Of course it is a great deal--a very great deal--better than our English
one, but that, after all, is not saying much in its praise. Then we must
remember that in England we have the fear and dread of the climate ever
before our eyes, and consequently are always, so to speak, on our guard
against it. Here, and in other places where civilization is in its
infancy, we are at the mercy of dust and sun, wind and rain, and all the
eccentric elements which go to make up weather. Consequently, when the
balance of comfort and convenience has to be struck, it is surprising
how small an advantage a really better climate gives when you take away
watering-carts and shady streets for hot weather, and sheltered
railway-stations and hansom cabs for wet weather, and roads and servants
and civility and general convenience everywhere. This particular climate
is both depressing and trying in spite of the sunny skies we are ever
boasting about, because it has a strong tinge of the tropical element in
it; and yet people live in much the same kind of houses (only that they
are very small), and wear much the same sort of clothes (only that they
are very ugly), and lead much the same sort of lives (only that it is a
thousand times duller than the dullest country village), as they do in
England. Some small concession is made to the thermometer in the matter
of puggeries and matted floors, but even then carpets are used wherever
it is practicable, because this matting never looks clean and nice after
the first week it is put down. All the houses are built on the ground
floor, with the utmost economy of building material and labor, and
consequently there are no passages: every room is, in fact, a passage
and leads to its neighbor. So the perpetually dirty bare feet, or, still
worse, boots fresh from the mud or dust of the streets, soon wear out
the matting. Few houses are at all prettily decorated or furnished,
partly from the difficulty of procuring anything pretty here, the cost
and risk of its carriage up from D'Urban if you send to England for it,
and partly from the want of servants accustomed to anything but the
roughest and coarsest articles of household use. A lady soon begins to
take her drawing-room ornaments _en guignon_ if she has to dust them
herself every day in a very dusty climate. I speak feelingly and with
authority, for that is my case at this moment, and applies to every
other part of the house as well.
I must say I like Kafir servants in some respects. They require, I
acknowledge, constant supervision; they require to be told to do the
same thing over and over again every day; and, what is more, besides
telling, you have to stand by and see that they do the thing. They are
also very slow. But still, with all these disadvantages, they are far
better than the generality of European servants out here, who make their
luckless employers' lives a burden to them by reason of their tempers
and caprices. It is much better, I am convinced, to face the evil boldly
and to make up one's mind to have none but Kafir servants. Of course one
immediately turns into a sort of overseer and upper servant one's self;
but at all events you feel master or mistress of your own house, and you
have faithful and good-tempered domestics, who do their best, however
awkwardly, to please you. Where there are children, then indeed a good
English nurse is a great boon; and in this one respect I am fortunate.
Kafirs are also much easier to manage when the orders come direct from
the master or mistress, and they work far more willingly for them than
for white servants. Tom, the nurse-boy, confided to me yesterday that he
hoped to stop in my employment for forty moons. After that space of time
he considered that he should be in a position to buy plenty of wives,
who would work for him and support him for the rest of his life. But
how Tom or Jack, or any of the boys in fact, are to save money I know
not, for every shilling of their wages, except a small margin for coarse
snuff, goes to their parents, who fleece them without mercy. If they are
fined for breakages or misconduct (the only punishment a Kafir cares
for), they have to account for the deficient money to the stern parents;
and both Tom and Jack went through a most graphic pantomime with a stick
of the consequences to themselves, adding that their father said both
the beating from him and the fine from us served them right for their
carelessness. It seemed so hard they should suffer both ways, and they
were so good-tempered and uncomplaining about it, that I fear I shall
find it very difficult to stop any threepenny pieces out of their wages
in future. A Kafir servant usually gets one pound a month, his clothes
and food. The former consists of a shirt and short trousers of coarse
check cotton, a soldier's old great-coat for winter, and plenty of
mealy-meal for "scoff." If he is a good servant and worth making
comfortable, you give him a trifle every week to buy meat. Kafirs are
very fond of going to their kraals, and you have to make them sign an
agreement to remain with you so many months, generally six. By the time
you have just taught them, with infinite pains and trouble, how to do
their work, they depart, and you have to begin it all over again.
I frequently see the chiefs or indunas of chiefs passing here on their
way to some kraals which lie just over the hills. These kraals consist
of half a dozen or more large huts, exactly like so many huge beehives,
on the slope of a hill. There is a rude attempt at sod-fencing round
them; a few head of cattle graze in the neighborhood; lower down, the
hillside is roughly scratched by the women with crooked hoes to form a
mealy-ground. (Cows and mealies are all they require except snuff or
tobacco, which they smoke out of a cow's horn.) They seem a very gay and
cheerful people, to judge by the laughter and jests I hear from the
groups returning to these kraals every day by the road just outside our
fence. Sometimes one of the party carries an umbrella; and I assure you
the effect of a tall, stalwart Kafir, clad either in nothing at all or
else in a sack, carefully guarding his bare head with a tattered Gamp,
is very ridiculous. Often some one walks along playing upon a rude pipe,
whilst the others jog before and after him, laughing and capering like
boys let loose from school, and all chattering loudly. You never meet a
man carrying a burden unless he is a white settler's servant. When a
chief or the induna of a kraal passes this way, I see him, clad in a
motley garb of red regimentals with his bare "ringed" head, riding a
sorry nag, only the point of his great toe resting in his stirrup. He is
followed closely and with great _empressement_ by his "tail," all
"ringed" men also--that is, men of some substance and weight in the
community. They carry bundles of sticks, and keep up with the ambling
nag, and are closely followed by some of his wives bearing heavy loads
on their heads, but stepping out bravely with beautiful erect carriage,
shapely bare arms and legs; and some sort of coarse drapery worn across
their bodies, covering them from shoulder to knee in folds which would
delight an artist's eye and be the despair of a sculptor's chisel. They
don't look either oppressed or discontented. Happy, healthy and jolly
are the words by which they would be most truthfully described. Still,
they are lazy, and slow to appreciate any benefit from civilization
except the money, but then savages always seem to me as keen and sordid
about money as the most civilized mercantile community anywhere.
FEBRUARY 14.
I am often asked by people who are thinking of coming here, or who want
to send presents to friends here, what to bring or send. Of course it is
difficult to say, because my experience is limited and confined to one
spot at present: therefore I give my opinion very guardedly, and
acknowledge it is derived in great part from the experience of others
who have been here a long time. Amongst other wraps, I brought a
sealskin jacket and muff which I happened to have. These, I am assured,
will be absolutely useless, and already they are a great anxiety to me
on account of the swarms of fish-tail moths which I see scuttling about
in every direction if I move a box or look behind a picture. In fact,
there are destructive moths everywhere, and every drawer is redolent of
camphor. The only things I can venture to recommend as necessaries are
things which no one advised me to bring, and which were only random
shots. One was a light waterproof ulster, and the other was a lot of
those outside blinds for windows which come, I believe, from Japan, and
are made of grass--green, painted with gay figures. I picked up these
latter by the merest accident at the Baker-street bazaar for a few
shillings: they are the comfort of my life, keeping out glare and dust
in the day and moths and insects of all kinds at night. As for the
waterproof, I do not know what I should have done without it; and little
G----'s has also been most useful. It is the necessary of necessaries
here--a _real_, good substantial waterproof. A man cannot do better than
get a regular military waterproof which will cover him from chin to heel
on horseback; and even waterproof hats and caps are a comfort in this
treacherous summer season, where a storm bursts over your head out of a
blue dome of sky, and drenches you even whilst the sun is shining
brightly.
