Dressed to Kill
With us it is the dress of the women that gives life and color to
the shifting show of street life. In Europe it is the soldier, and in
England the private soldier particularly. The German private soldier is
too stiff, and the French private soldier is too limber, and the Italian
private soldier has been away from the dry-cleanser's too long; but the
British Tommy Atkins is a perfect piece of work--what with his dinky cap
tilted over one eye, and his red tunic that fits him without blemish
or wrinkle, and his snappy little swagger stick flirting the air. As a
picture of a first-class fighting man I know of but one to match him,
and that is a khaki-clad, service-hatted Yankee regular--long may he
wave!
There may be something finer in the way of a military spectacle than
the change of horse-guards at Whitehall or the march of the foot-guards
across the green in St. James' Park on a fine, bright morning--but I
do not know what it is. One day, passing Buckingham Palace, I came on
a footguard on duty in one of the little sentry boxes just outside the
walls. He did not look as though he were alive. He looked as though he
had been stuffed and mounted by a most expert taxidermist. From under
his bearskin shako and from over his brazen chin-strap his face stared
out unwinking and solemn and barren of thought.
I said to myself: "It is taking a long chance, but I shall ascertain
whether this party has any human emotions." So I halted directly in
front of him and began staring fixedly at his midriff as though I saw a
button unfastened there or a buckle disarranged. For a space of minutes
I kept my gaze on him without cessation.
Finally the situation grew painful; but it was not that British
grenadier who grew embarrassed and fidgety--it was the other party to
the transaction. His gaze never shifted, his eyes never wavered--but I
came away feeling all wriggly.
In no outward regard whatsoever do the soldiers on the Continent compare
with the soldiers of the British archipelago. When he is not on actual
duty the German private is always going somewhere in a great hurry with
something belonging to his superior officer--usually a riding horse or
a specially heavy valise. On duty and off he wears that woodenness of
expression--or, rather, that wooden lack of expression--which is found
nowhere in such flower of perfection as on the faces of German soldiers
and German toys.
The Germans prove they have a sense of humor by requiring their soldiers
to march on parade with the goose step; and the French prove they have
none at all by incasing the defenseless legs of their soldiers in those
foolish red-flannel pants that are manufactured in such profusion up at
the Pantheon.
In the event of another war between the two nations I anticipate a
frightful mortality among pants--especially if the French forces should
be retreating. The German soldier is not a particularly good marksman as
marksmen go, but he would have to be the worst shot in the world to miss
a pair of French pants that were going away from him at the time.
Still, when all is said and done, there is something essentially
Frenchy about those red pants. There is something in their length that
instinctively suggests Toulon, something in their breadth that makes you
think of Toulouse. I realize that this joke, as it stands, is weak and
imperfect. If there were only another French seaport called Toubagge I
could round it out and improve it structurally.
If the English private soldier is the trimmest, the Austrian officer is
the most beautiful to look on. An Austrian officer is gaudier than the
door-opener of a London cafe or the porter of a Paris hotel. He achieves
effects in gaudiness which even time Italian officer cannot equal.
The Italian officer is addicted to cock feathers and horsetails on his
helmet, to bits of yellow and blue let into his clothes, to tufts of red
and green hung on him in unexpected and unaccountable spots. Either the
design of bottled Italian chianti is modeled after the Italian officer
or the Italian officer is modeled after the bottle of chianti--which,
though, I am not prepared to say without further study of the subject.
But the Austrian officer is the walking sunset effect of creation. For
color schemes I know of nothing in Nature to equal him except the Grand
Canyon of the Colorado. Circus parades are unknown in Austria--they are
not missed either; after an Austrian officer a street parade would seem
a colorless and commonplace thing. In his uniform he runs to striking
contrasts--canary yellow, with light blue facings; silvers and grays;
bright greens with scarlet slashings--and so on.
