CONFESSIONS OF A COLUMBUS.
The Cause of my Cruise--No Work--The Atlantic Greyhound--Irish
Ship--Irish Doctor--Irish Visitors--Queenstown--A
Surprise--Fiddles--Edward Lloyd--Lib--Chess--The Syren--The
American Pilot--Real and Ideal--Red Tape--Bribery--Liberty--The
Floating Flower Show--The Bouquet--A Bath and a Bishop--"Beastly
Healthy"--Entertainment for Shipwrecked
Sailors--Passengers--Superstition.
AMERICA IN A HURRY--Harry Columbus Furniss--The Inky
Inquisition--First Impressions--Trilby--Tempting
Offers--Kidnapped--Major Pond--Sarony--Ice--James B.
Brown--Fire!--An Explanation.
WASHINGTON--Mr. French of Nowhere--Sold--Interviewed--The Sporting
Editor--Hot Stuff--The Capitol--Congress--House of
Representatives--The Page Boys--The Agent--Filibuster--The
"Reccard"--A Pandemonium--Interviewing the President.
CHICAGO--The Windy City--Blowers--Niagara--Water and Wood--Darkness
to Light--My Vis-a-Vis--Mr. Punch--My Driver--It Grows upon
Me--Inspiration--Harnessing Niagara--The Three Sisters--Incline
Railway--Captain Webb.
[Illustration]
TRAVELLING--Tickets--Thirst--Sancho Panza--Proclaimed States--"The
Amurrican Gurl"--A Lady Interviewer--The English Girl--A Hair
Restorer--Twelfth Night Club Reception at a Ladies' Club--The Great
Presidential Election--Sound Money _v._ Free
Silver--Slumland--Detective O'Flaherty.
I never felt better in my life, but my friends all assured me that I
looked ill. If I wasn't ill, I ought to be. I must be overworked and
break down. I had "burnt the candle at both ends and in the middle as
well," and it was a duty I owed to humanity to collapse. For years I
had done the work of three men with the constitution of one, so one day
it came to pass that I was forced by my friends into the consulting-room
of a celebrated physician, labelled "Ill. To be returned to Dead Letter
Office, or to be sent by foreign mail to some distant land, or to be
cremated on the spot," anything but to leave me free to return to my mad
disease, the worst mania of all--the mania for work.
My good physician stripped me, pommelled me, stethoscoped me, made me
say "99" when he had squeezed all the breath out of me (why "99"? Why
not "98" or "4"?--he was testing internal rebellion), flashed a
reflector under my eyes, seized a drumstick and hammered me under my
knee-joints, sat upon me literally and figuratively, and told me to give
up all food, drink, pleasure, and work for two months, which I did. My
balance at the bankers' and my balance on the scales were both reduced
considerably. I lost a good many pounds in weight and money.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
My friends all assured me that I looked well, but I never felt so ill in
all my life. If I was not ill, I ought to be. I tried to work, but broke
down. I was idle in the mornings, in the evenings, and in the middle of
the day as well, and it was a duty I owed to my doctor to collapse. So
one day I forced myself into his consulting-room before a hundred
patients waiting their turn, labelled "Well again." I pushed him into
his chair, pommelled him 99 times, flashed my cane under his eyes,
seized the poker and hammered him under his knee-joints, and told him I
would get him six months' hard labour if he did not pronounce me
sound,--he did.
"You only want a tonic now, my dear fellow--a sea-trip!"
"A _Teutonic_," I replied _Majestic_ally. "The very thing--sails
to-morrow--a new berth--I'll be born again under a White Star--_au
revoir_!"
"Your prescription!" he called after me. "Take it, and if you value your
life act up to it to the letter."
It contained two words and no hieroglyphics. Those two words were--"No
Work!"
How I acted up to it the following pages will show.
* * * * *
[Illustration: AN ATLANTIC "GREYHOUND."]
In strong contrast to the crowd and bustle at leaving in the afternoon
is the quietude late in the evening. Many promenade up and down the
beautiful deck under the electrically-lighted roof, and gaze upon the
lights of many craft flitting to and fro in the gentle breeze like
will-o'-the-wisps, postponing retiring, as they are not yet accustomed
to the vibration of the Atlantic greyhound, which trembles underneath
them as if, like the real greyhound in full cry after a hare, it is
literally straining every muscle to beat the record from the Old World
to the New.
What a difference has taken place since those "good old days" of those
good old wooden ships, with their good old slow passages and their good
old uncomfortable berths! Now the state cabin is an apartment perfectly
ventilated, gorgeously furnished, equipped with every modern
improvement, and electrically lighted; the switches close to the bed
(not berth) enable one to turn the light on or off at will. The
ever-watchful attendant comes in, wishes me good-night, after folding my
clothes, and departs. Leaving the incandescent light burning over my
head, I open the book dealing with the wonders of America which I have
taken from the well-stocked library, and read of great Americans, from
Washington to the man who has brought this very light to such
perfection, turning over page after page of well-nigh incredible
description of the country which has raised the system of "booming" to a
high art, till my brain reels with an Arabian Nightish flavour of
exaggeration, and turning off the electric current, I am gradually
lulled to sleep by the rhythmical vibrations of the steamer, the sole
reminder that I am in reality sleeping upon a ship and about to enjoy a
thorough week's rest.
I awoke from the dreams in which I had pictured myself a veritable
Columbus, and drawing aside the blind of my porthole, I looked out into
the morning light, and was, perhaps, for a second surprised to see land.
"Sandy Hook already! Can it be?" Well, hardly, just at present. Though
who can tell but that in another fifty years it may be possible in the
time? It is in reality the "Ould Counthry," and we are nearing
Queenstown.
There is a good muster at breakfast, and everyone is smiling, having had
at least one good night's rest on the voyage. The waters skirting the
Irish coast sometimes outdo the fury of the broad Atlantic, and are
generally just as troubled and combatant as the fiery political elements
on the little island; but so far we have had a perfect passage, and the
beautiful bay of Queenstown looks more charming than ever as the engines
stop for a short period before their five days' incessant activity to
follow.
Not only the ship, but the doctor, comes from the Emerald Isle. Who
crossing the Atlantic does not know the witty Dr.----? "Ah, shure, me
darlin', and isn't it himself that's a broth av a bhoy?" And so he is,
simply bubbling over with humour and good-nature. Presiding at one end
of the long table, I have to pass him as I leave the saloon. Having
sketched Irish scenery and Irish character in my youth, I am not tempted
to open my forbidden sketch-book; but somehow or other I find myself
making a rapid sketch of the Doctor as he rises from his seat at the end
of the table to wish the "top of the mornin'" to a lady who sits on his
right. My excuse is to send it to his friend, my doctor in London. Then,
without thinking, I sketch in a few other passengers, and instinctively
make a note of the surroundings. I confess I am already guilty of
breaking my pledge! And, therefore, make my escape on deck.
The huge steamer seems to act as a sort of magnet on the small fry of
the harbour, for they rush out to her from the land in all their sorts
and sizes, in a desperate race for supremacy. Prominent among this fleet
is a long, ungainly rowing-boat propelled by a tough Hibernian, and
seated in the stern are his women folk, surrounded by baskets, who, in
strong Milesian vernacular, urge the rower on in his endeavours to reach
the ship first. Looked down upon them from your floating tower, they
strongly resemble a swarm of centipedes. Harder and harder pull the
"bhoys," and louder and louder comes the haranguing of the females as
they approach us. I have my eye on the lady in the stern of the first
boat. She is fair, fat, and forty, possessed of really massive
proportions, most powerful lungs, and a true Irish physiognomy--a cast
of countenance in which it always strikes me that Nature had originally
forgotten the nasal organ, and then returning to complete the work had
taken between finger and thumb a piece of flesh and pinched it, thus
forming the nose rather high up on the face, while the waste of material
below goes to make the upper lip.
[Illustration: THE SALOON OF THE _TEUTONIC_. THE FIRST MORNING AT
BREAKFAST.]
The puller of the stroke oar is probably her husband, two others are
wielded evidently by her two sons, and the bow is taken by her strapping
daughter. One of her arms encircles the merchandise she intends to
dispose of on board our vessel, while the other vigorously helps to
propel the oar held by her brawny husband. All the while she is urging
on her crew in her native language, with what may be commands,
exhortations, or even blessings, but sounding to the unaccustomed Saxon
ear very much like curses, which chase one another out of her capacious
mouth with a rapidity unequalled by even an irritated monkey at the Zoo.
[Illustration: AT QUEENSTOWN--A REMINISCENCE.]
Their lumbering craft is the first to touch the side of the _Teutonic_.