A worse climate and country for clothes of every kind and description
cannot be imagined. When I first arrived I thought I had never seen such
ugly toilettes in all my life; and I should have been less than woman
(or more--which is it?) if I had not derived some secret satisfaction
from the possession of at least prettier garments. What I was vain of in
my secret heart was my store of cotton gowns. One can't very well wear
cotton gowns in London; and, as I am particularly fond of them, I
indemnify myself for going abroad by rushing wildly into extensive
purchases in cambrics and print dresses. They are so pretty and so
cheap, and when charmingly made, as mine _were_ (alas, they are already
things of the past!), nothing can be so satisfactory in the way of
summer country garb. Well, it has been precisely in the matter of cotton
gowns that I have been punished for my vanity. For a day or two each
gown in turn looked charming. Then came a flounce or bordering of bright
red earth on the lower skirt and a general impression of red dust and
dirt all over it. That was after a drive into Maritzburg along a road
ploughed up by ox-wagons. Still, I felt no uneasiness. What is a cotton
gown made for if not to be washed? Away it goes to the wash! What is
this limp, discolored rag which returns to me iron-moulded, blued until
it is nearly black, rough-dried, starched in patches, with the fringe of
red earth only more firmly fixed than before? Behold my favorite ivory
cotton! My white gowns are even in a worse plight, for there are no two
yards of them the same, and the grotesque mixture of extreme yellowness,
extreme blueness and a pervading tinge of the red mud they have been
washed in renders them a piteous example of misplaced confidence. Other
things fare rather better--not much--but my poor gowns are only hopeless
wrecks, and I am reduced to some old yachting dresses of ticking and
serge. The price of washing, as this spoiling process is pleasantly
called, is enormous, and I exhaust my faculties in devising more
economical arrangements. We can't wash at home, for the simple reason
that we have no water, no proper appliances of any sort, and to build
and buy such would cost a small fortune. But a tall, white-aproned
Kafir, with a badge upon his arm, comes now at daylight every Monday
morning and takes away a huge sackful of linen, which is placed, with
sundry pieces of soap and blue in its mouth, all ready for him. He
brings it back in the afternoon full of clean and dry linen, for which
he receives three shillings and sixpence. But this is only the first
stage. The things to be starched have to be sorted and sent to one
woman, and those to be mangled to another, and both lots have to be
fetched home again by Tom and Jack. (I have forgotten to tell you that
Jack's real name, elicited with great difficulty, as there is a click
somewhere in it, is "Umpashongwana," whilst the pickle Tom is known
among his own people as "Umkabangwana." You will admit that our
substitutes for these five-syllabled appellations are easier to
pronounce in a hurry. Jack is a favorite name: I know half a dozen black
Jacks myself.) To return, however, to the washing. I spend my time in
this uncertain weather watching the clouds on the days when the clothes
are to come home, for it would be altogether _too_ great a trial if
one's starched garments, borne aloft on Jack's head, were to be caught
in a thunder-shower. If the washerwoman takes pains with anything, it is
with gentlemen's shirts, though even then she insists on ironing the
collars into strange and fearful shapes.
Let not men think, however, that they have it all their own way in the
matter of clothes. White jackets and trousers are commonly worn here in
summer, and it is very soothing, I am told, to try to put them on in a
hurry when the arms and legs are firmly glued together by several pounds
of starch. Then as to boots and shoes: they get so mildewed if laid
aside for even a few days as to be absolutely offensive; and these, with
hats, wear out at the most astonishing rate. The sun and dust and rain
finish up the hats in less than no time.
But I have not done with my clothes yet. A lady must keep a warm dress
and jacket close at hand all through the most broiling summer weather,
for a couple of hours will bring the thermometer down ten or twenty
degrees, and I have often been gasping in a white dressing-gown at noon
and shivering in a serge dress at three o'clock on the same day. I am
making up my mind that serge and ticking are likely to be the most
useful material for dresses, and, as one must have something very cool
for these burning months, tussore or foulard, which get themselves
better washed than my poor dear cottons. Silks are next to useless--too
smart, too hot, too entirely out of place in such a life as this, except
perhaps one or two of tried principles, which won't spot or fade or
misbehave themselves in any way. One goes out of a warm, dry afternoon
with a tulle veil on to keep off the flies, or a feather in one's hat,
and returns with the one a limp, wet rag and the other quite out of
curl. I only wish any milliner could see my feathers now! All straight,
rigidly straight as a carpenter's rule, and tinged with red dust
besides. As for tulle or crêpe-lisse frilling, or any of those soft
pretty adjuncts to a simple toilette, they are five minutes' wear--no
more, I solemnly declare.
I love telling a story against myself, and here is one. In spite of
repeated experiences of the injurious effect of alternate damp and dust
upon finery, the old Eve is occasionally too strong for my prudence, and
I can't resist, on the rare occasions which offer themselves, the
temptation of wearing pretty things. Especially weak am I in the matter
of caps, and this is what befell me. Imagine a lovely, soft summer
evening, broad daylight, though it is half-past seven (it will be dark
directly, however): a dinner-party to be reached a couple of miles away.
The little open carriage is at the door, and into this I step, swathing
my gown carefully up in a huge shawl. This precaution is especially
necessary, for during the afternoon there has been a terrific
thunderstorm and a sudden sharp deluge of rain. Besides a swamp or two
to be ploughed through as best we may, there are those two miles of deep
red muddy road full of ruts and big stones and pitfalls of all sorts.
The drive home in the dark will be nervous work, but now in daylight let
us enjoy whilst we may. Of course I _ought_ to have taken my cap in a
box or bag, or something of the sort; but that seemed too much trouble,
especially as it was so small it needed to be firmly pinned on in its
place. It consisted of a centre or crown of white crêpe, a little frill
of the same, and a close-fitting wreath of deep red feathers all round.
Very neat and tidy it looked as I took my last glance at it whilst I
hastily knotted a light black lace veil over my head by way of
protection during my drive. When I got to my destination there was no
looking-glass to be seen anywhere, no maid, no anything or anybody to
warn me. Into the dining-room I marched in happy unconsciousness that
the extreme dampness of the evening had flattened the crown of my cap,
and that it and its frill were mere unconsidered limp rags, whilst the
unpretending circlet of feathers had started into undue prominence, and
struck straight out like a red nimbus all round my unconscious head. How
my fellow-guests managed to keep their countenances I cannot tell. I am
certain _I_ never could have sat opposite to any one with such an
Ojibbeway Indian's head-dress on without giggling. But no one gave me
the least hint of my misfortune, and it only burst upon me suddenly when
I returned to my own room and my own glass. Still, there was a ray of
hope left: it _might_ have been the dampness of the drive home which had
worked me this woe. I rushed into F----'s dressing-room and demanded
quite fiercely whether my cap had been like that all the time.
"Why, yes," F---- admitted; adding by way of consolation, "In fact, it
is a good deal subdued now: it was very wild all dinner-time. I can't
say I admired it, but I supposed it was all right."
Did ever any one hear such shocking apathy? In answer to my reproaches
for not telling me, he only said, "Why, what could you have done with it
if you _had_ known? Taken it off and put it in your pocket, or what?"
I don't know, but anything would have been better than sitting at table
with a thing only fit for a May-Day sweep on one's head. It makes me hot
and angry with myself even to think of it now.
F----'s clothes could also relate some curious experiences which they
have had to go through, not only at the hands of his washerwoman, but at
those of his temporary valet, Jack (I beg his pardon, Umpashongwana) the
Zulu, whose zeal exceeds anything one can imagine. For instance, when he
sets to work to brush F----'s clothes of a morning he is by no means
content to brush the cloth clothes. Oh dear, no! He brushes the socks,
putting each carefully on his hand like a glove and brushing vigorously
away. As they are necessarily very thin socks for this hot weather, they
are apt to melt away entirely under the process. I say nothing of his
blacking the boots inside as well as out, or of his laboriously
scrubbing holes in a serge coat with a scrubbing-brush, for these are
errors of judgment dictated by a kindly heart. But when Jack puts a
saucepan on the fire without any water and burns holes in it, or tries
whether plates and dishes can support their own weight in the air
without a table beneath them, then, I confess, my patience runs short.
But Jack is so imperturbable, so perfectly and genuinely astonished at
the untoward result of his experiments, and so grieved that the
_inkosacasa_ (I have not an idea how the word ought to be spelt) should
be vexed, that I am obliged to leave off shaking my head at him, which
is the only way I have of expressing my displeasure. He keeps on saying,
"Ja, oui, yaas," alternately, all the time, and I have to go away to
laugh.
FEBRUARY 16.
I was much amused the other day at receiving a letter of introduction
from a mutual friend in England, warmly recommending a newly-arrived
bride and bridegroom to my acquaintance, and especially begging me to
take pains to introduce the new-comers into the "best society." To
appreciate the joke thoroughly you must understand that there is no
society here at all--absolutely none. We are not proud, we
Maritzburgians, nor are we inhospitable, nor exclusive, nor unsociable.
