The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-26

A fanfare of trumpets. The portcullis creaks and screams into place. With a thunder of chains the drawbridge set | ties across the moat. AS we look down from the castellated walls whereon is our tower and our feeble lantern flicker ing in the gray dawn of morning, we perceive two knights ride forth. Before them marches q jolly page in green velvet blowing a right hearty blast on his trumpet.
 "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! To the people of this fair land be it made known by the Emerich Lecture bureau of Broad way that these two noble knights the Knight of Red Flag and Sir Clement of Hastings do now ride forth to do battle for sake of truth and righteous ness. Their services are at the disposal of any community whose burgesses have the hardihood to listen to them and the pounds sterling to requite their atten- tion"
 A second look and, yes, the Knight of the Red Flag is seen to bear a plain shield ornamented only by a Mercury rampant and the strange symbols 'H. l.. M." Sir Clement proves to be our old friend Clement Wood. Now that they are actually lecturing, the first season for Mencken we think, we hope to be informed once they make an en- gagement in the South. We want to join in the merry affair.
 A letter from Flora Warren Seymour, clerk for the Bookfellows announces that the Harper prize of $25 for the "best poem about bird or flower" was awarded to Miss Lucille Kendrick of Macon for the poem, "March-Pipes."
 From James T. White and company (New York; we have received a pre- liminary announcement of Virginia Taylor McCormick's new book of verse, Voices of the Wind" The book should be ready for circulation this week. Mrs. Mccormick, who is editor of "The Lyric" as we'll as the president of the Poetry society of Virginia, already has one book of verse to her credit, Star Dust and Gardens."*2
 The Year Book of. the Poetry society of South Carolina offers, in this its fourth appearance, a change in editorial point of view which is significant. Finding that the policy of coddling poetry and the arts generally is hardly so necessary now as four years ago, the editors have decided to give more con- sideration at the harvest" and less to the cultivation of the soil. As result Shis volume includes more and, we be- lieve, better verse than any former issue. The roll call of contributors is too long for publication here, since it contains names from most of the southern states a list impressive even though we realize that scarcely two or three of these writers dare hope for anything like immortality. The volume contains the usual data concerning members, meetings, and activities, as well as infor- nation about various prizes and the years winning poems. All in all it is a really attractive volume both as to con tents and printing. .a%
 In this day of the much-heralded re- naissance of letters, it is not strange to find the town policeman courtlng the muse. We turned not so much as a hair. when we received a copy of the "Meditations" of T. B. Laney of Mon | roe, NC. Lancy meditates upon stills, lodge potentates, meadow mayonnaise," Monroe's Speedway-andv various things. We have room for two stanzas which chronicle the advent of Mrs. Harrel and Mrs. Griffin" we suppose, Monroes shopping district:
 1.-Two ladies from Marshville blew in one day, -" They were the best of folks, the people say,
 Dressed tidy. and neat, their garments
 fitting right, They were queens of taste-they drove
 a Willys-Knight.
 "Their husbands are jolly good fellows, 1 you bet
 Both are still living and doing well yet, How can they help it with helpmates
 like these,
 They complete housework before taking
 a breeze.
 In "Walker of the Secret Service | (Appleton) Melville Davison Post carries on the high detective story art which has distinguished his Monsieur Jonquelle," Uncle Abner" and the earlier books. The volume is a series of episodes, related and unrelated, each distinct in itself. Walker is shown first as a willing, but almost unwitting member of a gang of train robbers; the latter incidents trace his work as chief used to quaff off gallons O foamy mead in two handled skull-flaggons? Re | member how they used to hubble the