Standing up in the boat, the good old lady exerts her vocal powers on
the crew on the lower deck, with the result that a rope fully fifty feet
long is thrown in her direction, having a loop on the end of it, by
which she is lassoed. With an agility only acquired after years of
practice, she adjusts the loop rapidly round her, and calls on the crew
to hoist away. The boat heels over to one side as she vigorously pushes
herself away from it, and souse the old dame goes up to her waist in the
water; the good-natured sailors give an extra jerk, and up she comes,
with baskets tied round her waist, and her feet acting as fenders
against the side of the ship. Fortunately the _Teutonic_ is bulky enough
to resist heeling over under this extra weight on the starboard side.
She is shipped like a bale of goods, and is immediately engaged in
discharging some more of her loquacity in directing the acrobatic
performances of her daughter, who is the next to ascend.
This scene caused much laughter, and I was induced to make a sketch of
the lady's acrobatic performance.
The other maritime vendors are hauled up in similar unceremonious
fashion, and they take possession of both decks. The pretty daughter of
Erin lays out with no little artistic taste her bog-oak ornaments, and
'Arry (for the _genus_ cad is to be encountered even on board such
aristocratic ships as these) attempts to be rampantly facetious at her
expense. But the damsel with the unkempt auburn locks flowing about her
comely face, lit up by a pair of blue Irish eyes under their dark
lashes, takes the cad's vulgarity together with his money, like the pill
with the jam, giving in return the valueless pieces of carved wood,
until her little stock is exhausted and a good morning's work is done.
[Illustration: BOG-OAK SOUVENIRS.]
On the lower deck trade is brisker. The emigrants (principally by this
line Scandinavians, in their picturesque peasant dress, the Germans of
course preferring to go by their own line, the North German Lloyd) are
fitting on Tam o' Shanters of the crudest colours, scarves of hues that
would cause the steamer's danger signals to turn pale, and eatables of
all descriptions--I ought to say of all the worst descriptions.
Unhealthy-looking cakes in which the currants are as scarce as Loyalists
in the part of the country in which they are made, tinned meats and
fruits that look suspiciously like condemned provisions or unsavoury
salvage; in fact the only really genuine article of diet was that
contained in the milk-pails. I may here remark that these alien steerage
passengers don't really care for wholesome food. Nothing could be better
than the excellent food prepared by the ship's steward, but these
emigrants prefer to bring with them provisions that beggar description.
All the time the Irish purveyors are emptying their baskets and filling
their pockets, and rowing back to the shore enriched and delighted;
their brothers and sisters are flowing up the gangway in a continual
stream, with weeping eyes and breaking hearts at the thought of leaving
their country perhaps for ever; and as soon as they are all on board,
together with the mails, which have come overland to Queenstown, we up
anchor, steam past Fastnet Rock, and soon the Old World is out of sight
behind us.
But all this is a thing of the past. Ladies are not now pulled up on to
the deck, nor is the promenade turned into a miniature Irish fair. When
last the boat stopped as usual in Queenstown bay I sadly missed the
familiar scene, and having nothing better to do I went on shore. As a
number of us strolled off the tender on which the mails were to return I
noticed two men in ordinary dress standing some distance off, looking on
at the scene. They were both fine specimens of humanity, each of them
about six feet high. "Detectives," I whispered to one of my friends. And
as we approached these gentlemen, I said to one of them, "Looking for
anyone this morning?"
"Not for you, Mr. Furniss."
Considering I had never been in Queenstown in my life, that I had never
been in the grip of these "sleuth-hounds" of the police, I must admit
that the British detective is not so stupid as we generally imagine, for
no doubt these men knew by telegraph the name of everybody on board and
amused themselves by placing us as I had amused myself by placing them.
The Captain generally has some voyager under his special care, and my
vis-a-vis, his protegee upon this trip, was a most charming and
delightful young lady on her way to rejoin her family in the Far West.
The skipper's seat is vacant at breakfast time, and should the weather
be rough, at the other meals also. If the elements are very boisterous,
the "fiddles" are screwed on to the tables, and on them a lively tune
is played by the jingling glasses and rattling cutlery to the erratic
beating of the Atlantic wave. The Captain's right and left hand
neighbours are exempt from the use of these appliances, and the small
area caused by this is the only space in the yards and yards of table
unencumbered by the "fiddles." The Captain scorns the aid of such
mechanical contrivances, and chatters away unconcerned, gracefully
balancing his soup-plate in his hands the while. I followed his example
as one to the manner born, but had I not been a bit of an amateur
conjuror I am afraid that I should not have been so successful. The
Captain challenged me, however, to make a sketch with the same ease as I
ate my dinner--and again I was forced to break my pledge!
[Illustration: THE CAPTAIN'S TABLE.]
It was amusing to listen to the petty jealousies and the little
grumblings of those not satisfied with their lot at table. One lady
stated as an excuse for having her meals in her cabin that her
neighbour, a bagman--or "drummer," as Americans would call him--made a
noise with his mouth while eating; and another lady elected to dine in
her stateroom in solitude because in the saloon she had her back to a
Bishop instead of her face!
It was my good fortune to meet on board that most genial and gifted of
men, "England's greatest tenor," Mr. Edward Lloyd, who under the
management of that equally genial and energetic impresario, Mr. Vert,
was on his way to charm the ears of our cousins on the other side. Then
we had one of the greatest favourites in the sporting world, who was
popping over, as he had been continually doing from his earliest youth,
to look after his estates in his native country. From the Captain down
to the under stokers he had been with all a familiar figure for many
years, and he had a pleasant word and a shake of the hands for
everybody. He could give you the straight tip for the Derby, was a fund
of information anent the latest weights for the big handicaps, and on
our arrival in the States it was with general satisfaction that we
learnt that one of his horses had won a race while its owner was
crossing the "Herring Pond."
We had yet another celebrity on board in the person of the bright little
Italian whose clever caricatures, especially those of Newmarket and
Newmarket celebrities, so delight us in the pages of _Vanity Fair_ over
the _nom de crayon_ "Lib." I think he caused us as much amusement as his
sketches, caricaturing everybody on board, not even excepting himself,
whom he most truthfully depicted as a common or barn owl. Or was it I
who drew him as the owl? I forget. But I do know that he looked
uncommonly like one as a rule, for he used to lie wrapped in his
Inverness upon a deck chair, his face only visible, with pallid cheeks
and distended eyes, and I did more than one caricature of him for his
fair admirers. That was on the rough days, for like a great many
foreigners, and English people too for the matter of that, he was a bad
sailor. Fortunately for me, I am a hardened sailor, and as such cannot
feel the amount of consideration I should otherwise do for those less
lucky than myself.
When the weather was calm I used to notice my Italian friend seated,
surrounded by the ladies, with an air of triumph and a smile upon his
intelligent visage. He was having his revenge! When he was not
sketching, he was playing chess with the Captain.
Now this commander was a captain from the top of his head to the soles
of his feet. A stern disciplinarian, erect, handsome, uncommunicative,
not a better officer ever stood on the bridge of an Atlantic or any
other liner. He had a contempt for the "Herring Pond," and manipulated
one of these floating hotels with as much ease as one would handle a toy
boat. "When a navigator's duty's to be done," he was _par excellence_ a
modern Caesar, but despite his sternness he had a sense of humour, and
his unbending moments struck one with an emphasised surprise.
[Illustration: NOT UP IN A BALLOON.]
He could not bear a bore. Those fussy landlubbers who are always tapping
the barometers, asking questions of every member of the crew, testing,
sounding, and finding fault with the weather chart, had better steer
clear of the worthy Captain, as with hands thrust deep in his pockets he
strides from one end of the deck to the other during the course of his
constitutional. It is on record that one of these fussy individuals,
edging up to a well-known Captain as he was going on to the bridge when
a mist was gathering, and the siren was about to blow as customary when
entering on an Atlantic fog, remarked:
"Captain, Captain, can't you see that it is quite clear overhead?"
The Captain turned on his heel to ascend to the bridge, and scornfully
rejoined:
"Yes, sir, yes, sir; but can't you see that I am not navigating a
balloon?"
On one occasion the Captain had been through a terribly stormy afternoon
and night, and had not quitted his post on the bridge for one minute,
the weather being awful. Fogs, icebergs, and the elements all combined
to make it a most anxious time for the one man in charge of the valuable
vessel and her cargo of 1,700 souls, and during the whole period the
unflinching skipper had not tasted a mouthful of food. The Captain's
boy, feeling for his master, had from time to time endeavoured with some
succulent morsel to make him break his long fast; but the firm face of
the Captain was set, his eyes were fixed straight ahead, and his ears
were deaf to the lad's appeal. It was breakfast time when the boy once
more ventured to ask the Captain if he could bring him something to eat.
This time he got an answer.
"Yes," growled the Captain, "bring me two larks' livers on toast!"
