ote further that the
commission by which it is governed had as one of its five members, when
we were there, a Socialist.

Another curious and individual touch is contributed by the soda-fountain
lunch rooms which abound in the city, and which, I judge, arrived with
the disappearance of barroom lunch counters. In connection with many of
the downtown soda fountains there are cooking arrangements, and business
lunches are served.

The roads leading out of the city in various directions have many
dangerous grade crossings, and accidents must be of common occurrence.
At all events, I have never known a city in which cemeteries and
undertaking establishments were so widely advertised. In the street
cars, for instance, I observed the cheerful placards of one Wallace
Johns, undertaker, who promises "all the attention you would expect from
a friend," and I was informed that Mr. Johns possesses business cards
(for restricted use only) bearing the gay legend: "I'll get you yet!"

As to schools the city is well off. Dr. J.H. Phillips, superintendent of
public schools, has occupied his post probably as long as any school
superintendent in the country. He organized the city school system in
1883, beginning with seven teachers, as against 750 now employed. The
colored schools are reported to be better than in most southern cities.

Of the general status of the negro in Birmingham I cannot speak with
authority. As in Atlanta, negroes are sometimes required to use separate
elevators in office buildings, and, as everywhere south of Washington,
the Birmingham street cars give one end to whites and the other to
negroes. But whereas negroes use the back of the car in Atlanta, they
use the front in Birmingham. It was attempted, at one time, to reverse
this order, for reasons having to do with draft and ventilation, but the
people of Birmingham had become accustomed to the existing arrangement
and objected to the change. "After all," one gentleman said to me, in
speaking of this matter, "it is not important which end of the car is
given to the nigger. The main point is that he must sit where he is
told."

The means by which the negro vote is eliminated in various Southern
States are generally similar, though Alabama has, perhaps, been more
thorough in the matter than some other States. The importance of this
issue to the southern white man is very great, for if all negroes were
allowed to vote the control of certain States would be in ne