Mr. HOLMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that another vote
be taken, which I have no doubt will show the presence of a quorum.
Mr. BURROWS. Mr. Speaker, can not that request be modified so as to
provide for taking the vote on the passage of the Bill instead of
on the engrossment and third reading? I ask unanimous consent that
the vote may be taken on the passage of the Bill.
Mr. CHIPMAN rose.
The SPEAKER. The Chair will state that the roll call having
disclosed the absence of a quorum, no business is in order but a
call of the House or a motion to adjourn.
Mr. HOLMAN. Then, Mr. Speaker, I move a call of the House.
A call of the House was ordered."
Then that grating voice calls out the list from A to Z, the pairs are
called, more explanations given, then there is more filibustering (I
think that is the correct word) on the part of the obstructionists, and
for the third time the same farce is enacted. Then the division takes
place, when the Members leave their seats and are counted as they enter.
No, the division takes place before the last count, for after the names
are called again and there are more explanations, when the Speaker
"recognises the gentleman's right," or does not as the case may be. I
know three hours of this was enough to show me that, although the
Americans may boast of being our superiors in many ways, such a farce as
I have described could never take place in the British Parliament. Why
on earth don't they take a division as we do, when the Members leave
their seats and the Ayes and Noes are locked in separate Lobbies, and as
they re-enter their votes are recorded and they are counted by the
tellers, and the question at issue is settled finally without doubt? I
must say that for a practical people the Parliamentary procedure seemed
to me the most unpractical ceremony I had ever witnessed. Yet they are
practical in some Parliamentary matters. For instance, there is a
Committee of Rules, presided over by the Speaker, which meets to decide
what time the House shall devote to each question, say two hours--one
for the Democrats and one for the Republicans. Each speaker in the
debate is allowed five minutes, and when this is up the Speaker reminds
him of the fact by rapping the table with his hammer.
[Illustration: AN EX-MINISTER.]
Again, it is very convenient that a Member can have speeches that he has
never delivered printed on the Parliamentary record. In England a
country Member is about to make a speech, and being anxious to let his
constituents have it in full he gives it to the representatives of his
local paper, and it is in the press before he delivers it. Something may
happen to prevent the delivery of the speech, and Hansard has not a line
of it. A curious thing happened in the "Congressional Record" a year or
two ago. The same speech was published as having been uttered by two
very different Members. This occurred through a New York orator handing
his speech (a eulogium on a deceased Member) to a friend to correct.
This friend had an eye to business, and he picked out another Member who
yearned to be thought an orator but who was not blessed with forensic
power and had never made a speech in his life, and sold him the speech
for forty dollars. He walked into the House swelling in anticipation of
his coming effort, but his chagrin was great when he discovered
precisely the same speech in the "Record." How is this for an instance
of American journalistic smartness?
After the exhibition of filibustering I described the House adjourned,
having done absolutely nothing but convince the stranger in the gallery
that payment of Members leads to a waste of time, which is not played
ducks and drakes with by the Members of our House.
An evening sitting is, of course, livelier, though at the outset there
are more strangers in the gallery than Members on the floor. It is
amusing to note how the ladies crowd the seats, and how the Congressman
lolls on the sofa in the outer circle of the chamber, or turns round in
his chair at his desk, crossing his legs on the desk in front of him,
puffs his cigar, and, heedless of the fate of the nation, turns round
and fascinates the fair ones in the gallery. It is amusing also to see a
Member leave his seat during his speech and walk all over the floor,
snapping his fingers and pummelling any desk handy. The official
reporter follows him about, book in hand, wherever the Member's
eloquence leads him, and his friends crowd around him when he stands or
walks and vigorously applaud him; so do the audience in the gallery when
his eloquence ceases, while his friends rush to shake his hand. He then
walks round and receives congratulations, like a man passing round the
hat. The clapping of the desk lids is very effective as a means of
approval or otherwise; but if the orator goes too far and a scene is the
result, the noise is too much even for the American House of
Representatives, and the Serjeant-at-Arms has to take the spread-eagle
on a toasting fork and walk up to the windy Member. I have made a sketch
of a Member who made an aggressive speech, and on being replied to by
another Member, walked up to the Speaker, leant on his desk, and puffed
his cigar right under his nose. All this to one accustomed to the
English House of Commons is beyond comprehension, and the only parallel
I can think of is the trial scene in "The Bells," when Mathias walks
about the court and snaps his fingers at the judges and then acts the
perpetration of the deed for which he is called upon to answer.
During my stay I heard a very funny specimen of rant from a gentleman of
the name of Turner, who was suffering from an attack of Anglophobia. He
would delight the Mortons and Conybeares whom we have to tolerate, and
his pronunciation of the Old Country's language was even worse than the
sentiments he expressed. He spoke of the "extremest spirit" of
"_o_fficial day_tee_," whatever that may mean; the next screech brought
out "_do_mestic _hoo_rizon," and he pathetically alluded to his
constituents as the people who lived in the "boomed city, who do not get
an elegant _re_ward for their la_bor_."
[Illustration: ANGLOPHOBIA.]
I was also amused by another gentleman in a discussion about some Bills.
He jumped up, and rushing over to where his opponents sat, he shouted at
them, "_Talk! You?_--you--you--you--you--you--you--you?" (and with
dreadful emphasis) "I've reported your little Bills!"
Then there were cries of "Go ahead! Vote! vote! vote! vote!" and to
crown the gentleman's vehemence he cried out repeatedly, "I demand a
division!" (Chorus): "Pull him down!"
"I demand a division!" "Pull him down!"
"I demand a division!" "Pull him down!"
And he refused to leave off until the eagle-topped toasting fork was
brought into play once more.
A veritable pandemonium is this Parliament! Fascinating to me, who have
spent so much time in studying every detail of our own Parliament, which
I have not the slightest doubt would prove just as strange and funny to
the American visitor, if like me he sees the ridiculous side of
everything, even of such an august assemblage as that of the legislators
of a nation.
[Illustration: THE PRESIDENT--IDEAL.]
[Illustration: THE PRESIDENT--REAL.]
Privacy is unknown in America. Everyone there, from the President in the
White House to your Chinese washerman in his laundry, is accessible to
all. I have visited both with less difficulty than I would experience in
approaching Brown, Jones or Robinson in this country. Here the business
man's time is his own, and you must not rob him of a minute any more
than of his cheque-book. In America a business man's time belongs to
anyone who may require it. You walk in to see him at will, and if
Jonathan can earn a dollar whilst in his bath by talking to you through
the keyhole he will do it, and he is just as open in giving his time to
show you any gracious action. The busiest man in America, the President,
surrounded by affairs of State, leaves them and shakes my hand in
welcome to his country. I say shakes my hand, for although I apologise
for my intrusion (which, by the way, was quite unnecessary) and pay him
some pleasant compliments, President Harrison replies only by shaking my
hand. I wax eloquent over the magnificence of the great country over
which he presides; I touch upon the coming election, and even give him
some information of value which I happen to have overheard by accident.
I lead him to believe that I am entrusted with secrets by the English
Cabinet about the Behring Straits and other vexed questions, and I
openly tell him what I believe to be the dark designs of England upon a
free country; in fact, I don't know what I don't tell him, and now that
he is no more I see no just cause or impediment why I should not now
make public his reply. It is all on the next page.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
As all English people could not get to Niagara, Niagara was brought to
them in the shape of an excellent diorama, which proved a great success
in London a few years ago. The atmospheric effect in all dioramas is
procured by making the visitor first pass through dark passages, fall up
unlighted stairs, and tumble about in the tortuous corridors in the
blackness; then, brought suddenly face to face with the picture well lit
up, the eye is affected by the glare of light, which would not be the
case if the spectator walked straight into the diorama from the street.
Now, curiously enough, you approach the real Niagara in much the same
way--that is, if, as I did, you go from Buffalo, and as was my lot, in
the most depressing weather.
[Illustration: A BUFFALO GIRL.]
I had to wait for the train to start at Buffalo in a _Dee_po which
eclipsed anything I have seen for gloom. The shoeblack's platform, of
more than ordinary proportions, occupied a good fifth of the
waiting-room. Its dusky proprietor was in possession of the throne, and
was discussing politics with a brother brush whose massive feet were
resting on the structure, an advertisement for the operating shoeblack,
implying that both the quality and quantity of his shine were superior.