These Atlantic Captains of the older school were a hardened and humorous
lot of navigators, and many a story of their eccentricity survives them:
one in particular of an old Captain seeing the terror of the junior
officer during that nervous ordeal of treading the bridge for the first
time with him. This particular old salt, after a painful silence, turned
on the young man and said, "I like you. I'm very much impressed by you.
I've heard a lot about you--in fact, my dear sir, I should like to have
your photograph. You skip down and get it."
The nervous and delighted youth rushed off to his cabin, and informed
his brother officers of the compliment the old man had just paid him. He
was in luck's way, and running gaily up on to the bridge, presented his
photograph, blushing modestly, to the old salt.
"'Umph! Got a pin with you?"
"Ye--es, sir."
"Ah, see! I pin you up on the canvas here. I can look at you there and
admire you. You can go, sir; your photograph is just as valuable as you
appear to be on the bridge. Good morning."
The Captain of the ship I was on had his chessmen pegged, and holes in
the board into which to place them, so that despite any oscillations of
the ship they would remain in their places; but the unfortunate part of
the business was that although he could provide sea-legs for his
chessmen it was more than he could do for his opponent, and it was as
good as a play to see Signor "Lib" hiding from the Captain when the
weather was not all it might be, and he in consequence felt anything but
well. One mate after another would be despatched with the strictest
orders from the Captain to search for the cheerless chessite; but after
a time the Captain's patience would be exhausted, his strident voice
could be heard calling upon the caricaturist to come forth and show
himself, and eventually he might be seen _en route_ to his cabin with
the box of chessmen under one arm and his opponent under the other.
[Illustration: CHESS.]
I was cruel enough on more than one occasion to follow them and witness
the sequel.
"Your move, now--your move!"
"Ah, Captain! I do veel zo ill! Ze ship it do go up and down, up and
down, until I do not know vich is ze bishop and vich is ze queen!"
"Nonsense, sir, nonsense! Your move--look sharp, and I'll soon have you
mated!"
The poor artist _did_ move, and quickly too, but it was to the outside
of the cabin!
The Captain was triumphant at table, telling us of his victory, but his
poor opponent could only point to his untouched plate and to the waves
dashing against the portholes, and with that shrug of the shoulders, so
suggestive to witness but so difficult to describe, would thus in dumb
show explain the cause of his defeat.
I remember well on one beautiful afternoon, the sky bright and the sea
calm, just before the pilot came on board when we were nearing the
States, Signor Prosperi (for that was his name) came up to me, his face
the very embodiment of triumph:
"Ah, I have beaten ze Captain at last--_but ze sea is smooth_!"
On the outward voyage, as I said before, we had a host in Mr. Edward
Lloyd, but he was under contract not to warble until a certain day which
had been fixed in New York, and no doubt his presence had a deterrent
effect upon the amateur talent, with the exception of one lady, who came
up to Mr. Lloyd and said:
"You really _must_ sing;--you really _must_!"
"I am very sorry, madam, but I really can't--I am not my own master in
this matter."
"Oh, but you must," she rejoined. "I have promised that if you will
sing, _I_ will!"
An American who had "made his pile," as the Yankees say, remarked to the
hard-worked vocalist:
"I think, sir, that as you are endowed with such a beautiful voice you
ought by it to benefit such a deserving entertainment as this."
"Certainly," replied the world-famed tenor. "My fee for singing is fifty
guineas, and I will be pleased to oblige the company if you will pay a
cheque for that amount into the sailors' fund."
[Illustration: MR. LLOYD AND THE LADY. "IF YOU WILL SING, _I_ WILL!"]
And, in my opinion, a right good answer too. These middle-men and their
wives and daughters are always pestering professional men to give their
services to charities for nothing, but in cases like the one I have just
cited they take very good care that they do not unloosen their own
purse-strings to help the cause along and equalise the obligation.
However the concert took place, and I, unable to resist the flattering
request to "do something," and not being prohibited from taking part--as
Mr. Lloyd was--made several sketches, just to keep my hand in, and they
were raffled for.
All goes well and smoothly on the voyage until one night you are
awakened by a harsh, grating, shrieking sound. You start from your
slumbers, and for a moment imagine that in reality you are in the
interior of some fearsome ocean monster, who is bellowing either in rage
or fear, for the sound is unique in its wild hideousness, half a screech
and half a wail, aggressive and yet mournful. Your ears have just
recovered from the first shock when they are assaulted by another, and
yet another, at intervals of about a minute. It is the voice of the
siren. Was ever a more inappropriate name bestowed upon the steam
whistle of an Atlantic liner? It conveys to me the news that we are
passing through an Atlantic fog, and I defy anyone, be they in the most
perfect ship, under the safest of commanders, to feel comfortable in
such circumstances. The siren still wails, and like Ulysses and his
companions I feel very much inclined to stuff my ears with wax. Indeed,
peering out of my porthole through the mist, I almost seem to see the
figures of the mythological voyager and his companions carved in ice, no
doubt beguiled by the treacherous music of the siren. These are in
reality our main terrors, the icebergs.
[Illustration: THE AMERICAN PILOT--IDEAL.]
It is a relief when we have left them behind and evaded the clutches of
the demon fog, and the fresh breeze and the glorious sun lend a new
beauty to the sparkling water, showing us in the distance white specks
skimming over the waves like gulls, the first sign that we are
approaching land--the white gleaming wings of the pilot yachts.
[Illustration: THE AMERICAN PILOT--REAL.]
Signals are exchanged, and one of these boats comes nearer and nearer to
us, tacking to perfection. Through our glasses we already seem to see
the stalwart figure of the pilot standing in the stern. On his brow he
wears a storm-defying cap, the badge of the warrior of the waves; the
loose shirt, the top boots, and the weather-beaten jacket all combine to
make up a picturesque figure, and I sketched what seemed to me to be the
figure of the man who was coming on board to guide us to the Hook of
Sandy. As the little vessel approaches us the intervening sail hides
from my view the figure of the one man I want to see. A boat is lowered
from the side of the pilot boat, into which two sailors descend. Who on
earth is this who steps in after them and takes the rudder lines? He
sports a top hat, kid gloves, and patent shoes. Is he a commercial
traveller? He looks it. He is rowed to the side of the steamer, and then
the fun begins. A rope ladder is lowered from the deck, which is
immediately clutched by one of the oarsmen in the boat, and this
commonplace commercial scrambles towards it. Just then a wave breaks
over him, and more like a drowned excursionist than an American pilot
this little man is hauled on board.
I think a great deal of the Atlantic, but I am sorely disappointed with
the American pilot.
The Americans pride themselves upon their independence, and surely a
more independent race never existed. The brow-beaten Britisher is not
long in finding this out, and in my case it was most clearly
demonstrated to me at the first stoppage of the steamer after leaving
Queenstown. After our headlong race across the broad Atlantic, after
every nut and screw in the vessel has been strained to save every
particle of time, and every moment watched and calculated, here at the
mouth of the Hudson, in sight of the colossal statue of Liberty, we are
kept waiting under a broiling sun on a beautiful day for an
unconscionable time whilst forsooth the health officer or his
subordinate is enjoying his lunch. Fancy 1,700 foreigners being kept
waiting because a paid official--paid by the shipowners of
England--wishes to satisfy his selfish greediness!
I watched for this gentleman as he crawled on board, having come across
eventually from his riparian villa. There were no apologies (Americans
never apologise). I don't know the gentleman's name, but here I show you
his face. His check I have described already.
Now that I have touched on America itself, I wish it to be understood
that it is not my intention to look out for and comment upon the faults
of our American cousins, but rather in describing my all too brief
visits to a charming people in a charming country to deal with their
merits. But it is proverbial that first impressions are everything, and
the first I received of official America, in the person of this
particular individual, was the only instance I saw which would not
compare favourably with the red-tapeism of our own country. And I must
say, from what I was told even by Americans themselves, that the worst
side of their countrymen is to be seen where the official department is
concerned, and to illustrate this I shall still stick to the official
(or his representative, whichever it was) that I have just been
describing.
[Illustration: THE HEALTH OFFICER COMES ON BOARD.]
The ship which followed that in which I came over brought from England
some persons who were at the time the talk of American society. They had
been connected with some gigantic scandal, and the interviewers,
scenting copy from afar, were ready to spring upon them. Of course, it
was known that it was to the interest of the reporters (and they were
only doing their duty) to get on board at Sandy Hook, and to frustrate
them a special steamer was sent down with instructions to the captain of
the liner that no one was to accompany the officer of health on board.
The medical officer came in his tug with the whole batch of reporters,
and declared that he would not permit the vessel to proceed into port
unless his friends were allowed on board. The almighty dollar had
polluted officialism, and disclosed to the incoming strangers that the
huge statue of Liberty before them, which held on high the torch of
advancement and enlightenment, was really a snare and a delusion, at any
rate as far as red-tapeism was concerned.