Not a bit. We are as anxious as any community can be to have society or
sociable gatherings, or whatever you like to call the way people manage
to meet together; but circumstances are altogether too strong for us,
and we all in turn are forced to abandon the attempt in despair. First
of all, the weather is against us. It is maddeningly uncertain, and the
best-arranged entertainment cannot be considered a success if the guests
have to struggle through rain and tempest and streets ankle-deep in
water and pitchy darkness to assist at it. People are hardly likely to
make themselves pleasant at a party when their return home through storm
and darkness is on their minds all the time: at least, I know _I_ cannot
do so. But the weather is only one of the lets and hinderances to
society in Natal. We are all exceedingly poor, and necessary food is
very dear: luxuries are enormously expensive, but they are generally not
to be had at all, so one is not tempted by them. Servants, particularly
cooks, are few and far between, and I doubt if even any one calling
himself a cook could send up what would be considered a fairly good dish
elsewhere. Kafirs can be taught to do one or two things pretty well, but
even then they could not be trusted to do them for a party. In fact, if
I stated that there were no good servants--in the ordinary acceptation
of the word--here at all, I should not be guilty of exaggeration. If
there are, all I can say is, I have neither heard of nor seen them. On
the contrary, I have been overwhelmed by lamentations on that score in
which I can heartily join. Besides the want of means of conveyance (for
there are no cabs, and very few _remises_) and good food and attendance,
any one wanting to entertain would almost need to build a house, so
impossible is it to collect more than half a dozen people inside an
ordinary-sized house here. For my part, my verandah is the comfort of my
life. When more than four or five people at a time chance to come to
afternoon tea, we overflow into the verandah. It runs round three sides
of the four rooms called a house, and is at once my day-nursery, my
lumber-room, my summer-parlor, my place of exercise--everything, in
fact. And it is an incessant occupation to train the creepers and wage
war against the legions of brilliantly-colored grasshoppers which infest
and devour the honeysuckles and roses. Never was there such a place for
insects! They eat up everything in the kitchen-garden, devour every leaf
off my peach and orange trees, scarring and spoiling the fruit as well.
It is no comfort whatever that they are wonderfully beautiful
creatures, striped and ringed with a thousand colors in a thousand
various ways: one has only to see the riddled appearance of every leaf
and flower to harden one's heart. Just now they have cleared off every
blossom out of the garden except my zinnias, which grow magnificently
and make the devastated flower-bed still gay with every hue and tint a
zinnia can put on--salmon-color, rose, scarlet, pink, maroon, and fifty
shades besides. On the veldt too the flowers have passed by, but their
place is taken by the grasses, which are all in seed. People say the
grass is rank and poor, and of not much account as food for stock, but
it has an astonishing variety of beautiful seeds. In one patch it is
like miniature pampas-grass, only a couple of inches long each seed-pod,
but white and fluffy. Again, there will be tall stems laden with rich
purple grains or delicate tufts of rose-colored seed. One of the
prettiest, however, is like wee green harebells hanging all down a tall
and slender stalk, and hiding within their cups the seed. Unfortunately,
the weeds and burs seed just as freely, and there is one especial
torment to the garden in the shape of an innocent-looking little plant
something like an alpine strawberry in leaf and blossom, bearing a most
aggravating tuft of little black spines which lose no opportunity of
sticking to one's petticoats in myriads. They are familiarly known as
"blackjacks," and can hold their own as pests with any weed of my
acquaintance.
But the most beautiful tree I have seen in Natal was an _Acacia
flamboyante_. I saw it at D'Urban, and I shall never forget the contrast
of its vivid green, bright as the spring foliage of a young oak, and the
crown of rich crimson flowers on its topmost branches, tossing their
brilliant blossoms against a background of gleaming sea and sky. It was
really splendid, like a bit of Italian coloring among the sombre tangle
of tropical verdure. It is too cold up here for this glorious tree,
which properly belongs to a far more tropical temperature than even
D'Urban can mount up to.
I am looking forward to next month and the following ones to make some
little excursions into the country, or to go "trekking," as the local
expression is. I hear on all sides how much that is interesting lies a
little way beyond the reach of a ride, but it is difficult for the
mistress--who is at the same time the general servant--of an
establishment out here to get away from home for even a few days,
especially when there is a couple of small children to be left behind.
No one travels now who can possibly help it, for the sudden violent
rains which come down nearly every afternoon swell the rivers and make
even the spruits impassable; so a traveler may be detained for days
within a few miles of his destination. Now, in winter the roads will be
hard, and dust will be the only inconvenience. At least, that is what I
am promised.
OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
THE CABS OF PARIS.
Paris is without doubt, of all large cities, the easiest to get about
in. Lines of omnibuses cross and recross its surface in every direction,
and, better still, the streets swarm with cabs, in which for the small
sum of thirty cents one can pass at will from any given point to any
other far distant one within its limits. There are carriage-stands on
every side and in every principal street, and unoccupied vehicles may be
seen driven at a snail's pace, with their drivers keenly on the lookout
for a possible fare. Yet, with all this provision, it is occasionally
very difficult to secure a carriage in Paris. On a sunny Sunday
afternoon, on the day of the Grand Prix de Paris, or during the
prevalence of a sudden storm carriages are as scarce in Paris as they
are in New York. Yet their number increases daily, thanks to the law of
1866, by virtue of which any coachman who can pass an examination as to
his knowledge of driving and acquaintance with the streets of Paris can,
if he likes, purchase a vehicle of the regulation style, have his number
painted on it and set up for himself as a public cabman, subject always
in the matter of pace, charges, etc. to the police laws regulating all
such details.
It has taken two hundred and thirty years to bring the cab-system of
Paris to the point of perfection to which it has now attained. In 1617
the only public means of locomotion was afforded by a company which let
out sedan-chairs. In 1640 a certain Nicholas Sauvage, agent for the
stage-coaches of Amiens, formed the plan of establishing carriages,
harnessed and ready for use at certain designated points, for the
accommodation of the public. These vehicles were christened _fiacres_,
but the reason for their receiving this appellation remains unknown.
Some say it was because Sauvage occupied a house the façade of which was
decorated with an image of St. Fiacre: another and more probable
solution of the mystery has been found in the fact that just at that
epoch a monk of the Petits Pères, called Fiacre, died in the odor of
sanctity, and his portrait was placed in all the new vehicles to protect
them against accidents. Be this as it may, the new enterprise proved
successful, and in 1703 a law was passed compelling the numbering of all
public carriages. In 1753 there existed in Paris twenty-eight cab-stands
and sixty livery-stables, containing in all one hundred and seventy
carriages. At present, Paris possesses over eight thousand cabs and
three thousand livery-stable carriages: these last are generally very
handsome vehicles, drawn by spirited, well-kept horses and driven by
stylish-looking coachmen. The public vehicles of Paris, exclusive of
the omnibuses, may be divided into three classes. First, the _voitures
de place_, which are permitted, on payment of an annual tax of three
hundred and sixty-five francs, to stand at one of the one hundred and
fifty-eight points designated by the police; these bear a yellow number.
Secondly, the _voitures mixtes_, which may at will be hired from a
livery-stable or stand or ply upon the public highway; these bear a red
number. And thirdly, the _voitures de remise_, which can only be hired
from a stable, and are prohibited from appearing on the stands; these
also are numbered in red, but in a particular style, so that a policeman
at a glance can distinguish the difference between the voitures mixtes
and those of the last category. To this latter class belong the stunning
and splendid equipages which may be hired for any period, extending from
a few hours to an indefinite number of months, and which enable the
stranger to make as fine a display of equipages and liveries as the
wealthiest resident of the city. The first two classes, the cabs
properly so called, are, however, the most interesting to the transient
visitor to Paris or to the permanent resident with a purse of moderate
dimensions.