The train was also very gloomy. My vis-a-vis was an old Buffalo girl who
must have remembered coming out to "dance by the light of the moon" a
couple of generations ago, when that melody was popular.
[[**Full page here!]
PRESIDENT HARRISON'S REPLY.]
[Illustration: MR. PUNCH AT NIAGARA.]
The exit from the town is made through a hideous quarter--wooden houses
and huts, depressing dirty streets, and the sides of the railway covered
with the refuse of a generation. Then some miles of open country, with a
building here and there which might possibly have added a little
picturesqueness to the dismal scene had not those despoilers of all
picturesqueness, the advertisers--and, above all, the advertisers of
pills--made an eyesore wherever the same was possible. Then through a
mile or two of apple orchards and more country with huts advertising
pills--probably the apples in those orchards are most particularly sour.
The rain came down fast, the train went on slowly; at every station damp
people with wet umbrellas came in and made me shudder. Altogether the
prospect of my getting a favourable impression of Niagara was a black
one. But it so happens the effect was quite the reverse--it was
precisely the same as passing through the gloomy passages leading to the
diorama.
[Illustration: HEBE.]
As I walked to an hotel to have some lunch before seeing the Falls, I
was startled to see in wood (everything is either water or wood at
Niagara) my old friend Mr. Punch standing outside a cigar shop, smiling
as usual; so after I had taken one of his cigars and lighted it, we had
a chat about Fleet Street and all his friends there.
[Illustration: MY DRIVER.]
"Guess, stranger, I'm here to draw the Britishers. 'Amurrcans' don't
understand me. They try to draw me, but they might just as well try to
draw one of these wooden cigars in my hand. Their sarcasm runs off me
like this rain, and I keep on smiling. They laugh at the Britishers
journeying thousands of miles to see this place, just as the English
smile at the Americans pilgrimaging to Stratford-on-Avon. Why, it's real
cheap to find natives round here who've lived all their lives within
earshot of the Falls and never seen them yet!"
We compared notes--American and English--and parted.
At the hotel to which I repaired for the purpose of refreshing the inner
man I was waited upon by a Hebe for the first, last and only time while
I was in the States. Quick, quiet and clean--what a relief after the
coloured gentleman!
[Illustration: FRA' HUDDERSFIELD.]
Hiring a covered conveyance with two horses and a very intelligent
driver, shaped something like his own whip, who was to act as my guide
as well as my Jehu, I was driven through the town of wooden houses to an
office where I bought tickets to pass me to the various places of
interest. The purveyor of this pasteboard looked like a French peasant,
spoke with an American accent, and came from the town of Huddersfield in
England.
I had no doubt the driver had graduated in his work from the perch of a
London hansom, and that probably the horses had been trained at
Newmarket. Everything is so very "English, you know," at Niagara, from
the wooden Punch to the pasteboard man.
I was informed by everyone that Niagara would grow upon me. I was rather
alarmed to find it growing upon me the moment I arrived, for it was
raining in torrents and I had juvenile Niagaras all round my umbrella. I
should rather say you grow upon Niagara--at least, for my own part, I
felt that if I were left there long enough I should do so. It was the
most fascinating sight I ever saw, and I felt as I stood motionless and
riveted to the spot I had had enough water to last me for the remaining
term of my existence.
[Illustration: NIAGARA GROWING UPON ME.]
Everyone, even the clerk of the weather, had arranged that my visit to
America should be pleasant. Niagara, to be seen at its best, must be
viewed on a pouring wet day. I know few of my readers will accept this
assertion as a serious fact, but it's true. It is just as true as the
fact that the way to obtain the full flavour of strawberries is to put
pepper on them, and that the sole method of fully relishing ham is to
use a dash of champagne as a sauce. There are people who even in this
enlightened age vegetate upon the face of the earth and know not these
things, and a very great many more who do not know that they ought to
select a soakingly wet day to appreciate the Falls of Niagara at their
highest value.
It is not for the extra bucketful or so of water that you may behold,
for that is imperceptible, but for the water you _don't_ see. A fine day
is a mistake, and the finer the day the greater the mistake, for the
reason that distances appear nearer, and the scene as a picture appears
contracted in consequence. But when the rain falls in torrents at your
feet, and then gradually disappears in mist, it gives to the Falls a
certain mystery and suggestion of vastness that cannot possibly be
experienced by the spectator except upon a thoroughly wet, misty day.
Therefore I congratulated myself that I saw Niagara on my first visit at
its wettest and best. Had I waited till the next day I could have gone
to exactly the same points at Niagara and seen the same pictures, in
water and colour of course, totally different in effect. You ought to
allow at least three days instead of three hours to inspect Niagara. The
first day ought to be wet, then one fine morning you should see it early
and drive round it in the beautiful afternoon, and stroll there alone or
otherwise by moonlight.
[Illustration: I ADMIRE THE GREAT HORSESHOE FALL.]
There I stood under my umbrella, with the rain coming down in sheets and
the spray and mist rising up, feeling that I must do one or both of two
things--write poetry or commit suicide. I had just got to--
"Oh, dashing, splashing King of Water,
Is that mist thy lovely daughter?
Tell me, through thy roar and thunder,
Canst thou----"
when the crack of a whip brought me to my senses. It was produced by my
faithful driver, who had come in search of me. I was saved.
He explained to me the wonders of the Great Horseshoe Fall (who more
able to do this than a driver?), and wound up by saying:
"Guess we'll harness Niagara yet--we've got the traces nearly on now."
[Illustration: JONATHAN HARNESSING NIAGARA.]
We had reached the carriage and pair when this meditative remark escaped
him. Thinking he was referring to some other gee-gee of his, possibly
one called appropriately after the Falls, and which was being broken in,
I said that I thought the present pair went very well in harness
together and had a lot of work in them yet.
"Why, certn'ly," was all he said as he shut the carriage door, but he
gave me a puzzled, anxious look, and I saw that he caught sight of my
poetry. I evidently had not understood his remark, nor had he
comprehended mine. At the next stopping place, about a mile above the
Falls, he explained that "there was seven million horse-power running
wild." It is to be "harnessed" at a cost of about 5,200,000 dollars, and
horse-power of upwards of 260,000 will be collared. Yes, Jonathan,
mounted upon his thirsty steed Dollars, is about to lasso picturesque
Niagara. I saw through the mist the destroyers at work; mills with their
hideous chimneys and dirty smoke, and attendant railways puffing
commerce will be seen when the landscape is clear. Jonathan cares not;
as a writer on this act of ultra-vandalism declares:
"Nothing is sacred to the practical man of the present age, especially
when he happens to dwell on the other side of the Atlantic. There he
uses the wonders of Nature as advertising boards for puffing quack
medicines or patent stoves, and the picturesque and the grandiose are
only appreciated by him in proportion to their utilitarian value."
[Illustration: "THE THREE SISTERS."]
Of course I paid my respects to the sisters of Niagara, or rather, to
the islands of that name. To do so I had to leave the carriage and walk
to the islands over little bridges, and again that feeling of
fascination overcame me, and looking round to see that the driver was
not following me a second time, I stealthily pulled out my verse and
abandoned myself to my poetical inspirations. I had my eyes fixed upon
three rocks in front of me, round which the waters, in all sorts of
forms and colours, were dashing. "The Three Sisters," I repeated to
myself. "Three sisters--some idea to work in here. Let me see, the
daughter is the mist--the three sisters--why, there they are!" Oh, why
was I born a caricaturist? All poetry had vanished; Niagara's
fascination was dispelled!
When next you visit Niagara stand on the last of the three sisters and
find the three portraits in the rocks. It is a puzzle picture; a
_fac-simile_ of which I here present you with.
I was next driven to the Inclined Railway, to descend which would enable
me to see the Falls from below. Arrived there, I found an old lady
cross-examining the attendant anent the safety of the railway, which,
truth to tell, is somewhat appalling to look at, the incline being at an
angle of thirty-one degrees. The motive-power is water, and what the old
lady wanted to know was whether the water would hold out long enough to
bring her back again.
"Niagara dry up in five minutes? Wal, old gal, that's clever! Guess this
railway's bin workin' every day you have--forty-five years now."
The questioner, who had witnessed, at the least computation, sixty
summers come and go, promptly vanished at this soft impeachment, and I
descended alone.
[Illustration: INCLINED RAILWAY, NIAGARA.]