And so I arrived after a week's thorough rest, with my sketch-book full!
I could not help breaking my pledge; it was my first trip across the
Atlantic, and everything was therefore new and interesting. In fact, so
was all I saw in the States, and my pencil was always busy. I was
looking forward to a genuine rest on my return journey, but it happened
to be in the crowded season, and the ship was so full I was asked, as a
particular favour to "a very distinguished cleric," to share my cabin
with him.
[Illustration: JUST IN TIME!]
The departure of an Atlantic liner has a great attraction on both sides
of the "Herring Pond," but there is a difference. Passengers leaving
England are surrounded with cheap and vulgar literature, newspapers,
guide-books, sticks, and umbrellas. Leaving America, the liner is turned
into a floating flower show. Most beautiful bouquets labelled with the
names of the lady passengers are on view in the saloon. Just as the last
gangway is drawn on to the shore, amid cries of "Clear away!" we hear
suddenly "Hold hard!" There is a commotion. Someone has not yet arrived;
we lean over the side of the ship to see who is coming. Perhaps it is an
important emissary of the Government, or even the President himself. We
all push forward; the stalwart New York police keep back the crowd; the
crew of the good ship _Majestic_ hold the gangway in its place as the
centre of attraction trips gaily up it. It is a diminutive nigger
messenger from a florist's, with a huge bouquet of flowers. I imagine I
see my own name on the label, so I modestly seclude myself in my own
cabin, whence I only emerge after we have passed Bartholdi's colossal
figure, just to have one last peep at the country in which I have stored
up such pleasant memories.
[Illustration: "A FLOATING FLOWER SHOW."]
By this time the bouquets of the flower show had been transferred to the
cabins of their owners. I may mention, by the way, that the cynical lady
on board, who wore a solitary bunch of faded violets in her dress,
informed me that most of the ladies paid for the bouquets themselves,
and had them sent on board with their names attached. I don't wish to
seem egotistical, but I know that when I went back to my own cabin I
found the greatest difficulty in forcing the door open. There was a huge
bundle of something or other pressing against it. A fragrant scent was
wafted through the opening, which sent a thrill through me. It must be
the big bouquet! I gave one final shove, burst the door open, and
discovered the bouquet to be a bishop, who was scenting his handkerchief
at the time with otto of roses. It was worth the journey to America to
have the honour of sharing a cabin with a bishop on the return journey.
But what a contrast between us! What a theme for W. S. Gilbert! _Punch_
and the pulpit rocked together in the cradle of the deep!
When I first came on board I made arrangements at once with the bath
steward, and, being rather an early bird, I fixed my time to be called
at seven o'clock. When I retired to the cabin I found the worthy bishop
(he is now Lord Primate of Ireland) looking plaintively at his berth.
Like all on board it was roomy and comfortable, but probably Sir Edward
Harland had not taken the portly prelate (who, by the way, is almost a
neighbour of his) as a gauge for the size of the berths. Mine was, if
anything, a trifle larger, so I respectfully invited the bishop to
change with me.
[Illustration: THE BATH STEWARD AND THE BISHOP. "YOUR TIME, SIR! YOUR
TIME!"]
I was awakened next morning by assault and battery being committed on
the poor bishop, of which I was the innocent cause. An athletic-looking
man, with a white jacket, and sleeves rolled up to his elbows, was
shaking the very life out of my clerical friend and shouting "Seven
o'clock! Your time, sir! Seven o'clock! Your time!" The bishop looked
something like a criminal sentenced to death must do when the hangman
awakes him on the fatal morning, and I had to explain to the bath
steward that we had changed berths, and that in future No. 2 was to be
awakened instead of No. 1.
Perhaps it is not generally known that suicide is nearly as prevalent as
_mal de mer_ amongst these Americans who are rushing over for a few
weeks' repose. They work at such a fearful rate, slaves to that
insatiable god the almighty dollar, that eventually they either have to
fly to a lunatic asylum or an Atlantic liner. After a day or two on the
latter the calm and repose and the vast sea around them prove too much
of an antidote; the overtaxed brain gives way, and overboard they go.
An Englishman is too fond of exercise to allow high pressure to get the
better of him in this way, and the difference between English and
American people on these liners is most marked. Directly an American
family comes on board they select places for their deck chairs, which,
except for meals, they never leave. From early morning until late at
night, much to the astonishment of the Americans, the English
passengers--men, women, and children--pace the deck as if it were a
go-as-you-please contest for immense prizes. Being a good sailor but a
bad sleeper, I think I fairly qualified for first prize. Morning, noon,
and night, round and round those magnificent decks I went, to the
disgust and envy of those who could not move off their deck chairs, and
who loathed the very sight of me.
[Illustration: AMERICANS AND ENGLISH ON DECK.]
It so happened that together with a few other privileged passengers I
dined a little later than the rest, so I had an opportunity of observing
the weak ones suffering on deck whilst others were struggling with their
meals below, and I promenaded round that deck, battling with the
elements to get an extra edge on my excellent appetite. I remember that
when passing some ladies on my way down to dinner, they feebly
endeavouring to eat a biscuit or two and drink a glass of champagne, one
turned her pallid face to another and murmured, "I _am_ so glad that
energetic little man has been obliged to give in at last!"
They ought to have seen me at the table half-an-hour afterwards, that's
all!
That reminds me of my friend poor Alfred Cellier, who was wintering in
the South once at the same time as we were there for my wife's health. I
was returning from a meet one day, hot and mud-bespattered, when I met
the talented musician walking feebly along in the sun with his furs on.
He called to me to stop, which I did, and his dreamy, good-natured face
assumed a most malevolent expression as he hissed at me, "I hate you! I
hate you! _You look so beastly healthy._"
Even on board ship the American still clings to his iced water, but some
think it is time to train for the European habit of taking wine at
dinner. I noticed a Westerner who with his wife was sitting down for
probably the first time to _table d'hote_. He took up the wine list, and
went right through the sherries, hocks, clarets, champagnes, and even
liqueurs. Now at the end of the wine lists on these vessels there is
appended a list of various mineral waters. The names of these (or was it
the price?) seemed to take the fancy of the American. "I guess this
_Hunyadi Janos_ sounds well--I calculate if you put a bottle of that on
ice it'll do us just right."
Sailors are superstitious. Some will, or used to, rob themselves of the
necessities of life to purchase a baby's "caul," and wear it around
their neck as a charm.
To sail out of harbour on a Friday was unheard of. In these days of
science, days in which steam has driven the old frigate-rigged sailing
ships from the seas, one would have thought that superstition would have
vanished with the old hulks, and that in the floating palaces crossing
the Atlantic, in which longshoremen take the place of old-time sea-dogs,
charms and omens would have lost their power. Yet sailor superstitions
are as hard to kill even in these gorgeous up-to-date liners as it is to
exterminate the rats in the hold or the cockroaches in the larder.
The last journey I made to America was in the favourite liner the
_Germanic_. I was chatting to one of the crew, an old salt, the day we
left Queenstown; he was looking out to sea; his brow was clouded, and he
shook his head mournfully.
"Are we in for a bad passage?" I asked.
"Don't know yet, sir; aren't seen all them on board yet. We had a
terrible passage the week afore last goin' East, but I expected it. We
'ad an Archbishop on board!"
I informed him that on the present journey we had two priests on board,
and two professional atheists--"so what kind of passage were we to
expect?"
After a moment's serious thought the mariner replied, "I think, sir, we
may reckon we shall have an average." And curious to relate we did.
The two Freethinkers who thus balanced the ecclesiastics were Messrs.
Foote and Watts, who were on a mission to America to induce Colonel
Robert G. Ingersoll to visit England.
The stranger in America, if he be a public man in his own country, is
treated like a suspected criminal. Every movement is watched, every
action reported, and as he passes from city to city a description and
report precedes him, and there is an eye, or rather a couple of dozen
eyes, to mark his coming and grow keener when he comes.
But he is watched by friends, not by detectives, and his actions are
reported in public prints, not in private ledgers. It is not the arm of
the law, but the hand of friendship, that shadows him, and those
stereotyped passports to friendship, letters of introduction from
friends at home, are as needless to introduce him as a life-preserver or
a Colt's revolver to protect him. He had better amuse himself while in
mid-ocean by presenting them to the porpoises that dive and splutter
round the ship, for the only object they will accomplish will be the
filling of his waste-paper basket on his return home.
[Illustration: AMERICAN INTERVIEWING--IMAGINARY.]
[Illustration: AMERICAN INTERVIEWING--REAL.]