The cabs of Paris, as a rule, are comparatively neat and comfortable,
those belonging to the Compagnie Générale des Voitures (of which
institution more anon) being carefully brushed and cleaned every day. In
winter a two-seated coupé lined with dark cloth or with leather, and
drawn by a single horse, is the usual style of vehicle offered for the
accommodation of the public. The price of such a vehicle is thirty cents
for a "course" or single unbroken trip, which may be from one side of
Paris to the other, or forty cents an hour. The coachman is bound by law
to give the person engaging him a square ticket on which is printed his
number and the exact amount of his fare: this last, however, being
stated as varying under certain conditions and at certain hours, is apt
to be rather puzzling to the inexperienced traveler, particularly if he
or she be ignorant of French. Four-seated carriages are hard to find in
winter: they are drawn by two horses, and the fare is ten cents more on
the course and by the hour than that of the two-seated ones. In summer
the coupés are replaced by light, open, four-seated carriages, with a
hood and with leather curtains, to be used in case of rain; and they are
really pleasant and comfortable vehicles. The horses do not differ much
from the style of cab-horses known all over the world, being thin,
shabby and dismal-looking animals as a general thing, though exceptions
to the rule are not uncommon.
The cabmen of Paris form a distinct class, a separate society, composed
of all sorts of elements--a turbulent, indocile, rebellious set of men,
always in revolt against their employers and against the law, which
holds them with an iron and inflexible grasp. Most of them are
Communists, though many of them are men belonging to the higher classes
of society, whom dissipation, extravagance or misfortune has driven to
this mode of gaining a living. Thus, it is a well-known fact that the
son of a distinguished diplomat, an ambassador to more than one foreign
court, is now a cab-driver, and not a particularly good one. Unfrocked
priests, unsuccessful school-teachers, small bankrupt tradesmen, swell
the ranks, the _personnel_ of which is mainly composed of servants out
of place or of provincials who have come to Paris to seek their fortune.
These last come mostly from Normandy, Auvergne and Savoy; and it has
been noticed that the Savoyards are the most sober and docile of all.
The Parisian cabman is always under the surveillance of the police: a
policeman stationed on every stand watches each cab as it drives off,
and takes its number to guard as far as possible against any overcharge
or peculation. In case of a collision and quarrel or an accident the
ubiquitous policeman is always at hand to take the numbers of the
vehicles whose drivers may be concerned in the affair. Complaints made
by passengers are always attended to at once, and immediate redress is
pretty sure to follow. The cabman is generally gruff and surly, and,
though seldom seen drunk, in the majority of cases is addicted to
drink--a vice which the exposed nature of his calling palliates if it
does not wholly excuse. Some cabmen are devoted to newspaper reading,
and may be seen engaged perusing the _Rappel_ or the _Événement_ while
awaiting the appearance of a fare or stationed before the door of a shop
or a picture-gallery. Others prefer to nap away their leisure moments,
and may be seen, half sitting, half lying on their boxes, and sound
asleep. It is rather a curious process to pass slowly along the line of
a Parisian cab-stand and observe the faces of the men. Every variety and
type of countenance--from the Parisian "Jakey" with villainous eyes,
sharp features and black soaplocks, to the jolly old patriarch, gray and
stout, and somewhat stiff in the joints, who has been a cab-driver for
over forty years perhaps--presents itself to your view. The best way to
engage a cab is by observing the face of the driver, not the condition
of the vehicle or that of the horse. The Parisian cabmen wear no
uniform, the high glazed hat being the only article of attire which is
universally adopted. Even the red waistcoat, once a distinctive mark of
their calling, is gradually falling into disuse, and every variety of
coat and overcoat may be seen, liveries past private service being very
generally adopted. Any overcharge may be reclaimed by the passenger by
the simple process of making a complaint before the nearest chef de
police. In past days the coachman thus complained against was forced to
go in person to the complainant to beg his or her pardon, and to pay
over the extra sum demanded. A frightful catastrophe which occurred some
twenty years ago put an end to this form of retribution. On the 16th of
September, 1855, M. Juge, director of the normal school at Douai, took a
cab in the Place de la Concorde and went for a drive in the Bois de
Boulogne. The driver, one Collignon, insisted on being paid more than
his legal fare, and M. Juge forwarded his complaint to the prefecture of
police the next day. Collignon was condemned to make restitution in
person to M. Juge. He sold his furniture, purchased a pair of pistols
and went on the appointed day to the house of M. Juge in the Rue
d'Enfer. No hard words passed between them, but while the gentleman was
in the act of signing the receipt the coachman drew out one of his
pistols and shot him through the head, killing him instantly. Collignon
was at once arrested: he was tried and condemned to death, and expiated
his crime on the scaffold on the 6th of December following. Since that
event another system of restitution has been followed, the sum exacted
in excess of the legal fare being deposited at the prefecture of police,
whither the traveler is compelled to go in quest of it.
At the prefecture of police is likewise situated the storehouse of
articles forgotten or left behind in public carriages. According to the
law, every coachman is commanded to inspect carefully his carriage after
the occupant has departed, and to deposit every article left therein,
were it but an odd glove, in the storehouse above mentioned. Each object
is inscribed in a register and bears a particular number, and the number
of the cab in which it was left as well. These articles fill a large
room, whereof the contents are ever changing, and which is always full.
Umbrellas, muffs, opera-glasses, pocket-books (sometimes containing
thousands of francs) are among the most usual deposits. In one year
there were found in the cabs of Paris over twenty thousand objects,
among which were six thousand five hundred umbrellas. Should the article
bear the address of the owner, he is at once apprised by letter of its
whereabouts; otherwise, it is kept till called for, and if never claimed
it becomes the property of the city at the end of three years, and is
sold at auction. A vast row of underground apartments is appropriated to
the unclaimed articles--dim cellar-rooms, lighted with gas. There may be
seen umbrellas by the hundred or the thousand, strapped together in
bundles and stacked up like fagots. Everything is registered, numbered
and catalogued, and if returned to the owner his address and the date
of delivery are carefully noted. The strict surveillance of the police
contributes greatly toward keeping the Parisian cabman honest. Instances
are on record where costly sets of jewels, bags of napoleons and
pocket-books crammed with bank-notes have been faithfully deposited at
the prefecture by their finders. On the other hand, an anecdote is told
of a cab-driver in whose vehicle a gentleman chanced to leave his
pocket-book, containing fifty thousand francs which he had just won at
play. He traced his cabman to the stable, where he was in the act of
feeding his horse, opened the carriage-door, and found his pocket-book
lying untouched upon the floor. On learning what a prize he had missed
the coachman incontinently hung himself.
The great source of supply for public vehicles in Paris is the Compagnie
Générale des Voitures, one of the most gigantic of the great enterprises
of Paris. It possesses five thousand cabs and over two thousand handsome
and stylish voitures de remise. It furnishes every style; of carriage
for hire, from the superb private-looking barouche or landau, with
servants in gorgeous livery and splendid blooded horses, or the showy
pony-phaeton and low victoria of the _cocotte du grand monde_, down to
the humble one-horse cab. This beneficent company will furnish you, if
desired, with a princely equipage, with armorial bearings, family
liveries, etc., all complete and got up specially to suit the ideas of
the hirer. Nine-tenths of the elegant turnouts in Paris are supplied in
this manner. There is a regular tariff for everything: each additional
footman costs so much, there is a fixed charge for powder, for
postilions, for a _chasseur_ decked with feathers and gold lace. You can
be as elegant as you please without purchasing a single accessory of
your equipage.
The cab-horses of the Compagnie Générale are usually brought from
Normandy, and belong to a specially hardy race, such a one being needed
to endure the privations and trials to which a Parisian cab-horse is
exposed. Each horse has to be gradually initiated into the duties of
his new calling: he has to be trained to eat at irregular hours, to
sleep standing, and to endure the fatigues of the Parisian streets. Were
the country-bred horse to be put at once to full city work, he would die
in a week. He is first sent out for a quarter of a day; then after a
week or two for half a day; then for a whole day; and when accustomed to
that he is considered fit for night-work. The horses of the Compagnie
Générale remain in the stable one day out of every three. If well fed,
well kept and well looked after, the life of a Paris cab-horse may be
prolonged from three to five years, but the latter is the extreme limit.