Wonderful, magnificent as Niagara indubitably is, that sense which
enables me to drink in and appreciate to the full Nature's works of
sublime grandeur and vastness was ruined for the day. My eyes had beheld
the "Three Sisters" in the rocks; after that they discovered faces in
everything. They fell upon this mountain of ice and beheld spray that
had frozen into a grinning mask. Cautiously I picked my way along the
treacherous surface in the direction of its ear to see the spray rising
up from the other side, when suddenly my feet slipped on the ice and I
had had a fall as well as seen one.
In all probability this _contretemps_ would have been avoided had I not
been followed by one of those pests, a guide, the sight of whom caused
me to make undue hurry over the frozen surface. Harpies of this ilk are
the bane of sight-seeing all the world over.
My next performance was to drive through the town of wood for the
purpose of striking the water at another point; this accomplishment
being attended with the risk of being run over by passing trains, which
run vindictively as well as promiscuously over the unprotected
thoroughfares.
Having run this gauntlet successfully, I passed through a house which is
a store containing photographs and mementoes of the place and a couple
of persevering, persuasive maidens, whose efforts to make life a burden
to you until you buy some of the rubbish are usually rewarded with
unqualified success. After fighting my way through this edifice I was
taken in hand by a juvenile guide, who discoursed in the orthodox
fashion of his kind about the Whirlpool Rapid, pointed out where plucky,
foolish Captain Webb met his death, crushed by the force of water, and,
lower down, the spot where his body was found. Then my young chaperon
unburdened himself of a string of horrors concerning men in barrels,
insane women who from time to time have thrown themselves in, the little
steamer whose occupants shot the rapids for a wager and nearly paid for
their temerity with their lives, and many more similarly pleasant
reminiscences were conjured up through Niagara's haze on this drizzly
afternoon.
[Illustration: WHERE CAPTAIN WEBB WAS KILLED.]
Subsequently I had to make use of another "elevator," which, judging by
the velocity of the ascent and descent, is probably worked by a
detachment of specially-trained tortoises. Down by the rapids I made the
pleasing discovery that after all I had some sense of the sublime left,
for I was roused to further anticipated flights of enthusiasm by the
magnificent spectacle of the vast volumes of water foaming, rushing,
eddying, swirling along on their onward course with rush impetuous and
irresistible as the whirlwind, and I felt for my pocket-book to complete
my ode to mighty Niagara.
I had not noticed until that moment two commercial-looking individuals,
obviously British, seated close by and gazing biliously upon the
marvellous rapids; but I heard one remark to the other:
"'Enery, that's where Webb 'it 'is 'ed, hain't it?"
I disappeared rapidly in the direction of the "helevator," and fled the
disenchanted scene.
Blondin vulgarised Niagara; Jonathan is going to turn it into a colossal
mill-sewer. So make hay while the sun shines, or rather when the rain
falls, and see it soon.
[Illustration: TOURISTS.]
To us in England who are in the habit of rushing to a station to demand
a ticket for a journey across England, or to the North of Scotland, or
to the West of Ireland, and expect as a matter of course to find the
necessary accommodation, it seems strange that the Americans are so
"previous" in their arrangements. The sale of tickets, which is here
conducted with ease and despatch at the various termini, or, if you
desire to be "previous," at the depots of the companies in the centre of
the town, is in the States made a means of causing "corners" in
speculation. There are, I am informed, actually brokers who buy up the
tickets for the express mail trains, and whose prices rise and fall like
the stocks on 'Change.
For instance, in Chicago there is a whole street of these brokers. I
wanted to go to Buffalo. I got a prominent citizen to escort me to the
railway, and I felt some honour had been conferred upon me when I paid
the full fare and had a corner seat in the Pullman allotted to me. When
I arrived at the station I discovered that next to me was a mother with
two children, who were already climbing over my armchair instead of
their own, and fighting for and tearing the papers and magazines I had
just purchased. There was another horror I hadn't noticed at my first
glance, moreover. This took the shape of an infant of some months, which
immediately began to squeal with a shrillness that forcibly reminded me
of the siren on the Atlantic. No craft ever flew before the siren of an
approaching Atlantic liner more quickly than did I from that infant. I
at once abandoned my seat.
Now instead of going as one would in England to a station official,
telling him you are going by the next train and taking your seat in it
as a matter of course, I had to go into the city again, interview the
officials at their office, and ask as a special compliment to be allowed
to start a few hours later. All this is very surprising in a country
where, of all places, time is money.
In a long journey you pass through many States, in the two senses of the
word. Possibly you may find yourself in a state of thirst, but although
you are surrounded by drinks galore you cannot get the wherewithal to
quench it, for you are passing through a proclaimed State, and drinking
in that is illegal. Or you may be passing through a State free from the
temperance faddist, where intoxicating beverages are to be had for
paying for them, and suddenly discover that you are in a state of
hunger, say five hours after your dinner; but the coloured gentleman who
officiates as cook is snoring, and fifty dollars won't buy you a
mouthful of bread, so you find that your last state is considerably
worse than your first. I have experienced both.
I had the good fortune to "strike" an English friend on my journey, and
with him I shared a compartment in the Pullman. The overheated state of
the cars caused us both to have an unnatural thirst, and we longed for a
refreshing draught of air and liquid. Lunch was announced. I was quickly
in the dining car, and sat down opposite to an American, who had already
tackled his soup and poured out his first glass of claret from a quart
bottle. Feverishly I seized the wine-card. My vis-a-vis looked at me
over his spectacles, and called out to the "coloured gentleman," "Bring
another glass." The glass was brought, and the stranger (I had never
seen him before) filled it with claret and placed it in front of me.
"Thanks awfully!" I said, "but--er--really--er I am going to order.
Don't let me deprive you of your wine."
[Illustration: AMERICAN TRAVELLING. NOTHING TO EAT.]
"Why, sir, guess you may order what you like, but you won't get it! I
was caught once myself, fifteen years ago. Kean't buy liquor in this
State we're strikin' now, stranger. I bring mine along with me
now--enough for two, in case some green traveller crops up. You're
heartily welcome, sir, and here's your health!"
This is the local legislation! My feeling of disgust for the arbitrary,
narrow-minded, parochial parasite of the law-jobber was tempered by the
generosity of the native, and this is only one instance out of hundreds
I have experienced of the extreme kindness and courtesy of strangers in
the States.
[Illustration: AMERICAN TRAVELLING. NOTHING TO DRINK.]
I could not resist this splendid opportunity to tantalise my Scotch
friend and fellow traveller. He sat down beside me and I handed him the
wine-card. He wiped his fevered brow and his parched lips parted in a
smile as he ran his eager eye down the list. When he had scanned the
names (and prices) I broke in with:
"I say, old fellow, champagne to-day; a magnum of the best--it's my
birthday, so hang the expense! Oh, yes, I know it's a ten-pound note,
but I do feel this infernal shaking, noise and heat, and when else would
we feel better able to appreciate a good sparkling 'tall drink'? I pay,
and I insist--you order it and see that we get it!"
My friendly stranger on the other side simply gazed at me without moving
a muscle of his face, and said not a word, still I haven't the slightest
doubt that he was thoroughly enjoying the joke in his American fashion.
My Scotch friend's face brightened up at the prospect of refreshing his
parched larynx with a long drink of champagne; but it was difficult to
see whether he or the "coloured gentleman" looked the blacker when the
latter informed him that the only beverage he could have was ginger ale!
_Verb. sap._: Never travel on an American railway without your own wine.
Surely the railway companies, who justly pride themselves on the way
they study the comfort of their travellers, should warn the unwary in
time, for it is not everyone who is lucky enough to meet with a good
Samaritan as I did.
A friend tells me that some of the "coloured gentlemen-in-waiting" on
these cars have an eye for business, and when a stranger is victimised
by these stupid and selfish laws, they serve up to him Rhine wine out of
a teapot as weak tea!
If you doubt the truth of the following, ask any traveller who has
rushed through the States at the rate of two hundred and fifty miles an
hour to verify it.