Major Hospitality arrested me the moment I arrived, and handed me over
to the Inky Inquisition--eight gentlemen of the Press--who placed me on
the interviewer's rack at the demand of insatiable modern journalism. I
scraped through the ordeal as well as could be expected in the
circumstances, considering I hadn't yet acquired my land-legs. The
raging waves may roar their loudest, and the stormy winds may blow their
hardest, but they don't affect me. It is only when I find myself on
_terra firma_ once more that I feel any effects from an ocean trip. For
the benefit of those who are subject to _mal de mer_ I will disclose my
prescription to act as a reliable safeguard, and that is to mesmerise
yourself so that once on board no sensations seem to you strange or
unwonted. The only drawback is that I have not yet discovered how to
unmesmerise myself, although my theory worked splendidly when on board,
so that when I get on shore I feel as if I were still on the sea. I am
always ducking breakers, descending companion ladders, and I roll across
the street as if it were the deck of a liner. Every building I enter
seems to be rocking up and down, up and down, and as on the occasion I
refer to I sat before the knights of the quill to be cross-examined, I
felt as if I were in the cabin of a ship rather than in my own room at
the hotel, and that the books on the table were in reality fiddles to
keep the glasses and other things from falling off.
It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that the next day I find myself
described as "not a well man," although "his face is ruddy," and "his
blue eyes have a tired look and his hand is not so steady as it might
be." I would like to know whose hand would be steady if, after six days
of Atlantic travel, he was landed to find himself suddenly confronted
with eight talented gentlemen, cross-questioning him _ad lib._,
measuring the length of his foot, counting the buttons on his coat, and
the hairs on his head, and if, after his tiring journey, he happened to
yawn, looking to see whether he had false teeth or not!
And then to be handed a bad pen and worse paper, and have to draw
pictures in pen and ink, in the space of five minutes, for the eight
gentlemen who were watching to see "how it's done"! I have sketched
crowned heads on their thrones, bishops in their pulpits, thieves in
their dens, and beauties in their drawing-rooms; but I never felt such
nervousness as I did when I had to caricature myself on the occasion of
my first experience of American interviewing.
In my seeing America in a hurry, I addressed the reporters somewhat in
this fashion:
"I am not disappointed with anything I have seen. I was told that I
would find the worst-paved streets in the world. I have found them. I
was told that I would see unsightly, old-fashioned telegraph-poles
sticking up in the streets. I have seen them. I was told that I would
have to pay a small fortune for my cab from the docks to my hotel. I
have paid it. I was told that a newspaper reporter would ask me what I
thought of America as soon as I landed. I am asked that question by
eight gentlemen of the Press; indeed, I was interrogated upon that point
by the representative of a leading American paper before I left the
shores of England. I was told that I would find the most charming and
best-dressed women in the world. That promise is more than realised.
[Illustration: "SANDY."]
"I find New York as bright as Paris, as busy as London, as interesting
as Rome, and, in fact, I am so delighted and bewildered with everybody
and everything that, like the old lady's parrot, I don't say much, but I
think a deal; and now my difficulty is to convey those thoughts to the
public through the medium of your valuable papers."
Scores of Columbuses arrive at Sandy Hook every week to discover America
for themselves, from Charles Columbus Dickens to Rudyard Columbus
Kipling, to say nothing of Tom, Dick, Harry Columbus Brown, Jones,
Robinson. It is hardly fair to say that they go over with their pockets
full of letters of introduction to their American cousins, who receive
them with open arms and unlimited hospitality, and then that these Toms,
Dicks, and Harrys bring back in exchange notes for columns of ridicule
and abuse of their Transatlantic friends. If our Americans _have_ a
fault, it is a very slight one. They are too sensitive. They seem to
forget that they receive and honour some of our countrymen as critics
and satirists, but they expect that on leaving their shores their late
guests will wash off the critical and satirical sides of their natures
just as an actor removes his paint and make-up on leaving the boards.
Americans, both publicly and privately, are incessantly interviewing the
stranger: "What do you think of our great country? What do you think of
ourselves?" They live in a glass house filled with forced young plants,
from out of which house they may throw stones at the stranger, but woe
betide the critic who has the temerity to cast one in return. He gets
his impressions from the hothouse society snobs reared in the hotels of
the cities, the dollar worshipper, the vulgar millionaire, made more
obnoxious by the newer European importation, happily a plant not true to
the American soil. We strangers too often see but the cut flowers,
showy, glaring, to-day; jaded, gone to-morrow. We do not see the
cultured orchid or the natural wild flowers of America, for the simple
reason we do not look for them in seeing that wonderful country in a
hurry.
My first impression of New York was that of a faded back-cloth in a
melodrama; but when you get upon the stage, or, in other words, into the
streets, you find yourself amid a transformation scene of wonderful
activity and brilliancy. Some of the streets, in fact most of them in
which business is transacted, resemble strongly the shop scenes in
harlequinades, for the Americans have carried advertising so far that
their streets of shops, and especially those in New York, are simply
museums of grotesque advertisement.
Gigantic hands advertising gloves, huge hats, boots, and animals form a
heterogeneous collection of anything but beautiful models, gilded and
painted in all the most flaming colours, piled on top of each other on
every house from street level to attic, each tradesman vieing with the
other in screeching to the public to "Buy! buy!! buy!!!" by means of the
curiosities and monstrosities of the advertiser's art.
A few years ago a celebrated Continental authoress came to London for
the first time, in the height of the season, to stay a week in order to
get her impressions for a book she was writing, in which the heroine had
flown to London for that period of time. She went everywhere and saw
everything; just before she left London I asked her what had impressed
her most of all she had seen. In reply she said, "The fact that the
drivers of public vehicles never cracked their whips!"
If I were asked what impressed me most about New York, I should not say
Brooklyn Bridge, or Wall Street, or the Elevated Railway, but the number
of chiropodists' advertisements! They confront you at every turn; these
huge gilded models of feet outside the chiropodists' establishments,
some painted realistically and many adorned with bunions, are destined
to meet your eye as you stroll through the streets. Should you look up,
you will see them suspended from the first floor window, or painted on
canvas on the front of the house. Avoid the shops altogether, and you
are bound to knock up against some gentleman in the gutter encased in a
long white waterproof, on which is portrayed the inevitable foot and the
name and address of the chiropodist.
[Illustration: CHIROPODY.]
Now why is this? The Americans have pretty feet and small hands, both
men and women. Is it vanity, and do they squeeze their feet into boots
too small for them, or are their pedal coverings badly made, or does the
secret lie in the rough pavements of their thoroughfares? I am glad to
say that I never required the services of a foot doctor, but I know that
my feet have ached many and many a time after promenading the New York
pathways.
New York ought to be called New Trilby.
I was offered more than once an open cheque which I might fill in to
cover all my expenses from the time I left England until I reached the
shores of the Old Country again if I would supply a journal with _one
page_ of impressions of America illustrated. A suggestion of this sort
in an English newspaper office would have just about the same effect as
a big canister of dynamite! I didn't accept any of these tempting
offers. I didn't go to the States on my first visit to paint glaring
pictures, or to make up stories, or to marry an American heiress, nor
did I go in search of the almighty dollar. I simply went as a tourist in
search of health, and with the desire of shaking hands with my many
friends on the other side.
[Illustration: "NEW TRILBY."]
I was therefore extremely annoyed on my arrival to find the
irrepressible lecture agent, Major Pond, had coolly announced that I was
going over to him, and he had actually taken rooms for me at the Everett
House! Of course I informed the interviewers that I was not going to
tour with Pond or to make money in any way. I was merely a bird of
passage, a _rara avis_, a visitor without an eye on the almighty dollar.
After I returned to England an irresponsible paragraphist informed the
American public that I went home determined to give it to them hot. This
contradiction of mine appeared, and was sent to me by the Major. Note in
it I contradict his report that I went over in his interests.
[Illustration: AMIABLE MR. HENRY FURNISS.
The London Punch Cartoonist Denies Certain
Unfriendly Reports.
To the Editor of The Sun--Sir: Paragraphs
have appeared in some American papers to the
effect that I "went home determined to give
it to New York and the Americans hot." I can
only suppose that this is invented for the purpose
of firing off a very feeble joke upon my
name at the sacrifice of the truth, for I had a
most pleasant time in America, and have
brought back with me most agreeable reminiscences,
which I intend to publish.
Will you be kind enough to contradict this
unfair insinuation, and also the incorrect surmise
that I went to the States to the interest
of any paper or person? I simply made the
journey in search of health, and not interest
of the almighty dollar.
By the way, before the end of the year I may
contribute to London Punch a few pages from
my well-stocked American sketch book. Faithfully
yours,
Harry Furniss.
Garrick Club, London, July, 1892.]
Major Pond is a typical American, hospitable, kind, with an eye for
business, but I do not appear in his entertaining book, nor was I ever
on his business books either. He sat for me on the shoeblack's street
chair outside his office when I made a sketch of him, and he was so
obliging I believe he would have stood on his head if I had asked him.
