SCARBOROUGH.--The seaside resorts of England are numberless, and yet
there is a curious lack of similarity in their surroundings, their
atmosphere and in their class of visitors. Scarborough is to the
north of England what Bournemouth is to the south. It is select and
exclusive, but the ultra smart London set is not found in its purlieus.
It is a great place of resort for the old Yorkshire families--families
who can trace their descent back to Norman William and behind him to
the Saxon Thanes and Earls; and who look with ill-concealed disgust
upon the _nouveaux riches_ who are so painfully to the fore just now in
Belgravian drawing rooms and at crushes in Mayfair. Scarborough is not
wildly gay; its visitors take their pleasures sedately, and the voice
of the imitation nigger-minstrel is unheard in the land. One needs
to be in rude health to enjoy Scarborough, for the sea breezes come
rushing in from the lap of the Atlantic to mingle with the keen air of
the downs; and if one's lungs are sound it is a delight to live. Hotel
prices are fearfully and wonderfully conceived in Scarborough, but the
landlords say people eat so much on account of the splendid air that
they must charge high prices in self-defence.
The amusements and distractions of Scarborough? If one hunts or
shoots there is plenty of sport. Several packs of hounds meet on the
downs near by, and although the country is a bit stiff, the going is
fairly decent. It may perhaps be considered a drawback that hounds
occasionally disappear over the cliffs in the ardour of the chase, and
that a too-eager hunter might easily do the same--with his rider on
his back; but most men who hunt here say that they enjoy the spice of
danger.
Scarborough has two features distinctively its own: its "Spa" and its
cabs. Just why the long promenade where the band plays should be called
the "Spa" no one knows, but the fact remains, and every Sunday all the
world and his wife walk there for "Church Parade." The Scarborough
cab is really a small Victoria, drawn by one horse, ridden by a
correctly-got-up tiger, who lends a picturesque air to the trap. They
go well, these small horses, and gallop up and down the long hills on
which Scarborough is built, with greatest ease. The "day tripper,"
with his 'Arriet, is unknown here, for the simple reason that there
would be nothing for him to do.
There are no stands in the streets to display "s'rimps," "whilks"
and other questionable marine delicacies, put up in brown paper bags
at "tuppence the quart"; no merry-go-rounds; no cheap photographic
studios; or one-horse circuses where the manager is clown, acrobat
and owner in one, to tempt the taste and gratify the curiosity of
the lower classes. And there are no Americans in Scarborough. It is
too far from Paris, and too quiet for the extraordinary specimens
of nasal tendencies, who make an annual descent upon the Continent
and swarm from Dan to Beersheba. One never meets them at home, these
painfully rich and newly varnished Yankees who travel through Great
Britain in great state and pomp, and whose breeding is shamed by
that of the scullery maid in the cosy little inns they so disdain.
It is really trying to see the impression most Englishmen have of
Americans--impressions gathered simply from these inflictions who,
knowing no one but the green-grocer on their corner at home, come
abroad to astonish the natives; and who succeed in doing nothing but
in making the appellation of American to stink in the nostrils of the
foreigner.
Of course there are ruins near Scarborough, and again of course the
favourite drive is to these ruins. Another excursion is to a hill
overlooking the town, where tradition says that unsavoury individual
yclept Oliver Cromwell, once stood, or sat or performed some other
operation equally important.
Politically, as becomes its staid and exclusive _clientèle_,
Scarborough is Conservative; and has no sympathy with an old man's
visionary plans to break up a great Empire. Irish agitators appear
occasionally but not often, and they rarely carry away a full purse
from the collections they invariably take up.
Descriptions of places are invariably tiresome. One place is usually
like another, and the best way to know a town or city is to go there;
but anyone who can picture a town built up on the cliffs and down in
the hollows between, with stretches of sandy beach in front, will have
a fair idea of the Bournemouth of the north. The country round about
Scarborough is attractive. Quaint villages quite out of the world like
Symsbury, are met with at every turn; small market towns, like Yarm,
where the old custom of engaging servants by the "hold fast" in the
market-place on the yearly appointed day still obtains; and small
seaside resorts, like Redcar and Coatbridge; with Whitby famous for its
jet; all these are worth a visit. Yorkshire men are canny, and good at
a bargain and no better judges of horseflesh are found anywhere. The
only drawback connected with Scarborough is its distance from London,
but that is really only a drawback to Londoners. The Scarborough man
is rather proud of the fact. He looks with pity upon the benighted
south of England man, and has no words to express his contempt for the
finnicky foreigner, who comes to Scarborough and drinks sour red wine,
instead of quaffing huge draughts of the glorious old Yorkshire ale.
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