You sit down to the principal meal of the day in the dining car at say
six o'clock. Not happening to be an American, you intend to eat your
meal in a reasonable time, say an hour, instead of five minutes. Why
hurry? What is there to do before retiring to the sleeping car to be
jolted sleeplessly about for seven or eight hours? Nothing; so take as
long as possible over your meal. You leisurely order a wine from the
list, and it is brought, uncorked and placed by your side. After the
soup and fish you think you will take glass No. 1, but no, not a bit of
it! You are now rushing through a proclaimed State, and your glass and
bottle are promptly removed. Sancho Panza never looked so surprised as
you do. To add insult to injury, or rather injury to insult, you are
brought that frightful cause of indigestion, "iced water." I have been
told "by one who knows" never to touch the ice on these railway cars; it
is not safe, though for what reason I cannot at the moment recollect. It
comes from some wayside cesspool or out of a rusty copper boiler, or is
the refrigerated perspiration off the railway carriage windows, or
something dreadful; anyway, it is unsafe. So you look at it and toy with
the next course on the chance of flying quickly through this detestable
state of narrow-mindedness and broad absurdity. Your patience is
rewarded. You fly past some wooden houses and blazing factories and
vulgar advertisements of quack medicines, the vendors of which forsooth
are those who prohibit a weary traveller from aiding digestion by
drinking an innocent and harmless beverage. The "coloured gentleman"
returns smiling with the bottle and glass.
"Guess we've cut through that State; this isn't proclaimed."
You drink confusion to the priggish provincial faddist whose State we
have just passed, and continue your dinner.
I am a slow drinker. During my late illness, the illness that caused my
trip to America, I had to take all my meals dry--allowed to drink
nothing whatever, not even a drop of water; so perhaps it is not
unnatural that after months of this treatment I should find a difficulty
in drinking before my meal is over. So when the above-mentioned incident
occurred to me, it so happened that I was in no hurry to raise my glass
to my lips. At last I took it up, but before I could transfer any of its
contents to the interior of my throat a dusky hand was placed on mine
and the glass was removed.
"Sorry, but we're in another proclaimed State now!"
I prayed that one of these fiendish faddists might enter the car at that
moment. I passed a solemn resolution that I would pour all the contents
of the cruets down his cursed throat and make hideous caricatures of
him all over the wine list!
More wooden houses and their wooden-headed occupants were passed, and at
last I was at liberty to have a drink.
Ice is not of necessity pure nor wine impure. If these ignorant fools
are unable to drink without proving to the world that Nature intended
them for beasts, it is no reason why they should make laws for their
betters, particularly for the stranger flying through their country,
which they misappropriately call free.
Again I hark back to the laying of railway lines, which I repeat we
manage better in England than they do in the States. The sleeper in his
berth in an American car is tossed up and down to such an extent that
his vocabulary is exhausted in anathematising the sleepers under the
rails. It doesn't seem as if the Transatlantic lines are ever going to
adopt our thorough system of track-laying. I met a railway expert on the
boat going out who had been to England to inspect officially the laying
of a railway, and he assured me that if they were to take up all the
tracks in America and relay them in our way it would financially break
them, enormously rich as the railway kings of the States are.
[Illustration: SLEEP(!)]
I must candidly say I don't care about sleeping in those cars. The heat
can be avoided by paying extra and having a coupe to yourself, or
sharing it with a friend, as I did. My first experience was on that
journey from Chicago which I mentioned before, and I shall never forget
it. I had at the last moment to take the only berth left, and it
happened to be a top one. I was the last to retire that night, and my
struggles to climb to my perch were so ludicrous that I was glad there
were no spectators. I placed my handbags, hat-boxes, &c., one on top of
another, and mounted them as cautiously as an acrobat ascending a
pyramid of decanters, and scrambled in. I then proceeded to divest
myself of my articles of clothing. I noticed that the snoring of the
gentleman in the berth underneath grew softer and somewhat stifled, and
as I wound up my watch and placed it, as I thought, under the pillow, he
jumped frantically out from behind his curtains and went head over heels
amongst my improvised steps. Then I began to realise what had happened.
I had not understood the mechanism of the arrangements, and under the
impression that I was placing my clothes, &c., on the ledge, I was in
reality dropping them on to the unfortunate occupant of the nether
berth, hence the muffled snoring, and when my forty guinea repeater
descended upon some unprotected portion of his cranium it put the
closure on his dreams in a most abrupt manner.
When you are introduced to an Englishman he invariably invites you to
eat something. "You must come and dine with us quietly at home,
don't-cher-know," or "I must rig up a dinner for you at the club some
night," &c. A Scotchman suggests your drinking something--urges upon you
the claims of the Mountain Dew; a Frenchman wishes at once to show you
something, the Bois de Boulogne or the Arc de Triomphe; a German desires
you to smoke something; an Italian to buy something; and an Australian
to kill something, but an American wants an opinion "right away."
"Waal, sur, what do you think of our gre--e--eat country? What do you
think of this wonderful city? What do you think of the Amurrican gurl?"
This latter is a question which one is asked in the States morning,
noon, and night.
To endeavour to effect a compromise by admitting that she is quite as
charming as the English girl, as pretty--though of course of a
different type--still equally charming, is a waste of time. You will be
met with the commonplace "Get out!" and an added enquiry, "Now don't you
think she's just the most fascinating and lovely creature on this earth,
and by comparison with your English girls ain't she just sweet?"
[Illustration: A WASHINGTON LADY.]
My own tactics were simple--I hedged.
"Well, you see," I replied to a question similar to the above, "I have
met but few as yet of your representative American girls. To be sure, I
have seen your cosmopolitan New York beauty, your Washington diplomat,
and your Chicago daughter of Boom, and so on; but there are yet many
fields of beauty unexplored, and I prefer to withhold my opinion till I
have had an opportunity of judging from further experience. I am quite
prepared to admit, however, that the general impression made upon an
observant Englishman is that American ladies dress better than does the
average Englishwoman; or, at any rate, carry themselves with more grace,
and thus show off their gowns to greater advantage."
"Correct! That is absolutely true," said a lady to me in Washington,
after I had delivered myself of the above stereotyped remark. "Your
English girls have awful figures, and they know absolutely nothing about
putting on their gowns. Why, my dressmaker in London--the very
best--made me laugh till I was nearly sick, by describing to me the
stupidity of her English customers. She declares that she positively has
to pin on a new dress when sending it home, a label stating: 'This is
the front'; and one day, when she omitted this precaution, she had a
riding-habit returned with the complaint that it did not 'set'
correctly. The lady had put it on wrong side foremost." This was told me
in all seriousness by one of the brightest and most intelligent ladies I
met during my stay in America, who, I am quite sure, was firmly
convinced of the truth of the statement made by the dressmaker.
It happened that one day I had been hard at work in my rooms at the
hotel, and as the daylight failed, before turning on the unrestful
electric light, I lit a cigarette and threw myself into the
rocking-chair to enjoy a peaceful quarter of an hour, when a knock came
to the door and a card was brought to me, "Miss Liza Prettyville
Simmerman, the _Examiner_."
Another interviewer! Had the card been Patrick McKee O'Fleister, the
_Examiner_ might disappear with the setting sun for aught I cared, but
the name struck me as being pretty (lady interviewers generally have
pretty names). It occurred to me that it would be interesting to see if
the name fitted the owner, so I said I would see her.
It fitted. "Sorry to disturb you," with a delightful accent and musical
voice. A pretty interviewer! A pretty American girl with a musical
voice! A _rara avis_.
I ordered up tea for two.
"You know, sir, what I am going to ask you. What do you think of the
American girl?"
"That," I said, "I'll tell you on one condition, Miss Simmerman, that
you first tell me what you think of her yourself."
"Ah!" she replied, with a laugh, "that is not so easy a task--we do not
see ourselves as others see us."
[Illustration: A LADY INTERVIEWER.]
"No, Miss Simmerman, and even when one listens to strangers, or reads
their impressions, one is apt to form a wrong estimate of oneself. Let
me therefore change the question, and ask, what do you think of the
English girl?"
"Oh! I think she is delightful."
"How would you describe the typical English girl?"
"Well, she is very tall and thin, and quiet, and has a nice voice, lots
of hair, and walks well."
"And talks seldom?"
"Yes, she is not as vivacious as the American girl, but she is more
sincere and thorough, and a deeper thinker, and not so much merely on
the surface as our girls are."
"But," I put in, "you say, do you not, that she does not know how to
dress her hair or wear her clothes properly?"
"Yes, that is so, and it is noticeable more particularly in her
headgear, which she wears well over her eyes; in fact the higher she is
in the social scale, the more tilted is her hat. One thing the American
girls do envy is the healthy, fresh, clear complexion of the English
girl. The green of the grass and the splendid complexion of your girls
are the two things which first strike the American visiting England.
Both of these, we are told, are due to the climate, and this doubtless
is a fact, for when an American girl has been in England a short time
the colour comes to her cheeks, only to disappear on her return to her
native land. Another thing we admire is the English girl's figure.