He managed to get me to stand in front of the camera, but not in front
of an audience.
Some day I shall write a paper entitled "Photographers I Have Met," for
few people have faced the fire of the camera oftener than I. I am not a
fashionable beauty, nor much of a celebrity, neither am I honestly a
vain man--I shrink from the rays of the too truthful lens--but I have
been dragged into the line of fire and held there until the deed is
done, like an unwilling convict. In nearly every town I have visited
have I undergone this operation, and the result is a collection of
criminal-looking, contorted countenances of a description seldom seen
outside the museum of a police station.
[Illustration: MAJOR POND.]
I was therefore determined not to incur this risk in America.
Photographers sent their cards, but they saw me not (perhaps if they
had they would have repented of their invitation). However, one day I
was secured by stratagem.
I was walking along Union Square with Major Pond, whose martial bearing
impressed me as much as his 'cuteness fascinated me. He had that morning
heard of my determination not to be photographed, and as he walked along
he suddenly stepped into a doorway, his arm in mine, touched a button in
a side panel, down rushed an elevator, the door was flung open, and I
was flung in. "Sarony," said the Major, and up, up, up we flew.
"The photographer?" I asked hurriedly.
"The artist," the Major replied; "one of the greatest flesh drawers"
(nude studies) "we have in this gr--e--a--t country, sir. Here he is,
deaf to everything but art, and to everyone but artists."
Who can say photography is not high art when you have to go up seven
stories to it?
I now stood before the greatest photographer in the world--and the
smallest. I stood--he danced. He talked--I listened.
"Come here," he cried; "you are an artist--you can understand
genius--you can appreciate my work."
And he produced from a portfolio a quantity of studies, or, as the Major
would call them, "flesh drawings," prettily touched in with the stump
and chalk with a _chic_ familiar to those who know the facility of the
French school. He patted me on the shoulder, kissed his hand to his
work, and fell into raptures over the human form divine with an
earnestness which showed him to be a true artist. With his sitter in
front of him he was even more enthusiastic, placing you into position,
and striking attitudes in front of you till you felt inclined to dance
"Ta ra ra boom de ay" instead of remaining rigid. I pointed out to him
that my hair being of an auburn hue, that on my chin and the remnant on
my head came out black.
"Ah, we shall alter that," he said, and he powdered my head. "And now to
counteract that--here goes!" and with some soot or charcoal he touched
over the scanty parts on my "dome of thought." During this process I
noticed that his own luxurious head of hair was not a fixture. He wore a
fez, and as he paused and pirouetted and struck attitudes, he would
pull the fez over one eye coquettishly, or over the other one
ferociously, and with it went his hair, parting and all. It is no wonder
this energetic photographer was so successful with the instantaneous
process, or that he so cleverly caught in the lens theatrical dancers
and others in motion to perfection. Of the most successful of his photos
that I saw was that of a row of comedians dancing together, and although
I was not present at the moment the photograph was taken, I have no
doubt, from the pleasant smile of their faces and their artistic poses,
that all credit was due to the late Sarony.
[Illustration: THE GREAT SARONY.]
The Major had his "Bureau" in Everett House. There he arranged for his
"stars," and there under false pretences he decoyed me, and there for
the first time initiated me into the obnoxious habit of drinking iced
water.
Most people are aware that in Nicaragua there dwell a tribe who
gradually kill themselves by an extraordinary predilection for eating a
certain kind of clay. These people are of the lowest order, and may
therefore be pardoned for their foolishness in turning themselves into
plaster casts; but why the enlightened Americans choose to convert
themselves into walking icebergs through drinking so much iced water is
unaccountable to the alien. They certainly do play havoc with their
digestions. They eat rapidly and recklessly, and swallow with startling
rapidity, for having all the dishes placed before them at once they have
no waiting in between the courses to assist digestion, and almost before
they have swallowed their food they freeze it with draughts of iced
water.
At this hotel in New York there lived for some years an Italian singer,
who was a great favourite in the city, and whose horror of iced water
was a terror to all the waiters. They knew that it was as much as their
lives were worth, and certainly as much as the glass was worth, to set a
drink of this concoction before him. If any new or forgetful waiter
offered the obnoxious liquid to the foreigner, it was soon thrown at his
head or to the other end of the room. Americans seldom show their
feelings, but anything they resent they will harbour in their minds, and
never forget.
In due course this singer died. The weather was hot at the time, and the
body in the shell was surrounded by ice until the time came to carry it
out of the hotel. As it passed through the hall the manager, who had had
many and many an upbraiding from the excitable Italian after the latter
had been proffered the hateful iced water, rushed out and triumphantly
exclaimed:
"'Guess, sir, you've got plenty of ice now, whether you like it or
not!'"
I was told that kindness would be showered upon me in America. I lived
in a perfect blizzard of hospitality, the force of which was too much
for me to stand up against. The poet asks, "What's in a name?" I don't
know, I'm sure, but I know what's not in a name, and that's something by
which you can identify the owner of it.
You are introduced to a man, his name being given you as Mr. James B.
Brown. You could never forget his face as long as you live, but there is
nothing in the name of James B. Brown to fix it in your memory. Indians
are more practical--they adopt nicknames. Amongst them the gentleman in
question would probably be known as "Cherrybeak," "Bleary Eye," or some
such descriptive cognomen.
I felt the want of this common-sense system when in America terribly.
While there I lived at the highest pressure of hospitality. Breakfasts,
luncheons, teas, dinners, suppers, receptions and all sorts of
gatherings, sometimes two or three of them in one day. At each of them I
was introduced to most interesting people, names perfectly familiar to
me but faces unknown. I was bewildered beyond description. I made many
friends, and as a natural consequence I made many blunders. The worst
of these latter I really must record, and pray that should this
confession meet the eye of my hospitable friend I trust he will forgive
me--indeed I know he will, for he is one of the best and cleverest of
men.
I was invited to an excellent dinner by a well-known man of letters I
had never met before. I accepted the invitation on condition I should be
allowed to leave early, as I had engagements two or three deep for that
evening. I came away with the best impression of my host and all his
friends. I saw their jokes and their faces, and knew I would recollect
both, but their names! how to recollect them was the puzzle. That
evening I met more distinguished people at the second house I visited,
more at the third, and still more at the fourth. I shall never forget
their kindness, but I gave up all hopes of trying to recollect hundreds
of names, all new to me in one evening. The problem was hopeless. The
following morning callers began early, and more invitations poured in.
At breakfast one of my new acquaintances called.
[Illustration: JAMES B. BROWN!]
"Tell me, Mr. Furniss, have you met our great literary man and renowned
humorist, Mr. James B. Brown?"
"Brown, Brown!" I repeated (that was not the name of course, but it will
do). "Well, no. I know his name so well, but I don't think I have yet
had the pleasure of making his acquaintance."
"Not know James B. Brown? Well, you must straightaway. Now let me
reckon. You leave New York at four this afternoon--you must lunch first.
Why not with me at the ---- Club? I'll get James B. Brown there or I'll
swallow Bartholdi's statue!"
I found refusals were of no avail, so I agreed. At one I entered the
club, at two minutes past one James B. Brown entered, and we met. He was
my first host of the previous evening!
We were formally introduced. I smiled--James B. Brown didn't. James B.
Brown pulled himself up to his full height--about double mine--I never
felt so small before. I shook his hand (he didn't shake mine) and said:
"This is a great honour and pleasant surprise," and I pulled the
dismayed celebrity gently to my side, when getting on tip-toes I
telephoned up the string of his eye-glass:
"Keep up the joke, Mr. Brown, keep it up. Fact is, I was so delighted at
meeting you last night and so charmed with you that when I was asked if
I had met you before I said 'No,' so that I might have the pleasure of
meeting you again. Forgive me!"
James B. Brown shook my hand warmly, and telephoned down:
"Sir, this is the greatest compliment I have ever received. Your sin
will be forgiven for your sincere flattery of so humble an admirer as
myself."
Americans claim to be superior to us in respect of three things--their
facility in travelling, their fire system, and their after-dinner
speaking. One of these I will not question, and that is the Fire
Brigade. It is necessary for America to excel in this respect, for with
their huge warehouses and stores overstocked with inflammable goods fire
would destroy their cities as Chicago was destroyed, were they not so
wonderfully prompt and efficient with their engines and appliances.
When I arrived in the States I only presented two of the very numerous
letters of introduction with which I was supplied. One was to the Chief
of Police in New York, and the other was to the Captain of the Fire
Brigade. The latter I met, when I arrived at the station at which he is
located, just coming out in ordinary clothes, for it was his night off;
but such is the pride taken by the Fire Brigade in their work that
whatever engagement he was going to keep was abandoned, and he was at my
service until I had seen everything it was possible to see in connection
with the famous Fire Brigade.