The Compagnie Générale not only buys its own horses, but constructs its
own carriages. Its coachmen are obliged to pass through a preliminary
examination, not only as to their capabilities for driving, but as to
their knowledge of the streets of Paris. But the passage of the law of
1866 has let loose upon the community a swarm of ignorant coachmen, who,
assuming the reins and whip, in some instances without any knowledge
even of the great thoroughfares of Paris, will lead their unhappy hirer
a pretty dance, particularly if he or she is a stranger on a first visit
to the great city. I know of one instance where a lady, desirous of
visiting the Pare Monceau, was taken to the extreme northern boundary of
the city limits, and was only rescued by the intervention of the police.
Then one must be very particular as to the pronunciation of the name of
the street, as so many streets exist in Paris the names of which closely
resemble each other when spoken, such as the Rue de Téhéran and the Rue
de Turin, the Rue du Marl and the Rue d'Aumale, etc. And if your
coachman _can_ make a mistake, you may rest assured he will do it.
The Parisian cab is not, like its London compeer, a prohibited pariah of
a vehicle, excluded from parks or the court-yards of palaces. You can go
to call at the Élysée or to attend a ball there in a cab if you like,
and the Bois de Boulogne or the Pare Monceau is as free to that plebeian
vehicle as to the landau of a prince. And if one attends a ball in
Paris, there is no need to engage a carriage to return home in.
Attracted by the lights, the cabmen station their vehicles in long lines
in the neighborhood of any mansion where such a festivity is taking
place, waiting patiently till three, four and five o'clock in the
morning for a chance of conveying home some of the merrymakers. The only
instance in which I ever heard of their failing to be on hand on such an
occasion was at a large fancy ball where the German was kept up till six
o'clock in the morning. The gay troupe issued forth into the golden
glowing sunshine of the April morning, and found not a single cab in
attendance; so powdered and brocaded Marquises, white-satin clad
"Mignons," Highlanders, Turks and Leaguers were forced to walk to their
homes, in many instances miles away, to the immense amusement of the
street-sweepers and naughty little boys, the only Parisians astir at
that hour of the city's universal repose.
L.H.H.
A NEW MUSEUM AT ROME.
A new museum of sculpture at Rome! One would have thought that it could
hardly be needed. Besides three vast collections--that of the Lateran,
that of the Capitol, and that wondrous world of antique sculpture at the
Vatican, itself, in fact, three museums, and each of the three alone
matchless in the world--we have the work of the hands that lived and
worked here a couple of thousands of years ago in every villa, in every
garden, almost at every corner. And yet we need, and have just
established, another museum of ancient sculpture. We are now cutting new
lines of streets--not, as you are doing, on the surface of a soil that
has never been moved save by the forces of Nature since first the
Creator divided the sea from the dry land, but--among the débris of the
successive civilizations of more than three thousand years. The laying
of our gas- and water-pipes breaks the painting on the walls of
banquet-halls whose last revel was disturbed by the irruption of the
barbarian. Our "main drainage" lies among the temples of gods whose
godlike forms are found mutilated and prostrate among the fallen
columns and tumbled architraves and cornices of their shrines.
But if no awe of the mighty past prevents the speculator and contractor
of our day from marching his army of excavators in an undeviating and
unyielding line impartially athwart the temples, the palaces, the
theatres, the baths of the perished world beneath their feet, yet in
these days of ours the work is done reverently, at least so far as not
only to respect, but to gather up with the most scrupulous care, every
available fragment of the art, and even of the common life, of those
vanished generations. If the day shall come when some future people
shall yet once again build their city on this same eternal site, and
some future social cataclysm shall have overwhelmed the works and
civilization of the present time, those future builders will not find
walls constructed in great part of the fragments of statues and the
richly-carved friezes of yet older builders and artists, as we have
found. The Romans of the present day are, it must be admitted, fully
alive to the inappreciable value of the wondrous heritage they possess
in this kind; and every fragment of it is carefully and jealously
gathered and stored. And hence is the need of a new museum, and hence
will be the need of other new museums--who shall say how many? For truly
this Roman soil seems inexhaustible in buried treasures. There seems no
likelihood that the vein should be exhausted or die out. Every now and
then the excavators come upon "a fault," as the miners say, but the vein
is soon struck again.
And so the new museum at the Capitol has been rendered necessary. It was
inaugurated on the 25th of February in this year. It consists of twelve
rooms or galleries, part of which occupy the site of the apartments
which used to contain the archives, now moved to other quarters, and
part, including a large octagonal hall, the principal feature of the new
museum, have been newly constructed on ground which used to be the
garden of the Conservatori, the ancient municipal officers of the city,
so called. The entrance is by the main staircase of the palazzo of the
Conservatori, which is the building that forms the side of the square of
the Capitol to the right hand of the visitor as he ascends the
magnificent flight of steps from the Via di Ara Coeli. The steep sides
of the Capitoline Hill on either side of these steps has been recently
turned into a very well-kept and pretty garden, among the lawns and
shrubberies of which the attention of the stranger, as he ascends, may
be attracted by a neatly-painted iron cage in front of the mouth of a
little cavern in the rock, which is inhabited by a she-wolf in memorial
of the earliest traditions of the place. Memorials, indeed, are not
wanting at every step, and from the first window of the staircase as the
visitor ascends to the museum on the first floor he may look down on the
Tarpeian Rock.
The public functionaries of all sorts here do so much of their work in a
manner which gives rise to much discontentment among the Romans, and
would by the people of better-ruled countries be deemed wholly
intolerable, that it is a pleasure to be able to say that upon this
occasion the municipality has done what it had to do thoroughly well.
The galleries and rooms of the new establishment are decorated in
admirably good taste in the Pompeian style, the walls being colored in
panels and borders of blue and red on a buff ground. They are
excellently well lighted, and the visitor is not hunted round the rooms
by an attendant anxious only to get his tedious task over, but is
allowed to wander about among the treasures around him at his own
discretion, and to spend the whole day there, or as much of it as lies
between 10 A.M. and 3 P.M., if he pleases. A sufficient catalogue,
accompanied by a map of the place, is purchasable at the doors for a
couple of francs, and the visitor is required to pay half a franc for
his entrance. This last regulation is in accordance with a law recently
passed by the legislature establishing an entrance-fee at the doors of
all public galleries and museums throughout Italy. Heretofore the
entrance to all such places was entirely free. But, seeing that the
country really needs the assistance to be obtained from this source, it
cannot be said to be acting otherwise than reasonably in making such a
charge; and probably no one of the thousands who come to Italy to profit
by her artistic treasures will ever grudge the payment of the small fee
demanded; the only question being whether the measure is on the whole a
profitable one financially, of which I do not feel quite sure.
The first landing-place of the vast staircase and the ante-room at the
top of it are lined with the more interesting and perfect of the pagan
inscriptions which the recent movements of the soil have brought to
light. Of course, the majority of these present no specialties
distinguishing them from the thousands of similar inscriptions with
which the world has long since been familiar. But there are some among
them which contribute useful fragments of knowledge to the attempts of
our antiquaries to construct a satisfactory plan of the ancient
city--dedications of statues, showing what god or goddess inhabited such
or such a shrine, and the like. The letters of these inscriptions have
been rendered more easily legible by restoring the scarlet coloring of
them, as has been done in the case of those at the Vatican.
The visitor next enters a very long corridor or gallery giving access to
the various halls and rooms, and adorned with a series of modern busts
of the men of whom Italy has most reason to be proud. Some among them
are of much merit.
Then comes the gallery of the bronzes. In this department the late finds
have been very numerous and extremely interesting. Among the objects
which will immediately attract the visitor's eye as he enters the
principal room are a litter and a biga or chariot. In both cases of
course only fragments of the bronze remain, but they are sufficient to
have enabled skilled antiquaries to reconstruct the entire litter and
the entire chariot. The latter is very specially interesting. The plates
of embossed and chiseled bronze which encased the body of the chariot
are figured with admirably-worked subjects in basso-rilievo, many of
them relating to the "wondrous tale of Troy." This invaluable specimen
was the gift to the museum of that eminent and liberal archæologist,
Signor A. Castellani, of whose matchless collection of Etruscan jewelry
I wrote in a former number of this Magazine. The remaining portions of
the bronze- and iron-work of the litter, with its arrangement of poles
for carrying it, somewhat after the fashion of a sedan-chair, though the
whole of the apparatus is much lighter, are more fragmentary, but yet
sufficient for the reconstruction of a specimen illustrative to the
classical reader of many a passage in the ancient writers. Under No. 10
the visitor will find the small statue of an hermaphrodite in bronze,
fashioned as the bearer of a lamp--a statue of very great delicacy and
beauty.