American girls are either slim as compared with English girls, or else
very stout. We have not the happy medium of the daughters of England."
"Pardon me, but is not the pale-faced daughter of America a little
spoilt?"
"From an English point of view, yes. American men's one idea besides
work is the worship of American women. You say anything you like about
America or Americans to Jonathan, but you must give nothing but praise
to the American woman."
"But we in England love our women folk also."
[Illustration: A SKETCH AT "DEL'S."]
"Ah! yes, but there is not such a contrast between an Englishman and an
English lady as there is between an American and his wife. Our 'Qui
Vive' women are so much superior to the men."
"I will admit that."
"Very well, then, I will admit that American girls are somewhat awkward
with their arms, and have no idea what to do with them. As they walk
they stick their elbows out, and when they stand still they hold their
arms exactly the way the dressmakers pose when having a dress tried on."
"I suppose they have little use for their arms?"
"Well, as a fact, American girls do not busy themselves or enjoy work as
English girls do. Their fathers, husbands, and brothers work, and they
look on."
"Yes, I have noticed that all over the States. Women talk, men listen,
but when men talk it is dollars, dollars, dollars. The girl is bored,
and sighs for London or Paris, until she is old enough to talk dollars
herself."
In face, I notice, the American girl is quite distinct from her English
sister. I notice a difference in the way the upper lip sweeps down from
the outer edge of the nostril; but more noticeable still is the fact
that the cheek-bones of the American girls are not so prominent, and the
smooth curve down the cheek to the chin is less broken by smaller
curves. In social life the American girl charms an Englishman by her
natural and unaffected manner. Our English girls are very carefully
brought up, and are continually warned that this thing or that is "bad
form." As a result, when they enter Society they are more or less in
fear of saying or doing something that will not be considered suitable.
As a matter of fact they are not lacking in energy or vivacity, but
these qualities are suppressed in public, and only come to the surface
in the society of intimates. American girls from childhood upwards are
much more independent; they have much more freedom and encouragement in
coming forward than ours. The vivacity and liberty expected of an
American girl in social intercourse are considered--as I say--bad form
for our girls.
[Illustration: YOUNG AMERICA.]
The observant stranger will, if an artist, also be struck by the fact
that the face of an American girl, as well as the voice, is often that
of a child; in fact, if one were not afraid of being misunderstood, and
therefore thought rude, one could describe the American girl better by
saying that she has a baby's face on a woman's body than by any
word-painting or brush-painting either. The large forehead, round eyes,
round cheeks, and round lips of the baby remain; and, as the present
fashion is to dress the hair ornamentally after the fashion of a doll,
the picture is complete.
The eyes of an American girl are closer together than those of her
English cousin, and are smaller; her hands are smaller, too, and so are
her feet, but neither are so well-shaped as the English girls.
Let me follow the American girl from her babyhood upwards. The first is
the baby, plump, bright-eyed, and with more expression than the average
English child; a little older, see her still plump, short-legged, made
to look stout by the double covering of the leg bulging over the boots;
older, but still some years from her teens, she is still plump from the
tip of her toe to her eyebrow, with an expression and a manner ten years
in advance of her years, and you may take it from this age onwards the
American girl is always ten years in advance of an English girl; next
the school-girl; then that ungainly age "sweet seventeen." She seems
twenty-seven, and thenceforwards her plumpness disappears generally, but
remains in her face, and the cheeks and chin of the baby are still with
her.
Suddenly, ten years before the time, and in one season, happens what in
the life of an English matron would take ten. The bubble bursts, the
baby face collapses, just as if you pricked it with a pin, and she is
left sans teeth, sans eyes, sans beauty, sans everything. This is the
American girl in a hurry, and these remarks only apply to the exhausted
New York, the sensational Chicago, the anxious Washington, and the
over-strained child of that portion of America in a hurry.
[Illustration: AN AMERICAN MENU.]
I have not quite made up my mind as to whether I like the American girl
or her mother the better. They are both vivacious and charming, but of
course the younger is the prettier, and in point of attractiveness
scores more than her mother.
It is true, as I have said, that American girls do "go off" very soon. I
must confess that one evening at dinner, surrounded by charming young
Americans, I was bold enough to say so. It was a very inopportune moment
to have made the remark, for seated next to me was a remarkably fine and
handsome young lady, who informed me that she had five sisters--I think
it was five--and I was assured by our host that they were all of them as
"elegant" as my fair neighbour, and that the mother looked as young as
the daughters.
At the reception, after dinner, I was introduced to the mother, and
found the exception that proved the rule. We had quite a discussion upon
the staying powers of the American beauty; but despite all arguments I
am convinced, through my own observations in England and America, that
American ladies do not wear so well as English. No doubt this is due, in
some measure, to the climate, and in a greater degree to the mode of
living. However, before dealing with this rather ticklish subject, I had
better finish what I had to say about the evening in question, or this
particular young lady may take my remarks as personal.
[Illustration: MY PORTRAIT--_IN THE FUTURE_.]
We discussed age and wear and tear _ad nauseam_. I felt rather aggrieved
by being put down by those members of the Press who had discussed my
personal failings for the benefit of their readers, as several years
older than I really am (all due, no doubt, to my premature baldness). So
I asked for the secret of the American hair-preserving elixir, and my
charming companion assured me that she had really and truly discovered
an infallible composition for producing hair! This she promised to send
to me, and upon my return to England I received the following charming
letter, which I publish for the benefit of all those whose hair, like my
own, is becoming, to quote an American paper, "a little depleted on the
top of the dome of thought." I have not yet tried the remedy, but I
intend to do so, and when I appear again on the American platforms I
shall probably rival Paderewski, who owes a great deal of his success
and fortune to his "thatch."
The following is copyright: "LIKA JOKO HAIR RESTORER."
"MY DEAR _Mr. Furnace_,
"Fearing you would think me lacking in a sense of humor I have
hesitated to send you the receipt you asked for, but, being an
American, I fear it would not be true to my country's principles to
allow such an opportunity for promoting growth to pass unheeded.
Two tablespoonsful alcohol,
Two tablespoonsful flour of sulphur,
Two tablespoonsful castor oil,
One pint boiling water.
"Put in bottle, shake well and allow it to stand three days before
using. Rub well into the scalp every night.
"Here it is, and I trust soon to receive the pen and ink sketch in
proof of its unrivalled success.
"Very sincerely,
"----"
"Brooklyn,
"April 20th, 1892."
I suppose my benefactress, if I disclosed her name, would be worried to
death by the multitudinous proprietors of shiny-surfaced "domes of
thought." Notice she calls me a furnace! Too suggestive of the sulphur!
alcohol!! boiling water!!!
I must confess that it was with some trepidation I accepted an
invitation to a reception of the Twelfth Night Club of New York--a club
for ladies only, which invites one guest, a man, once a month--no other
member of male sex is allowed within the precincts of the club. I
survived. Next day the papers announced the fact under the following
characteristic American headlines:--
TWELFTH NIGHT GIRLS REJOICE.
FURNISS GETS A WARM GREETING.
CARICATURIST TALKS TO TWELFTH NIGHT WOMEN.
ROTUND ENGLISHMAN TELLS HIS EXPERIENCES IN
HIS BREEZY WAY.
[Illustration: I AM ENTERTAINED AT THE TWELFTH NIGHT CLUB.]
I was pleased to read that the lady reporter considered that I "bore the
courtesies with the grace of a well-bred Englishman and with less
embarrassment than the average man evinces at being the only one of his
sex present upon these occasions(!). According to one of the iron bound
rules of this club the guest of honour is the only man admitted, and as
such Mr. Furniss was received with enthusiasm. If he could have
projected his astral body to the other end of the room, and from there
have sketched himself as he turned off autographs to the pleading group
of women, it would not have made the least funny picture in his
collection."
I agree in this latter part, for the whole affair struck me as intensely
funny, and not at all appalling--in fact, I spent a very delightful
afternoon. A lady whose dress the papers described as "a costume of
brown brocade and lace" played beautifully. Another "dressed in grey
satin and chiffon" sang charmingly. A third who wore "a skirt of black
and a primrose bodice trimmed with lace" recited with much talent, and a
galaxy of the belles of New York, ladies of society, and professional
stars of the pen, the platform and the stage combined to make feel at
home. I had to acknowledge in thanking them that although I perhaps
failed to draw American women, American women had certainly succeeded in
drawing me.