[Illustration: FIRE!]
As I was speaking to the Captain in the engine-room I noticed a couple
of horses standing there. One of them was a grey mare with a most
cunning look, and as the Captain was informing me that "she had done
continuous work here for some years," she gave me an artful wink of
confirmation. Just at that moment the alarm bell suddenly vibrated, and
before you could say Jack Robinson (even if you wanted to), seemingly by
magic but in reality by electricity, the halters fell from the horses'
heads, and to my surprise, without any one being near them they rushed
to their places at either side of the shaft of the engine. There were
manholes in the ceiling, through which brass rods were suspended
vertically. Down these slid half-dressed men, who seemed to turn a
somersault into their clothes during the descent on to the engine, the
harness suspended above the horses dropped on to their backs, and in an
instant they were in the street, the engine manned, its fire ablaze, and
the horses alive to the stiff job they had before them of reaching the
fire in an incredibly short space of time. But hardly had they taken the
first leap from one of the boulders over the cavities with which New
York streets abound to another, than a whistle from the Captain stopped
them. It was a false alarm given for my edification. Before they could
get back into the engine-house I was conducted by the Captain into the
dormitory, where I concealed myself under a bed. Without a grumble the
men came up and literally walked out of their clothes, for boots, pants
and everything are all one piece. They opened these carefully and laid
them ready by the side of their beds, and in a few minutes were all
snoring fast asleep.
The Captain gave a slight tap on the floor as a signal for another false
alarm. At the first sound of the bell, with one bound the men were out
of bed, in another into their combinations, and in a third they were
going head over heels down the holes in the floor, just as mice would
disappear down theirs at the sight of a cat, and in a second or two I
heard again the rumbling of the engine over the pavement.
We escaped before the men were back again to bed, but hardly had I been
shown the completeness of everything, and gone into details which I need
not repeat here, and had another wink from the old grey mare, which
plainly said, "Ah, I knew those alarms were false," when her two ears
went up like a flash as she sprang under her harness once more, the
other animal as quickly by her side. The third alarm was a genuine one,
and she knew it. The Captain and I, as soon as the alarm was given,
rushed in the direction of the fire, but we had not got to the first
corner before the old mare and her companion flew past, and I just had
time to notice that the men were completing their toilet as they were
hurled by. Quickly followed the officer of the night in his one-horse
trap, and by the time we got to the fire, which was only round a block
of buildings, an exhibition of fire engines and appliances was collected
there which beggars description. The water tower, a huge affair seventy
or eighty feet high, built up like a crane, which shoots water on to
the top of the burning building; so also are the hook and ladder
brigade, the men with the jumping net--in fact, everything is at hand.
This is accounted for by the fact that a policeman at any corner, when
giving the alarm of a fire, touches an electric button or turns a
handle, which gives the signal at every fire station, unloosing the
horses and putting everything into motion at once.
[Illustration: THE ALARM.]
The one weak point in the whole system is that the alarms are not
isolated, which means that every signal of fire in the big city of New
York disturbs every man and horse at every station, some of them nine
miles away from the scene of the conflagration, for so anxious are the
men to be up to time that they are often in the street, harnessed,
equipped and ready, before the second signal comes to acquaint them
with the locality and extent of the fire. At least that was then the
system.
When I returned to England I stopped once as I was passing a fire
station and told the men of the wonders I had seen in America. A very
athletic, sailor-looking fireman, who had listened attentively to all I
had to say, chimed in with "Yes, sir, what you've said is quite true,
for I've been in America myself, and seen them at work; but though they
may possibly get to the fire a few seconds quicker than we, when we _do_
get there we put it out. That's more than they do generally."
"Well, perhaps so," I rejoined; "but then you haven't the wonderful
electric apparatus for dropping the harness on to the horses' backs!"
"No," said he, "we go a step further than that; the harness is on the
horses' backs beforehand!"
This youth's visit to America had evidently had a sharpening effect upon
him, for he was a bit too wideawake for me.
Being on a trip for rest and health, I found the gaiety of New York too
much for me, so having whispered to my friends that I was going to study
culture and eat bacon and beans in Boston, I quietly slipped off to
study Congress and to feast my eyes on the beautiful city of Washington.
Not being clean-shaven I could not wear a false beard, so I took a false
name. "Mr. Harry Furniss of London _Punch_" went in the spirit to Boston
(for had I stayed much longer in New York my used-up body would have
been returned in spirits to England); "Mr. French of Nowhere" went in
the flesh to Washington.
On arriving at my hotel I signed "Mr. French of Nowhere." Reporters who
scan the hotel list did not think "Mr. French of Nowhere" a subject
worthy of dissection, so for a few days I thought I should enjoy perfect
peace with profit. A "stocky little Englishman" taking notes _en
passant_ with an amateurish fervency was probably what most people would
think who cared to think at all of the stranger in their midst.
But it so happened that in going down by train from New York I sat
opposite to a very delightful American gentleman, and we chatted away
in the most friendly fashion. We parted on arriving at the city. Next
day I happened to "strike" him in the street.
"I've been on the look-out for you everywhere, Mr. French" (I had given
him my assumed name in the train). "I am very anxious to show you all
over this beautiful city, and my brother the Judge is also anxious that
you should dine at his house."
I thanked him most cordially, and accepted his kind offer, saying that I
should be ready for him at my hotel at 9 o'clock the next morning. We
parted, but my conscience pricked me for giving him a false name, so I
hurried back after him and explained to him the whole circumstance. It
was flattering to me to see that he took a greater interest than ever in
being my guide. The next morning Mr. French (to all but my new
acquaintance) was in the hall of the "Arlington" at the appointed time.
I waited and waited, but my guide did not put in an appearance.
Presently a strange gentleman came up to me, and boldly addressed me by
my proper name. I saw at once I was in the clutches of an interviewer,
so I point-blank contradicted him, and asserted that my name was French.
"That won't do for me," he said.
"Then you won't do for me," I said, and turned upon my heel.
However, I rather liked the look of the man, and didn't like to
disappoint him altogether, being a journalist myself.
"I am waiting for a gentleman," I said. "I expect him every minute, and
then I must be off."
"You may wait, but I guess that gentleman won't arrive," said the
journalist, "and I want a column out of you for our evening paper."
A frightful thought flashed across my mind.
"Have I been sold?"
I had, and I thought more of the gentleman of the Press (all the
Pressmen were very kind to me in Washington, and, indeed, all over
America) than I did of my newly-made erratic acquaintance.
When I paid my second and professional visit to Washington years
afterwards, of course it was a different matter. My representative had
for business reasons to invite the Press to "boom" me. I was rated a
good subject for interviewers, being only too pleased to do my best for
our mutual benefit. One day a representative of the important Washington
family paper called. We lunched and chatted, and subsequently over a
cigar he informed me that he knew nothing about art or artists or
politics, nor had he any object in common with me--in fact, he was the
sporting editor. The interview appeared--two long columns on prize
fighting! I was the innocent "peg" upon which the sporting writer hung
his own ideas. He discussed "a rendezvous in the Rockies," remote from
the centre of civilisation, as surely an appropriate locale for a
train-scuttling speciality or a fight to a death finish between Roaring
Gore and Wild Whiskers. A pair of athletes, scienced to the tips of
their vibrating digits, compelled to appeal to the courtesy of a wild
and well-whiskered Legislature, would doubtless appear inconsistent to
gentlemen of the National Sporting Club of London, who were anxious to
have the big fight settled within earshot of Bow Bells, in the luxurious
rooms of the London National Sporting Club. One combatant, I declared,
"swallowed the gruel rammed at him as if it were mother's milk," the
lads "had enough blood on tap to run a sizeable slaughterhouse"; then a
British fighter "swallowing a lobster salad on top of a whiskey sour,
with a dose of prussic acid by way of dessert"; and references to my
knowledge of the "Freds," "Toms," or "Dicks" of the Sporting Press of
London, and to my familiarity with "Charlies," "Fitzs," and "Jims" of
the "Magic Circle," were astounding.
My manager rushed into my rooms with the paper in question. "This will
ruin your prospects here! We depend on the women folk; they will never
come to hear you after reading this!" And so it was. In spite of other
interviewers at Washington writing of me as "an English good fellow,
rich and juicy, and genial in flavour, like other hot stuffs of that
remarkable country"; and another,
"Harry Furniss' eclipse of the gayety of John Bull, with facile
pencil and brilliant tongue, attracted a cultured assemblage to the
Columbia Theatre. Furniss, a plump lump of a man, all curves from
pumps to poll, in gesture and in the breezy flourish of his
sentences, genially cynical like Voltaire, cuts an engaging figure
in his black coat that he wears with the inborn grace of a
well-dined Londoner, a bon vivant, whose worldly shaft tickles and
never bites, for he is a gentleman whose wit wins and never wounds.