The next room is that of the medals and coins, the number of which will
probably surprise the visitor not a little. The gold coins and the
better-preserved and more interesting specimens are shown single under
cleverly-arranged glass cases. The more ordinary results of the finds
which are almost daily being made have been consigned in promiscuous
heaps to huge glass vases, whose tops, however, are carefully sealed
down. The large collections of the _æs rude signatum_ of the consular
and of the imperial families, in bronze, in silver and in gold, together
with some mediæval specimens, are ranged around the walls.
Then we come to the sculpture, the main scope of the new museum, which
is distributed in a large vestibule, in a noble octagonal central hall
and in a long gallery. It was an excellent idea, adding much to the
interest which every stranger in Rome will take in the museum, to place
on each specimen a placard specifying the locality in which it was
discovered and the date of the finding. And this information is
admirably supplemented by a map hung against the wall showing in detail
the relative positions of all the places which have yielded up these
long-buried treasures. The number of specimens of sculpture is in all
one hundred and thirty-three; and it is impossible, without letting this
notice run to an immoderate length, to attempt to give an adequate
account of the various objects, or even of the principal among them.
There is a richly-ornamented and very characteristic head of Commodus,
which really looks as if it might have come from the sculptor's hands
yesterday. A colossal bust of Mæcenas, also the gift of Signor
Castellani, a bust of Tiberius, a small statue of the child Hercules, a
Venus Anadyomene, may be, and many others might be, mentioned. The
last-named is a very lovely statue of a young girl entirely nude. The
archæologists have chosen to call it a Venus, but it is to my thinking
clear that it never was intended for the laughter-loving goddess. The
expression of the face is perfectly and beautifully chaste, and indeed a
little sad. I should say that it must have been a nymph coming from the
bath, and just about to clothe herself with the drapery thrown over a
broken column at her knee as soon as she shall have completed the
arrangement of her tresses, with which her hands are (or, alas! were,
for the arms are wanting) engaged.
Room No. 10 contains a very extensive and most interesting collection of
ancient pottery. There are many of the painted vases with which the
world has become so well acquainted, and which, as being the more showy
objects, will on his first entrance attract the eye of the visitor. But
if he will with loving patience examine the vast numbers of utensils of
every sort which have been with the utmost care sifted, one might almost
say, from out of the mass of débris which the recent excavations have
thrown up, he will find an amount of suggestive illustration of the old
pagan life of two thousand years ago which cannot fail to interest and
instruct him.
T.A.T.
OUR FOREIGN SURNAMES.
It is interesting as well as amusing to read the foreign names upon the
signs in the streets of our cities and towns, and observe the number of
nationalities thereon represented, together with the peculiarities of
form and meaning displayed by the names themselves.
German names meet the eye everywhere, and are usually very outlandish in
appearance, while many of them have significations which are
conspicuously and ludicrously inappropriate. For example, a lager-beer
saloon in one of our large cities is kept by Mr. Heiliggeist ("Holy
Ghost"); a cigar-shop in another place belongs to Mr. Priesterjahn
("Prester John"); while the pastor of a devout German flock in a third
locality is the Rev. Mr. Wuestling ("low scoundrel"). The Hon. Carl
Schurz, too, is hardly the sort of man to be named "apron," though it is
certainly true that his name is in this country sometimes pronounced
"Shirts."
Other branches of the great Teutonic family have many representatives
among us, and their names seem, to the uninitiated, even more fearfully
and wonderfully constructed than those of their German cousins. It
produces a good deal of surprise in the mind of an American to see on
the sign of a tradesman from Belgium the familiar name of Cox spelled
"Kockx;" and the Norwegian patronymic Trondhjemer ("Drontheimer"),
though a very mild specimen of the language, has a formidable aspect to
the general beholder.
The German-Hebrew names display such an exuberant Eastern fancy in their
composition as to suggest the inquiry whether they are not really but
German translations of their possessors' original Oriental titles. It is
not unlikely that this was the origin of names like Rosenthal ("Vale of
Roses"), Lilienhain ("Meadow of Lilies"), Liebenstrom ("Stream of
Love"), and Goldenberg ("Golden Mount").
The Teutonic names, whether German, Scandinavian or Flemish, do not, as
a rule, seem by any means so unpronounceable as those pertaining to
foreigners of Slavonic race. The Russian, Polish and Bohemian
appellations, which occur frequently in some sections of our country, so
often begin with the extraordinary combination _cz_ that many Americans,
believing that nothing but a convulsive sneeze could meet the
necessities of such a case, decline trying to pronounce them at all. But
the difficulties which these Slavonic names apparently offer would, in a
great measure, be removed by a uniform system of orthography. The
combination _cz_, for instance, corresponds to our _ch_, and the Polish
cognomen Czajkowski becomes much less exasperating when spelled, as it
would be in English, "Chycovsky." The same thing is true, to a great
extent, of the Hungarian names, which are not rare in our larger cities.
They, too, would be greatly simplified to us by being spelled according
to English rules. A very frequent combination in Hungarian names, that
of _sz_ is really the same as our _ss_; while _s_ without the _z_ is
pronounced _sh_. The Hungarian name Szemelenyi under our system of
spelling would therefore be "Semelenye," which is less discouraging.
The foreign names in the United States that really present the most
serious difficulties to the native citizen are unquestionably the Welsh.
Some of the obstacles to easy pronunciation may even in their case be
removed by adaptation to our orthography; as is shown by the name Hwg
("hog"), which would be spelled by us "Hoog." But there are so many
sounds in Welsh that are not only unknown, but almost inconceivable to
English-speaking people, that the difficulties would still be very far
from being overcome. And some of these peculiar utterances are expressed
in Welsh by combinations of the Roman characters which in English stand
for familiar and simple sounds; so that an attempt to reduce the two
languages to a common system of spelling would not be at all easy. The
combination _ll_ stands in Welsh for a terrific gurgling, gasping sound,
which when once heard swiftly puts an end to all the romantic
associations that the name of Llewellyn has derived from history and
poetry.
But all such foreign--or, more strictly speaking, un-English--names,
after being in this country a generation or two, become, in a certain
sense, "acclimated." They undergo a change in pronunciation, in
spelling, or in both, which removes, in effect, the difficulties that
originally characterized them. In this way the German names Schneider,
Meyer, Kaiser, Kraemer, Schallenberger, Schwarzwaelder, and a host of
others have become, respectively, Snyder, Myers, Keyser, Creamer,
Shellabarger, Swartswelder, etc. Sometimes, too, an American name more
or less similar in sound or meaning has been taken or given in place of
the original German title; as when Loewenstein ("Lion-rock") was
exchanged for Livingston, and Albrecht ("Albert") for Allbright.
The old "Knickerbocker" names of the Middle States have, in most
instances, retained their Dutch spelling intact, but have generally been
subjected to a similar process of adaptation in sound. The same may be
said of the French names in this country. Their spelling has, as a rule,
been preserved, while their sound has been Americanized. In this way De
Rosset has acquired the pronunciation Derrozett, and Jacques has come to
be called either Jaquess or Jakes. Many French patronymics, such as the
old South Carolina Huguenot name _Marion_, exhibiting nothing peculiarly
French in their forms, are now pronounced entirely in accordance with
our rules, and their national origin is preserved by tradition alone.
Some French titles, however, having undergone only a partial change in
pronunciation, survive in a hybrid form as to sound, though their
spelling remains unaltered. Specimens of this class may be found in such
names as _Huger_, pronounced "Huzhée;" _Fouché_, commonly called
"Fooshée;" and _Deveraux_ or _Devereux_, now converted into "Débro" or
"Dévroo." The only very noticeable change that has taken place in the
orthography of our French names is that the article has been joined to
the noun in many cases where they were originally separate. In this way
_La Ramie_, _La Rabie_, _La Reintrée_, etc. are now usually spelled Laramie,
Larabie (or, in some instances, Larrabee), Lareintree, etc.; the
pronunciation of the newer form being Americanized in the usual way. But
this change in form is one which might easily have occurred even in
France.