After this pleasant experience it was with a light heart I accepted a
similar invitation when shortly afterwards I visited another city. Again
I was to be entertained at a Ladies' Club, but to my surprise I found
it, not as I did the New York Club, modestly accommodated in a large
flat, but a club having its own imposing building--as important as any
in the West End of London. Carriages lined the street, and a crowd
surrounded the entrance. Still, I was not unhappy. The entertainment
would surely be proportionately long, and I would have less to say. I
was, as at the other club, unprepared, preferring to pick up some idea
for a reply during the entertainment prepared to honour me. The hall and
staircases were crowded with a most fashionable gathering; two large
reception-rooms--with open folding doors--were well filled with ladies
seated. The President met me at the door and escorted me to a small
platform in the centre of the rooms, on which were a reading-desk and a
glass of water! After formally and briefly introducing me, she asked if
any man was present. It so happened that in a corner behind the piano
one was found and immediately ejected, and I was left alone to begin! My
first impulse was to make a rush for that corner behind the piano, but
rows and rows of seated dazzling beauty formed a barricade I could not
negotiate. I had in the few words of introduction caught the name of Sir
Edwin Arnold and others who had stood where I did at that moment.
Yes,--but they were doubtless warned beforehand of what was expected of
them, and therefore came prepared. I, on the other hand, stood there
"flabbergasted"! I confess I never felt so cornered. No, if I had been
cornered--but there on a platform to face the music! No, not the music,
there was none! I had to speak--about what? for how long? to whom?
[Illustration: RECEPTION AT A LADIES' CLUB.]
I made a plunge. I confessed honestly I was unprepared. I explained that
I had accepted the invitation on my arrival--believing I was to be
entertained, not to be the entertainer. That I had none of the
flattering phrases ready of those who had stood before them on similar
occasions, and furthermore I did not believe in such platitudes. This I
quickly saw was my key.
"Now, ladies, as I am face to face with this unique gathering of
American women--and alone--I have at last a chance I have long waited
for. I want to tell what I _really_ think of you. I respect you for your
cleverness. To roll off empty compliments and--if I could--poetical
platitudes also with my tongue in my cheek, as others have done, would
be to insult your intelligence. You only want to hear me speak on one
subject, yourselves, the American woman, and compare her with the
English woman. Let me first speak as an artist.
[Illustration: WIFE AND HUSBAND.]
"Now, if there is one thing I have heard repeatedly from the lips of
American women it is that the English man is superior to the English
girl. You, in fact, look upon the English girl with contempt. You
certainly admire and emulate to a certain extent the fashionable Society
women of England, but the ordinary English girl you treat with
indifference, and speak of with contumely. You look upon her as a
badly-dressed idiot. That may strike your ears as a sweeping assertion,
but my ears have tingled over and over again by hearing that very
sentiment coming from your own pretty mouths. Now, as we are alone, let
me say a word or two on that point. You say the English woman is a fool.
You say that the English man is bright, clever and brave. One has only
to look round the world to realise that your opinion of the English man
is right. That one little dot on the map, England, predominates the
greater portion of the globe. That is the result of the plucky and
accomplished English man you so much admire. Now, I will ask you one
question. Did you ever hear of a clever man who had a stupid mother? The
history of the world shows that all great men had mothers with brains.
In considering this recollect that we are agreed that the English man is
superior to the American man. Does that show that the American mothers
are cleverer than the English mothers? No,--it points to the reverse,
that the English girl you look down upon, under her soft, gentle manner
has something superior to you American women--she has solidity and
brain-power. That is why the English man is superior to the American.
Now, ladies, you, with your pretty faces, your charming manners, your
vitality, and shall I say it? your worldliness, have boys who are--well,
equal to what you consider the English girl to be. Of course it is
always unsafe to generalise, but as you generalise yourselves and
sweepingly assert that the English girls are born idiots, I want you to
understand from a man who has not come here to tell you lies, but to
tell you the truth, that if America is really to be the great country of
the future, the sooner you begin to model yourselves on the English
girls the better."
I said a great deal more, but I shall not confess anything further about
the charming American ladies just now.
[Illustration: A DREAM OF THE WHITE HOUSE.]
We English have an impression that all American men, women, and children
are politicians, and it is the dream of every youthful American one day
to occupy the White House. But in the great contest of 1896 there was
something deeper than mere ambition. When I went over in the steamer I
travelled with some overworked, big city merchants who were sacrificing
their holiday in Europe to vote for Mr. McKinley; the little children
wore the national flag in their buttonholes; and the last evening we had
at sea a lady called me on to the deck and said, "Look at that
beautiful golden sunset! It is a symbol that America is for gold." And
as we looked behind at the sea-mist we had passed through, she found in
that the symbol of silver! In fact, for a foreigner, I had had quite
enough of the Presidential election before the steamer arrived at the
White Star Line landing-stage.
I crossed the Herring Pond in chill October, so as to be in New York for
the last stages of the Presidential contest. The last stages of these
elections, although exciting and interesting from a political point of
view, are not to be compared with the earlier scenes for effect. For the
purpose of sketching scenes the artist should be there in the heat of
summer, and in the heat of the Conventional controversies. At the time
of brilliant sunshine, when in that year America was so much _en
evidence_ in England, when Yale was rowing so pluckily at Henley, when
Haverford College was playing our schools at our national game, when the
Ancient and Honourable Artillery Company of Boston were being feted
right royally in the Old Country, when London was fuller of American
visitors than at any other time--it was then that all the fun of
political affairs was taking place in the United States for the fight
for Gold _v._ Free Silver.
It is at the two gigantic Conventions at which the rival candidates are
nominated that the artist finds material for his pencil, the satirist
for his pen, and the man of the world food for reflection. By all
accounts, these Conventions baffle description. Everything is sacrificed
to spectacular effect. They take place in huge buildings decorated with
banners, emblems of all kinds, startling devices, transparencies, and
portraits of the candidates. Bands play different airs at the same time;
processions are formed and marched all over the hall, carrying emblems
and portrait banners, the State delegates carrying the State standards
in front of each procession to the cheers and yells of their supporters.
Similar demonstrations are carried on in the galleries. Girls dressed
symbolically representing silver or gold, or some topic of interest in
the election, wave flags and lead demonstrations, perhaps acting as an
antidote to the less attractive surroundings.
The election being a purely commercial question, I attended the meetings
held in commercial districts, where the excitement ran high. During the
lunch hour crowds attend the political gatherings held in the centre of
the business districts in large stores turned into halls for
speechifying and demonstrations, and great as the subject is, and grave
as is the issue, the ludicrous is the first feature to strike the
stranger. A great empty store, running the whole length of the ground
floor of one of the monster ten, twenty, or what you will storied
buildings, was appropriated for the purpose. The bare walls were draped
with stars and stripes, and innumerable portraits of McKinley and Hobart
confronted you on every side. In the centre was a roughly-constructed
platform; on this a piano and seats for the orators. At 12.30 sharp (the
business lunch hour) a crowd surged in; bankers, brokers, dry goods
merchants, clerks, messengers, and office-boys, straight from the Quick
Lunch Counters--a great institution there--filling every corner of the
hall. An attendant carried the inevitable pitcher of ice water to the
orators' table; a "Professor" hastily seated himself at the piano and
played a few bars; a solemn-faced quartette took its position in front
of the rostrum, and the meeting was opened.
[Illustration: THE POLITICAL QUARTETTE.]
The campaign songsters had taken a leaf from the Salvation Army, and
appropriated all popular airs for political purposes. Praises of Sound
Money and Protection were sung to the air of "Just tell them that you
saw me," and denunciations of Bryan, Free Silver, and all things
Democratic to the tune of "Her golden hair was hanging down her back!"
The quartette aroused the greatest enthusiasm. An aged Republican seated
immediately in front of the platform, who had voted every Republican
ticket since Lincoln was elected, waved his stick over his head, and the
crowd responded with cheers and encores. The quartette retired, the
chairman advanced, motioned with his hand for silence, and announced the
name of the first orator of the occasion, who happened to be a
clergyman--a tiresome, platitudinous person. Somehow, clergymen on the
platform can never divest themselves of their pulpit manner. They bring
an air of pews and Sabbath into secular things. The minister denounced
Bryan and Democracy in the same tones he used in declaiming against Agag
and the Amalekites on Sunday. At last he brought his political sermon to
a close, and the quartette again came to the front, sang a few more
political adaptations of popular songs, and the chairman announced the
next speaker, a smart young lawyer of the Hebrew persuasion. After him,
more songs and more speakers of all kinds, and at half-past one the
meeting came to an abrupt conclusion. The crowd vanished like magic, the
hall was empty, the lunch hour was over!
