The chief establishment is the savings bank building, a squat, six-story erection in red brick. It is flanked by places of amusement, but in itself it is an ark of professionalism and learning. It is a hive of many cells or cabinets, and every cabinet has its special occupant, a doctor here, a dentist there, a lawyer in the other, another doctor, a professor, an agent, and so on. You may meet nearly all who count in Birmingham Negrodom here. By the way, the local way of pronouncing the name of the city is Bumming Ham; if you say politely, Birmingham, pronouncing with lips and teeth in the front part of the mouth, no one will understand what you mean. A Negro pastor whirled me round to the hub of Bumming Ham in his brand-new car. He had lately had a very successful revival, of which the motor was an outward and visible sign. And I called on many of the notables. I met a short, scrubby Negro of fifty, whose complexion seemed to have been drenched in yellowness. He explained this by the statement that the blood of Senator H—— flowed in his veins. The senator had taken a liberty with his mother, who for her part was thoroughly black. He thanked the senator, since probably he had given him some brains; his mother’s side of the family was unusually hard-headed. He had become a professor. His daughter was a remarkable public speaker, and as Senator H—— was an orator, he used to tell his Sarah that _there_ was Senator H—— coming out in her. “The Negro has been mixed with the best blood in the South,” said he; “the blood of the masters, the English aristocrats who came first to the country.” I did not think there was much in that. “Are mulattoes increasing or decreasing in numbers?” I asked. He thought they were increasing. But he did not deny the fact that Negro children tend to revert to type. When two mulattoes marry, the children are generally darker than the parents, and often real Negro types. The white man’s strain is thrown out rapidly. “How, then, is it that mulattoes and near Whites are on the increase?” The professor thought for one reason there was still much illegitimacy, and for another the Negro race under civilized conditions was getting a little fairer on the whole. Some of the mulatto women were extremely beautiful, and consequently more attractive to white men. The white women of the South hated the mulatto women because they took their husbands away from them. He thought a good deal of race hatred was fostered by the white woman, who instinctively hated the other race. “Did you ever hear of a union between a Negro woman and a white man that was on other than an animal plane?” I asked him.