Most of these French and Dutch names have been in the country for a
comparatively long time, and, indeed, many of them date back to the
early colonial period. Like the Spanish-American names of Texas,
California, Florida and Louisiana, to which the same rule generally
applies, they belonged to members of organized foreign communities,
proportionately large enough to preserve their names from a complete
assimilation with the ideas of the English-American population. And in a
lesser degree this is also true of those early German emigrants, mainly
from the Palatinate, who settled in Pennsylvania, Western Maryland and
the Shenandoah Valley.
The tendency at the present day, however, seems to be strongly in favor
of the process mentioned first--that of changing the sound of the names
to suit American ears, and altering the spelling so as to conform to the
new pronunciation. There is every indication that this will be done with
regard to a very large majority of the foreign surnames that have been
introduced among us within the last fifty years, or which may be brought
into our country in the future. And as the changes so made are quite
arbitrary, the result will be that the future student of American
nomenclature will often be sorely puzzled by some of the surnames to
which his attention shall be drawn.
W.W.C.
THE NEW FRENCH ACADEMICIAN.
No institution of its kind holds so eminent a place in the esteem of a
great country as the _Académie Française_. The elections are always a
matter of interest, largely shared by the cultivated
_Revue-des-Deux-Mondes_-reading world of both hemispheres; and the last
election was one which excited fully as much attention as most of its
predecessors. M. John Lemoinne, who at length summoned up courage to
present himself as a candidate, was born in London in Waterloo year,
1815, and has for a long period, probably thirty years, been, through
the _Journal des Débats_, in some sort a European power. His selection
to fill the seat of M. Jules Janin is in every way appropriate. Indeed,
it seems strange that he should have been contented to wait until he was
sixty-one to come forward for that distinction.
The foundation of the Academy is directly traceable to the meetings of
men of science at the house of M. Courart--who, early in the seventeenth
century, was for forty years its first secretary--but it unquestionably
owes to Richelieu a habitation and a name. It was formed with the
special object of preserving accuracy in the French language, to which
Frenchmen have been wont to pay an almost exclusive attention, but by
the election of M. Lemoinne the Academy will have at least one member
who is no less acquainted with another tongue.
Every one will remember old Miss Crawley's rage when she found that
Becky was trading on her connection with the democratic-aristocratic
spinster to make her way into the Faubourg St. Germain. Too impatient to
write in French, the old lady posted off a furious disavowal of the
little adventuress in vigorous vernacular, but, adds the author, as
Madame la Duchesse had only passed twenty years in England, she didn't
understand one word. It may be hoped that the new Academician will, in
conjunction with the new minister of public instruction, Mr. Waddington,
who is a Rugby and Cambridge man, have some effect in arousing his
countrymen to the study which they have heretofore so strangely
neglected of a tongue which threatens to obliterate in time the
inconveniences occasioned by the Tower of Babel. English is every day
more and more spoken, and French less and less.
In delivering his address of welcome to M. Lemoinne, M. Cavillier Fleury
said: "You are one of the creators of the discussion of foreign affairs
in the French papers: you gave them the taste for interesting themselves
in the concerns of foreign countries. Few of us before steam had
shortened distance really knew England. Voltaire had by turns glorified
and ridiculed it; De Staël had shown it to us in an agreeable book; the
witty letters of Duvergier de Hauranne had revealed the secrets of its
electoral system. Your correspondence of 1841 completed the work." He
might pertinently have added, "Because you are about the only French
newspaper writer who ever thoroughly understood the English language,
and could thus avoid ridiculous blunders."
It has been observed that the _Débats_ almost exclusively supplies the
Academy with its contingent of publicists--a circumstance accounted for
by that journal being jealous of the purity of its language, and in
other respects preserving a high and dignified standard. It has, indeed,
for an unusually long period enjoyed its reputation. French and Belgian
newspapers are very much of a mystery to an Anglo-Saxon. They seem to
flourish under conditions impracticable to American or English journals.
The _Indépendance Belge_ and the _Journal des Débats_ lie before us.
Neither of them contains sufficient advertisements to make up three of
our columns, yet their expenses must, we should suppose, especially in
the case of the _Débats_, published as it is where prices are so high,
be very large. Both these papers contain articles evidently the work of
able hands, and in the case of the _Indépendance_ the foreign
correspondence must be a very costly item, forming, as it frequently
does, five columns of a large page. The price of each is twenty
centimes--high, certainly, for a single sheet.
It has often been observed, too, that French newspaper-men seem
exceptionally well off. They frequent costly _cafés_, occasionally
indulge in _petits soupers_ in _cabinets particuliers_, and, altogether,
taking prices into account, appear to be in the enjoyment of larger
means than their brethren of the pen elsewhere. Of course, the success
of a French newspaper is, even in the absence of advertisements,
intelligible in the case of the _Figaro_ or _Petit Journal_, with their
circulation of 70,000 and 150,000 a day; but in the case of such papers
as the _Débats_, whose circulation is not very large, it is difficult to
explain.
The position of a journalist in Paris seems to stand in many respects
higher than elsewhere. Of course, the fact of contributions not being
anonymous adds immeasurably to the writer's personal importance, if it
also gets him into scrapes. Elsewhere, _editors_ are men of mark, and
certainly no one in the journalistic world can possibly be made more of
than Mr. Delane in London. But the editorial writers in his paper, who
would in Paris be men of nearly as much mark as rising members of
Parliament in England, are completely "left out in the cold," gaining no
reputation even among acquaintance, since they are required to preserve
the strictest secrecy as to their connection with the paper. Altogether,
we are disposed to believe that Paris--official "warnings," press
prosecutions and possible duels notwithstanding--must be accepted as the
journalist's paradise. To be courted, caressed and feared is as much as
any reasonable newspaper writer can expect, and a great deal more than
he is likely to get out of his work elsewhere.
R.W.
LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
Cities of Northern and Central Italy. By Augustus J.C. Hare. New York:
George Routledge & Sons.
Those who know Mr. Hare's _Walks in Rome_ and _Days near Rome_ will
welcome another series of Italian itineraries from the same pen. These
volumes are primarily guide-books; they tell us the best hotels, the
price of cabs, the distances by rail or high-road. But the parts of
traveler and manual are inverted: whereas you take your _Murray_ or
_Baedeker_ in your hand and carry it whither you list, Mr. Hare takes
you by the hand, leads you in the way you should go, makes you pause the
requisite time before the things you are to look at, points to every
view, lets you miss no effect, does not force his own opinions upon you,
except now and then when he loses his temper a little on the debatable
ground between religion and politics, repeats that quotation you are
vainly trying to recall, or delights you by the beauty and aptness of a
new one. He gives to a course of systematic sight-seeing the freedom and
variety of a ramble with a cultivated and sympathetic companion. We
would not be ungrateful to that inestimable impersonality, Murray, for
all are his debtors, even Mr. Hare for the plan of his books; but,
remembering how, with the latest edition in hand, we have panted up four
or more flights of stairs in a Roman or Venetian palace in search of a
picture removed years before, we are not sorry to find him here taken to
task for leaving uncorrected statements which had ceased to be true.
Moreover, Murray is no guide in matters of art; his authorities are
often captains of the British Philistines; while Mr. Hare generally
gives all that has been said by competent judges, sometimes
imperturbably recording two conflicting opinions, and leaving the reader
to decide. The range of quotation is indeed remarkable, from Dean Milman
to Ouida, including many writers too little known in this country, such
as Burckhardt, Ampère and Street.