When night fell, oratory was again rampant in all parts of the city. At
every street corner one saw a waggon decorated with a few Chinese
lanterns and covered with portraits of the candidates. In front the
orator shouted to the casual mob, and at the tail end his companion
distributed campaign literature. One crowd exhausted, the waggon drove
on, and gathered more listeners at another stand. In this way, in
strolling through the streets, one was met with a fresh line of argument
at every turning. Republicans, Democrats, Prohibitionists, Socialists,
etc., all had their perambulating orators. It was as if all the Sunday
Hyde Park orators had taken to waggons, and were driven about through
all quarters of the town, from Whitechapel to Kensington. At one street
corner a Catholic priest was rallying his Irish compatriots to Tammany
and Bryan, and urging them to shake off the fetters of the bloated
British capitalist; and at the next a Temperance orator was pleading
the hopeless cause of the Prohibitionist party.
The campaign was not so much a fight between Silver and Gold as between
Sound Money and Sound Lungs.
BRYAN'S CAMPAIGN.
Number of speeches delivered 501
Cities and towns spoken in 417
States spoken in 29
Miles travelled since the nomination 17,395
Number of words spoken on the stump (estimated) 737,000
WHAT BRYAN DID IN ONE DAY.
Travelled from Jacksonville, Ill., to Alton, Ill., and spoke
in seven towns and cities.
Slept eight hours.
Talked seven hours.
Miles travelled, 110.
Speeches made, 9.
Persons who heard him, 60,000.
It would be impertinent on the part of any English journalist to use the
ordinary language at his command to describe that scene. Let him copy
the headings of those who have given the people of the United States a
language of their own:
ARMY OF LOYALISTS.
A Hundred and Twenty Thousand Men March with Old Glory up Broadway.
GRANDEST PARADE IN ALL HISTORY.
The Great Thoroughfare a Tossing Sea of Red, White, and Blue and
Gold.
Cheers and Music fill the Air with Melody.
Legions Marshalled for the Honor and Safety of the Union and the
Prosperity of the People.
PATRIOT ARMY'S GLORIOUS MARCH.
WARRIORS OF PEACE, BATHED IN GOLDEN SUNLIGHT, PASS THROUGH
STAR-SPANGLED LINES.
PARADE'S RECORD-MAKING FIGURES.
Number in Line, 125,000.
Miles long (estimated), 14.
Parade started at 10 a.m.
Parade finished at 6.26 p.m.
Number of spectators (estimated), 1,200,000.
No pen or pencil could give any idea of the intense feeling and
excitement over that election. To realise its effect one must have seen
the faces of business men in cities like New York--faces pallid with
care, eyes restless with inquiry and uncertainty, mouths twitching with
anxiety. To them Bryan spelt ruin. You could read that in the faces of
every one of responsibility.
We had huge meetings and long speeches from morning to midnight. In the
churches the pulpits were turned into hustings, and for the moment
ministers preached the Gospel and McKinley in equal proportions. Miles
of sound money men paraded the streets, and at night the rivers north
and east were given over to political aquatic demonstrations. Huge
banners flaunted the sky, and tons of party literature strewed the
floors of every house; but the whole story was better told and more
impressively demonstrated in the faces of those united in commerce--99
per cent. of the better class in the city. They looked worn and anxious;
their words were words of confidence, but expressed with an uncertainty
and reserve which were significant.
One day I met a prominent citizen--an ardent Republican--and I asked him
how he thought the elections were going. He said, "I feel like the old
woman Ingersoll tells of, who did not believe in ghosts, but was
terribly frightened of them." This reminds me that the Free-thinking
Ingersoll had been stumping the country, and clergymen, such as Dr.
Parkhurst, had been turning their pulpits into political platforms to
bring their influence to bear on the voters. To all those who were in
New York during that momentous time the scene will linger in their
memories when the names of Bryan and McKinley have ceased to interest
them.
And the curious thing is that this is no exaggeration. To see, as I did,
thousands of well-dressed city men marching past at quick time, with
martial tread, to the music of innumerable bands, from half-past ten in
the morning till seven o'clock at night, is a performance that
Englishmen can hardly realise, and one that they will certainly never
see in their own country. Its very seriousness, simplicity, and
impressive monotony made it all the more striking. Not a soldier to be
seen, no triumphal cars, no break in the stream of respectability
mechanically moving throughout the day. In England, on public
demonstrations, one goes to look at the crowd, but here the crowd was
the procession. This political fever seemed to work up the enthusiasm of
every man, woman, and child when the march was over, on, I may tell you,
a bright, hot Indian summer's day in November.
[Illustration: AFTER THE GREAT PARADE: "AM I TO SIT ON AN ORDINARY SEAT
TO-NIGHT?"]
Crowds of the paraders continued to march in smaller squads through the
side streets for their own enjoyment, and overflowed into hotel lobbies
and restaurants, covered with emblems, flags, gold bugs, and
chrysanthemums, which were brought into the city by thousands for the
occasion. And then some humour was imported into the serious business of
the day. One youth strolled into a _cafe_, and when he was offered a
chair by the waiter, he drew himself up, and said, "Am I to sit on an
ordinary seat to-night?" They blew their tin horns, rattled their
rattles, and waved their flags in and out of every place until late at
night, and they were still singing and demonstrating in the morning,
but with that extraordinary common-sense which is characteristic of
Americans, the Bryanites and the McKinleyites shaking hands and setting
about their business with redoubled energy, having another crisis in the
country to record as a landmark in the history of the republic.
On the last day of my first visit to America I found myself in the head
depot of the New York detective force. The courteous and talented
presiding genius of that establishment had left his busy office to show
me over their museum, a chronicle of the city's crime, and as I was
thanking him afterwards, he said:
"Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Well," I replied, "I have seen the best side of life in New York, now I
should like to see the worst."
"The very worst?"
"The worst you have."
The worthy officer eyed me up and down as if he were going to measure me
for a suit of clothes.
"Very well," he replied, seemingly satisfied with my resolute bearing
and undaunted mien and determined visage, which showed my daring and
enterprise. Beside me a Stanley or a Burton would have looked
effeminate. "A detective will be at your hotel at ten o'clock to-night."
And he was.
I had just come in from dinner, and had changed my clothes for an old
suit that had braved the weather in crossing, and was consequently well
salted by Atlantic brine.
"May I offer you a cocktail?" I say.
"No, thank you," he replies.
(_His_ nerve doesn't want fortifying, evidently!) Mine does, so I have a
Manhattan as I hastily pencil a line to my wife to be sent to England in
case I do not leave by the _Majestic_ next day.
"Now, then, what's your programme?" said I in an airy way, as we reached
the street.
"Trust to me," said the "'tec," "interfere with no one, and keep your
pencil and your notebook in your pocket till I tell you. Keep your
mouth shut and your ears and eyes open, and as they say in the
pantomime, 'you shall see what you shall see.'"
We were soon whizzing along the elevated railway, and I was trying to
impress my guide with stirring tales of midnight meanderings in the
greater city, London. I left out any mention of Dublin, for my companion
rejoiced in a truly Milesian cognomen, and still bore strong evidence of
his native country in his accent, mixed with a good dash of American.
"Guess you're a pretty 'cute Britisher, and shure it's the likes of you
I'm mighty glad to strike in this _tre_menjious city!"
I felt somewhat flattered by this encouraging condescension, and I admit
now that I did not feel particularly happy at the idea of bearding the
thieving lion, with his hyena-like satellites, in his den. I felt
something like a criminal under arrest myself, and I am sure that
everyone in the car must have thought that the world-famed detective
force of New York had added another notorious catch to the many they
have so cleverly made.
As we passed close to the windows of the houses, and actually looked
into the rooms on the second and third stories, Detective Jonathan H.
O'Flaherty would point out to me a room here and there which was being
watched by his comrades, and as we approached nearer and nearer to the
purlieus of the poor, he positively detected seated in rooms in shady
hotels which harboured thieves a forger, a housebreaker, and other
notabilities of a worse character. Indeed, I would not have been
surprised had the arm of the law been literally stretched out at any
moment, and one of these gentlemen transferred from his seat through the
window and deposited by my side in the carriage.