Furniss is Thackeray in the satirist's mellow moments, and there is
no little of the Thackerian spirit radiating in the pictures of
this rotund and quaint little caricaturist."
I did very bad business in Washington, largely due to bad management.
Five o'clock teas had become the rage of Washington Society, and my
appearances in the theatre were between 4.15 and 6 o'clock in the
afternoon. Alluding to this a critic wrote in the _Morning Times_: "It
may help Mr. Furniss to forgive the small audiences here in Washington
if he is informed that during this season none of his English friends
have made a very glittering success; nearly all of them have lost money
or made very little. We seem to be somewhat down on Englishmen this
year."
As Washington is the capital of America, so the Capitol, where Congress
meets, is the cap of the capital, the dome, of course, being the
Capitol's cap, and a capital cap it is, covering the collective
councillors of the country. The Capitol itself looks like a huge white
eagle protecting the interests of the States. Audubon's Bird of
Washington is the name of the eagle well-known to naturalists, but this
_rara avis_ is the _Falcho Washingtoniensis_. At its heart is seated the
Supreme Court, keeping an eagle eye on the laws of the land; under its
right wing is the Senate (equivalent to the English House of Lords); and
the left shelters the House of Representatives (corresponding to our
House of Commons). At first this bird of buildings had no wings, and the
three representative assemblies sat in the Central Edifice; afterwards
the wings were added, and now the Capitol is fly enough for anything. It
soars high above the city, and from its summit a capital birdseye view
is naturally obtained.
The Senate in the American Congress answers to the House of Lords in the
British Parliament. The "sporting editor" would doubtless say that each
in its respective country is the right hand of the Government, and when
there happens to be a genuine stand-up fight, as foreseen with Spain, an
international contest, although the "left," in prize ring phraseology
(the House of Representatives in America and the House of Commons in
England), does all the preliminary work, it is reserved for the right,
when the critical moment arrives, to administer the knock-out blow.
[Illustration: THE THRONE IN THE SENATE.]
In both the Old Country and the New these superior senators are
politically alike. Representatively they are as different as iced water
is to old port.
[Illustration: THE THRONE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.]
The seating of the senators in these two assemblages is typical of the
countries they represent. In the British House of Lords the Peers loll
about on scarlet sofas; in America the chosen ones sit at desks. The
British Peer has forsaken one lounge to occupy another; the American has
left the office desk for the desk in office. In Britain the House of
Lords is composed of Princes and Peers, with an admixture of bishops,
brewers, and other political party pullers; it is also an asylum for
stranded political wrecks from the Lower House. Soldiers and sailors,
too, are honoured and are sent there, not as politicians, but merely to
exist for the time being in a sort of respectable retreat, before being
translated to the crypt of Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's. John Bull
has made this hereditary hotch-potch, and he must swallow it. Jonathan
selects his senators to his own taste, and has them dished up fresh from
time to time.
The Senate is not sombre and sedate as is our Upper House, but
simplicity itself--no gilded throne, no Lord Chancellor in wig and gown,
no offensive officialism. It looks like a huge auction room, the
auctioneer being the deputy President standing at a table hammer in hand
knocking down the separate business of State lot by lot as put up by the
clerks.
The House of Representatives, like the Senate, reminds one very much of
an auction room. It is a splendid hall, but its size prevents Members
from being heard very distinctly, particularly as they talk away amongst
themselves, except when anything particularly interesting is going on.
In the Senate the table, and the clerks' table, are of dark wood; in the
House of Representatives they are of white marble. The American flag
hanging over the balcony gives it a semi-theatrical look, and the white
marble table resembles an American bar, making one feel inclined to go
up to it and order a brandy-smash, a gin-sling, or a corpse-reviver.
[Illustration]
The House has not met as I enter. The page-boys are playing at leapfrog,
and some early Members are disposing of their correspondence, and
instead of reproving the boys cast glances at them that seem to signify
they would like to join in the game themselves. Presently a Member comes
in backwards through one of the doorways, calling out to something that
is following him. I lean over to see if he has brought his favourite dog
or domestic cat, when a little infant in modernised Dutch costume comes
in waddling laughingly after her parent. Another Member turns round on
his swivel chair as his page-boy runs up to him, shakes him heartily by
the hand, tosses him on his foot and gives him a "ride-a-cock-horse."
Oh, you English sticklers for etiquette! What would you say if Mr.
Labouchere came in on all fours with his little child pulling his
coat-tails and whacking him with a stick, or if Sir William Harcourt
played at leapfrog with Lulu round the Speaker's chair?
[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.]
My drawing will show you better what the House of Representatives is
like than any written description I can give. Each Member has his own
desk, with his Parliamentary papers all around him. He is not bothered,
as Members are in England, by having his papers sent to his private
house, or having to call for them at the office when he arrives, or
actually having to fight for a seat. Americans pay their
Representatives, and consider that they too have a right to be
accommodated with a seat whenever they want one to see them, and to know
who they are; so you have in front of you a diagram of the sitting
arrangements of the House, with the names of the Members.
[Illustration: AN EX-SPEAKER.]
At 12 o'clock the procession enters. An official carries a little wand
with the eagle on top, and after the Chaplain (during my first visit I
saw the "Blind Chaplain," the Rev. W. H. Milburn) has delivered a few
touching words about the floods in Minnesota, the reading of the
"reakard" begins. The House buzzes with conversation and displays the
utmost indifference while the minutes of the last meeting are read with
extraordinary rapidity by a clerk with a grating voice. Every now and
then a Member corrects a misprint in the "reakard" of what he has said,
and then leave of absence is given to applicants for it, who have to
state their reasons. The Chairmen of the various Committees then report
to the House, Chairmen of Committees taking in turn to sit in the
Speaker's Chair and preside over the House, whilst anyone can examine
them.
Instead of calling out a Member by his name--Mr. Bacon or Mr. Beans--the
Speaker calls upon "the gentleman from Illinois," or "the gentleman from
Michigan." But if any question arises to which some Member has an
objection filibustering is rampant. The Speaker rises and asks if there
is any objection to the consideration of the Bill. After a pause he
says, "The Chair hears none," and is about ordering the Bill to be
engrossed when some Member objects and a division is taken, the Members
standing up to be counted. Groups of them, however, do not pay a bit of
attention, and sit about on their desks smoking cigars and telling
stories, and when the numbers are given some of these will get up and
complain that their names are not included, as they did not hear, or
went out to speak to a friend, or some trivial excuse like that, so they
are counted again. One in particular I noticed and made a sketch of
peeling and eating an apple, and he strolled up afterwards and demanded
to have his name inserted. More delay; then "the gentleman from
Somewhere-else" informs the Speaker that there is not a quorum. "The
gentleman from Bedlam" demands a division taken by tellers, and the
Speaker agrees, and is just appointing the tellers, when "the gentleman
from Obstructianna" calls for "Yeas and Nays," which means, gentle
reader, that the whole of the House of Representatives have to be called
out by name, from Alpha to Omega. Those not wishing to vote smoke or eat
apples. Then some Member comes in and informs the Speaker that he didn't
hear his name when it was called.
In case the reader may think I am exaggerating I append the following
cutting from the "Congressional Record," vol. xxiii., No. 93.:
"Mr. O'NEILL of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I am paired, but I have
voted in order to make a quorum.
The SPEAKER. There is no quorum.
Mr. HENDERSON of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, when my name was called the
first time I did not hear it, and the second time I was examining
some papers and my name was passed before I could answer.
The SPEAKER. Did the gentleman fail to hear his name?
Mr. HENDERSON of Iowa. I heard it called, but did not answer in
time.
The SPEAKER. The gentleman understands the rule. If the gentleman
states that he was in the Hall of the House and failed to hear his
name, his vote will be recorded.
Mr. HENDERSON of Iowa. I was.
The vote of Mr. HENDERSON of Iowa was recorded.
Mr. PATTERSON of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I desire to vote.
The SPEAKER. Was the gentleman in the Hall, and did he fail to hear
his name called?
Mr. PATTERSON of Tennessee. Yes, sir.
The vote of Mr. PATTERSON of Tennessee was recorded.
Mr. DOLLIVER. Mr. Speaker, although paired I have voted to make a
quorum.
Mr. McKEIGHAN. Mr. Speaker, I was in the Hall and heard my name,
but did not vote because I did not understand the measure. If it is
in order I desire now to vote.
The SPEAKER. The Chair can not entertain the gentleman's request
under the rule.
Mr. HUFF. Mr. Speaker, I voted to make a quorum. I am paired with
Mr. KRIBBS.
The SPEAKER. On this vote the yeas are 136 and the nays 3. No
quorum has voted.