But it is not to the actual traveler only that these volumes will be of
use and give pleasure. They are not bad preparatory reading for those
who are going abroad, suggesting what should be studied beforehand; they
will be dear to those who sit within the blank limits of a home in this
raw New World trying to revive the fading outlines and colors of scenes
which, though unforgotten, tend to mingle with the visions of Dreamland;
and they are capital wishing-carpets for those who can travel only in
fancy. In the introduction there is an excellent passage on the
distinctive differences between the great Italian cities: "Each has its
own individual sovereignty; its own chronicles; its own politics,
domestic and foreign; its own saints, peculiarly to be revered--patrons
in peace and protectors in war; its own phase of architecture; its own
passion in architectural material, brick or stone, marble or
terra-cotta; ...its own proverbs, its own superstitions and its own
ballads." Mr. Hare contrives to convey much of the characteristic
impression of each town. Pretty little wood-cuts are called in to his
aid, but the best illustrations of his text are the poetical quotations
and exquisite prose-bits from Ruskin, Swinburne, Symonds and others
whose pens sometimes turn into the pencil of a great painter. The
author's own descriptions are extremely faithful and charming. To those
who have made the journey from Florence to Rome a single fine page of
the introduction brings back a thrill of that long ecstasy. In these few
quiet words he spreads Thrasymene before us: "It has a soft, still
beauty especially its own. Upon the vast expanse of shallow pale-green
waters, surrounded by low-lying hills, storms have scarcely any effect,
and the birds which float over it and the fishing-boats which skim
across its surface are reflected as in a mirror. At Passignano and
Torricella picturesque villages, chiefly occupied by fishermen, jut out
into the water, but otherwise the reedy shore is perfectly desolate on
this side, though beyond the lake convents and villages crown the hills
which rise between us and the pale violet mountains beyond
Montepulciano." Nothing can be more lifelike than the following picture
of the tract around Siena: "Scarcely do we pass beyond the rose-hung
walls which encircle the fortifications than we are in an upland desert,
piteously bleak in winter, but most lovely when spring comes to clothe
it. The volcanic nature of the soil in these parts gives a softer tint
than usual to the coloring. The miles upon miles of open gray-green
country, treeless, hedgeless, houseless, swoop toward one another with
the strangest sinuosities and rifts and knobs of volcanic earth, till at
last they sink in faint mists, only to rise again in pink and blue
distances, so far off, so pale and aërial, that they can scarcely be
distinguished from the atmosphere itself. Only here and there a lonely
convent with a few black cypress spires clustered round it, or a
solitary cross which the peasants choose as their midday resting-place,
cuts the pellucid sky. Here in these great uplands, where all is so
immense, the very sky itself seems more full of space than elsewhere: it
is not the deep blue of the South, but so soft and aërial that it looks
as if it were indeed the very heaven itself, only very far away."
The chapter on Ravenna is the best in the book: it is an admirable
piece of work, a complete monograph. Everything is there--history,
legends, art--and the quotations and illustrations are peculiarly
beautiful and convincing.
Mr. Hare, like many gentlemen of similar tastes and tendencies, does not
seem to have a strong sense of humor, although now and then he
condescends to smile as he repeats some local legend, such as that of
the crucifix at S. Francesco delle Cariere, which awoke an overwearied
devotee, who had fallen asleep on his knees before it, with "un
soavissimo schiaffo," the gentlest slap, and bade him go to sleep in the
dormitory. He speaks of an ancient custom, not mentioned by _Murray_, of
harboring lost cats in the cloister of San Lorenzo at Florence: "The
feeding of the cats, which takes place when the clock strikes twelve, is
a most curious sight.... From every roof and arch and parapet-wall,
mewing, hissing and screaming, the cats rush down to devour." It sounds
like a wicked parody on the poetic assembling of the Venetian pigeons at
the daily scattering of grain in the square of St. Mark's.
There are a few little slips--so few that it is strange there should be
any--among which is his mention of the "St. Christopher" of the doges'
palace as "the only known fresco of Titian," forgetting the celebrated
one in the Scuola del Santo at Padua, of which he has spoken in a
previous volume. He occasionally makes an assertion to which many will
demur; as, for instance, that "The real glory of the Italian towns
consists not in their churches, but in their palaces." The best
refutation of this paradox is in his own pages. Most people will be
startled, too, by hearing of "the want of architectural power in Michael
Angelo," although this remark is followed by a criticism which strikes
us as extremely just on the stupendous slumberers on the monuments of
the Medici: "The disproportionate figures are slipping off the pitiable
pedestals which support them." Among the throng of indefinable emotions
and sensations which beset one in the Medicean chapel of San Lorenzo, we
have always been conscious of distinct discomfort from the attitude of
these sleepers, who could only maintain their posture by an immense
muscular effort incompatible with their sublime repose. As regards
practical matters, few travelers or foreign residents in Italy will
endorse Mr. Hare's statement that making a bargain in advance for
lodgings or conveyances is not a necessary precaution, or his denial of
the almost universal attempt to overcharge which is recognized and
resisted by all natives. But Mr. Hare has illusions, and Italian probity
is one of them. All his remarks about the present government of Italy
(of which he speaks as "the Sardinian government" with an emphasis akin
to the B_u_onapart_e_ of old French monarchists) are to be taken with
the utmost reservation, as most readers will see for themselves after
meeting his allusion to the massacre at Perugia in 1859 as in some sort a
defensive action on the part of the papal troops. Mr. Hare's reasoning
on all that relates to this subject is weak and illogical, sometimes
puerile. Any one who loves what is venerable and picturesque must share
the impatience and regret with which he sees so much beauty and
antiquity disappearing before the besom of progress or the rage for
improvement, especially in Rome. But we must remember that Italy is not
the first, but the last, European country in which this has come about:
in England, France and Germany what delights the eyes of the few has
long been giving place to what betters the condition or serves the
interest of the masses. Moreover, the Italians themselves, of whatever
political complexion, black or red, are totally indifferent to these
losses and changes which we lament so deeply. If there be a sad want of
good taste and good sense in Cavaliere Rosa's management of the
excavations, there is at least no lack of zeal. Formerly, next to
nothing was done to preserve or protect the monuments, and many of the
finest were irrecognizable and all but inaccessible from dirt and
dilapidation. The reverence of the papal Romans for their treasures of
either classic or Christian art is well illustrated by Retzsch's
outline, in which a lovely statue of Apollo, broken and half buried,
defiled by dogs and swine, serves as a seat for a loutish herd, who
tries to copy a miserable modern Virgin and Child from a wayside shrine.
Such a temper of mind in an intelligent, high-principled Englishman can
only arise from a moral bias which distorts every view; but the
discussion of these causes and effects would be out of place here, and
we only smile in passing at the charge of "excessive cruelty" in the
suppression of the monastery of San Vivaldo. Mr. Hare's treatment of the
legitimate topics of his book deserves all admiration and praise. His
style is simple, pleasant and picturesque; in future editions a few
careless tricks should be corrected, such as the use of _from_, with
_hence_, _thence_, _whence_, and a muddled sentence here and there, of
which a very slight instance occurs in the pretty extract about Lake
Thrasymene: there is a most confusing one about a girl who refused to
kiss the emperor Otho, which reads as if she would not kiss her own
father. It would be almost a pity to spoil a laugh by particularizing
whether a tree or nut is meant in the story of "S. Vivaldo, who became a
hermit and _lived in a hollow chestnut_, in which he was found dead in
1300."
_Books Received._
The Little, or A, B, C, Book of German; that is, High School Primer;
Child's Story Book and Dictionary. By Professor C.C. Schaeffer.
Philadelphia: Charles Brothers & Co.
Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies. By Major
Henry M. Robert, U.S.A. Chicago: S.C. Griggs & Co.
Cabin and Plantation Songs, as sung by the Hampton Students. Arranged by
Thomas P. Fenner. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
The Spectator. (Selected Papers.) By Addison and Steele. Edited by John
Habberton. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
Characteristics from the Writings of J.H. Newman. By Wm. Samuel Lilly.
New York: D. and J. Sadlier & Co.
Brief Biographies. Vol. III. French Political Leaders. By Edward King.
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
The Life of William, Earl of Shelburne. Vol. II. By Lord Edmond
Fitzmaurice. New York: MacMillan & Co.
Jonathan: A Novel. By C.C. Fraser-Tytler. (Leisure-Hour Series.) New
York: Henry Holt & Co.
Faith and Modern Thought. By Ransom B. Welch, D.D., LL.D. New York: G.P.
Putnam's Sons.
Fetich in Theology; or, Doctrinalism Twin to Ritualism. By John Miller.
New York: Dodd & Mead.
The American Kennel and Sporting Field. By Arnold Burges. New York: J.B.
Ford & Co.
On Dangerous Ground. By Mrs. Bloomfield H. Moore. Philadelphia: Porter &
Coates.
Filth-Diseases, and their Prevention. By John Simon, M.D. Boston: James
Campbell.