America is a free country. England, we are assured, is not; but the fact
that the police are allowed to arrest anybody they please without
showing any authority whatever is a curious contradiction which the
Britisher may be pardoned for smiling at.
Detective Jonathan H. O'Flaherty and I had a rather warm argument upon
this point, and I must say that in the end I had to admit that there was
a good deal to be said in favour of the utter want of liberty to which
Americans have to submit.
"For instance," said my guide, "to-morrow is a public holiday. At
daybreak I guess we'll be afther locking up every thief, vagabond, and
persons suspected of being varmint of this description in this great
city, and it's free lodgings they'll have till the holiday's played out.
In that way crime is avoided, and the truth of the saying proved that
'prevention is better than cure.'"
"But there is an unpleasant feeling that this autocratic power may lead
to mistakes. In England the police must have a warrant," I said.
[Illustration: ITALIANS.]
"Guess, stranger, if we waited for a warrant the varmint'd vanish, and
there'd be the divil to pay. No, sir, I reckon we Amurricans don't wait
for anything--we just take the law into our own hands right away. A
short time ago I was sitting enjoying some singing in one of the saloons
in the Bowery here, and right through in front of me sat two foreigners
with the most perfect false whiskers on that I ever clapped eyes on.
That was enough for me. I went outside, sent one of my men for
assistance, and then sent in a theatrical lady's card to one of the
gentlemen. The bait was taken, and he came out. We arrested him straight
away, and made him send in for his friend, who came out, and we nailed
him as well. Turned out afterwards that they had come to kill one of the
actresses--love affair, revenge, and all that sort of thing. In your
country guess you'd have arrested them after the murder; we had them
before. There was no harm done, but they got a fine of a few dollars."
He put his hand suddenly upon mine as he said this. For a second I
thought that he imagined _my_ whiskers were false, and that this was
only a plant to lock me up! It was evident my nerves were becoming
unstrung, and as soon as we were in the street my good-humoured and
excellent guide told me that in another five minutes we would begin our
voyage of discovery. We passed through the Chinese quarter, down Mott
Street, and I could not but feel a pang of sympathy for these aliens,
looked upon by the Americans as vermin. It is a strange war, this
between John Chinaman and Sambo for the vassalage of the States; but in
poor England, the asylum of the alien, all nationalities have an equal
chance, and the nigger, the Chinaman, the Jew, and the German can walk
arm in arm, whether in the squalid streets of Spitalfields or the
aristocratic precincts of Pall Mall.
But there is a war going on in London between two races of different
colour, undisturbed and unseen, for the gory scenes of warfare are
enacted in the bowels of the earth. It is to the death, and has been
going on for years, the combatants being the red cockroach and the
blackbeetle. Both came to our shores in ships from distant lands. The
blackbeetles were first, and had possession of underground London, but
the cockroaches followed, disputed the right of territory, and thus the
war began. The latest reports from the seat of war assert that the
cockroaches are victorious all along the line as far as Regent's Park.
But this is digression. I merely made use of the cockroach simile
because it occurred to me as I traversed the Italian quarter and gazed
upon its denizens, an occasional accidental rub against one of whom made
me shudder. Innocent they may be, but they don't look it, and when I was
taken up a court--a horrible, dark, dank _cul-de-sac_--and shown the
identical spot which a few weeks beforehand had been the scene of a
murder, I made a sketch in the quickest time on record, keeping one eye
on the ghastly place and the other on a window where a ragged blind was
pulled quickly and nervously back, and a white face peered suddenly out
and as suddenly retreated.
I did the same, pulling my detective friend after me.
[Illustration: WHERE THE DEED WAS DONE!]
It is said that one-half the world does not know how the other half
lives, but not the ninety-ninth part knows how it dies. In the vicinity
of Mulberry Bend I was shown a house in which another bloody deed had
recently been perpetrated--another cockroach killed. The blood was as
fresh and visible as that of Rizzio in Holyrood Palace, but this excited
no curiosity among the passers-by--crimes are more plentiful than
mulberries here.
Paradise Park, The Bowery, New York, is a very high-sounding address. It
is one that any European might imagine as a retreat of aristocratic
refinement and sylvan beauty; there is nothing in the name to suggest
the Seven Dials of London in its old days; and yet the place is its
counterpart, the only difference being that the Five Points, as it is
called, is two degrees worse than the Seven Dials that's, all!
[Illustration]
Standing at these misnamed crossways, I noticed hurrying past an Italian
woman bearing a load of household furniture on her back, and followed by
a man--her husband, I was told--cursing her.
"They always move at night," said my guide. "The women do all the
carrying, and this is in a country where woman reigns _soo_preme, too!"
Next comes a youth with a crutch.
"One of the cleverest thieves in the city. No one suspects him--guess
his crippling is his fortune."
I should like to tell you of other interesting people I saw, of my
perambulations through Baxter Street, the Jewish quarter, of the visits
to the joss house, opium joint, grocery stores, halls of dazzling
delight, and dens of iniquity I made that night. I had my sketches and
notes before me to continue this chapter, when I received a New York
paper. In it I discovered an illustrated article headed "In His Own
Black Art," purporting to be an account of my visit to the slums with a
detective. After reading it I laid down my pen and took up my scissors,
I felt it impossible to disclose any more. The rest I leave to my
shadower on that occasion, reproducing also some of the sketches this
"faithful copper-fastened distorter of features" set down, with many
thanks to him and a sincere wish that his headache is better.
[Illustration: IN AN OPIUM JOINT.]
"IN HIS OWN BLACK ART.
* * * * *
"Mr. Furniss writes very cleverly, it should be said. He writes
good London English, for he, like many of 'the infernally good
fellows' of Fleet Street, 'don't you know,' believes that the
vernacular is only written in its virgin purity in that city.
However, let that pass.
[Illustration]
"But there was one thing that I couldn't consent, even as his
friend, to overlook. Mr. Furniss was determined to go 'slumming.'
He had letters to several members of the police department, but the
friends who had given these valuable credentials had evidently
selected only the captains of the highly respectable precincts. Of
course, they could not imagine that Mr. Furniss would want to visit
the joss house and opium joints of Chinatown. Nobody would, to
look at him. And yet, in his tireless study of 'American'
character, he penetrated even these mysteries.
"Everything was arranged for the tour during the night before his
departure on the _Majestic_. It was a charmingly dark night,
admirably suited for those _chiaroscuro_ effects that a
black-and-white artist is supposed to seek even in his dreams. An
experienced Central Office detective took him in hand with all the
_savoir faire_ of an Egyptian dragoman.
"HITTING THE PIPE.
"With the wisdom of an artist and the news-sense of a Park Row
hustler, Mr. Furniss lit a cigarette, and said:
"'Show me all.'
"This remark filled me with terror. Was it right to permit this
well-meaning but over-zealous friend of my country, my people and
myself to sound the depths of social degradation in the metropolis
and lard an otherwise charming book with screed and sketches
dragged from the slums? He was likely to mistake Donovan's Lane for
Harlem Lane, and Paradise Square for Maddison Square! Any man would
be liable to do so after a few days' visit to a strange city. How
many of the American birds of passage who flock to London every
summer know the distinction between Mitre and Capel Courts? One is
the scene of a ghastly Whitechapel murder; the other is the
financial center of the Eastern world!
[Illustration]
"When, therefore, it was seen to be impossible to dissuade the
talented young caricaturist from his blue-glass view of
metropolitan society, it seemed necessary to provide for our
self-defence. One of the cleverest pen-and-ink artists in America
was engaged to accompany the party as a second detective. A flying
visit was paid to Mott Street, and the services of High Lung, a
distinguished crayon manipulator, recently arrived (by way of
Vancouver and the dark of the moon), were secured to make a
Chinese-American caricature of the charming but over-curious
Englishman.
"Everything worked to a charm. Mr. Furniss went where he intended.
He saw all. He made sketches. He visited the shrine of the great
Joss. He ate birds' nests and rice. He saw the deadly opium smoked,
and 'hit the pipe' a few minutes himself.
"The night came to an end with dawn. Headache destroyed curiosity.
Our own faithful, copper-fastened distorter of facial beauty set
down in Mr. Furniss's black art what he had seen and did know. Here
are the results, H. F. It is to be feared he has imitated your
style.
"Bon voyage, master of the quick and the lead! Draw us, if you
must; but draw not the long bow.
"J. C."
[Illustration]