hung out signs. Then newspaper advertising came into being. I am a believer in signs, but business man cannot read the signs of the time unless he makes large use of newspapers-the great signboards of community life. Right here in Birming ham are sign artists. If you don't believe it, watch the windows, read the cards in side the stores, study the intricate de- signs, puzzle out the trademarks.
 
 But the geratest strides have been made in electric signs. It's long cry from the first dimly illuminated sign whose light was furnished from a tallow can dle or kerosene lamp to the modern cleo tric blaze of glory which brightens our streets by night.
 I know of no city of its size which equals Birmingham in it's attractive elec- tric signs. Some of the designs are novel, others are beautiful. Electricity has turned night into day.
 Pierre Loti, the great French writer, an authority on the orient, whose tales. re- fleet the glamor of the east, often hav- ing caught the atmosphere of India and witnessed the great Dunbar, with it's gor- geousness and eastern magnificence, made visit to New York and wrote that Broadway, with its electric signs, was the most magnificent and dazzling spectacle he had ever seen. l The enterprise of commercialized Amer ican art had won it's way to the heart of the French artist in words In the last | analysis, what is literary skill but the ability to pick and choose words and | make signs out of them to catch the eye, stir the mind lift up the soul and warm i the heart?
 | The great white ways of our city are but lighted signs to tell the world that the inhabitants believe in light. I'm sorry some of the beautiful posts on prominent