His collar is the very highest of all high collars and the heaviest with
embroidery; his cloak is the longest and the widest; his boots the most
varnished; his sword-belt the broadest and the shiniest; and the medals
on his bosom are the most numerous and the most glittering. Alf Ringling
and John Philip Sousa would take one look at him--and then, mutually
filled with an envious despair, they would go apart and hold a grand
lodge of sorrow together. Also, he constantly wears his spurs and his
sword; he wears them even when he is in a cafe in the evening listening
to the orchestra, drinking beer and allowing an admiring civilian to pay
the check--and that apparently is every evening.
There was one Austrian colonel who came one night into a cafe in Vienna
where we were and sat down at the table next to us; and he put our eyes
right out and made all the lights dim and flickery. His epaulets were
two hairbrushes of augmented size, gold-mounted; his Plimsoll marks were
outlined in bullion, and along his garboard strake ran lines of gold
braid; but strangest of all to observe was the locality where he wore
what appeared to be his service stripes. Instead of being on his sleeves
they were at the extreme southern exposure of his coattails; I presume
an Austrian officer acquires merit by sitting down.
This particular officer's saber kept jingling, and so did his spurs,
and so did his bracelet. I almost forgot the bracelet. It was an ornate
affair of gold links fastened on his left wrist with a big gold locket,
and it kept slipping down over his hand and rattling against his
cuff. The chain bracelet locked on the left wrist is very common among
Austrian officers; it adds just the final needed touch. I did not see
any of them carrying lorgnettes or shower bouquets, but I think, in
summer they wear veils.
One opportunity is afforded the European who is neither a soldier nor
a hotel cashier to dress himself up in comic-opera clothes--and that is
when he a-hunting goes. An American going hunting puts on his oldest
and most serviceable clothes--a European his giddiest, gayest, gladdest
regalia. We were so favored by gracious circumstances as to behold
several Englishmen suitably attired for the chase, and we noted that the
conventional morning costume of an English gentleman expecting to call
informally on a pheasant or something during the course of the forenoon
consisted, in the main, of a perfect dear of a Norfolk jacket, all over
plaits and pockets, with large leather buttons like oak-galls adhering
thickly to it, with a belt high up under the arms and a saucy tail
sticking out behind; knee-breeches; a high stock collar; shin-high
leggings of buff or white, and a special hat--a truly adorable
confection by the world's leading he-milliner.
If you dared to wear such an outfit afield in America the very
dickeybirds would fall into fits as you passed--the chipmunks would lean
out of the trees and just naturally laugh you to death! But in a land
where the woodlands are well-kept groves, and the undergrowth, instead
of being weedy and briery, is sweet-scented fern and gorse and bracken,
I suppose it is all eminently correct.
Thus appareled the Englishman goes to Scotland to shoot the grouse, the
gillie, the heather cock, the niblick, the haggis and other Scotch game.
Thus appareled he ranges the preserves of his own fat, fair shires in
ardent pursuit of the English rabbit, which pretty nearly corresponds to
the guinea pig, but is not so ferocious; and the English hare, which
is first cousin to our molly cottontail; and the English pheasant--but
particularly the pheasant.
There was great excitement while we were in England concerning the
pheasants. Either the pheasants were preying on the mangel-wurzels or
the mangel-wurzels were preying on the pheasants. At any rate it had
something to do with the Land Bill--practically everything that happens
in England has something to do with the Land Bill--and Lloyd George was
in a free state of perspiration over it; and the papers were full of it
and altogether there was a great pother over it.
We saw pheasants by the score. We saw them first from the windows of
our railroad carriage--big, beautiful birds nearly as large as barnyard
fowls and as tame, feeding in the bare cabbage patches, regardless of
the train chugging by not thirty yards away; and later we saw them again
at still closer range as we strolled along the haw-and-holly-lined roads
of the wonderful southern counties. They would scuttle on ahead of us,
weaving in and out of the hedgerows; and finally, when we insisted on it
and flung pebbles at them to emphasize our desires, they would get up,
with a great drumming of wings and a fine comet-like display of flowing
tailfeathers on the part of the cock birds, and go booming away to what
passes in Sussex and Kent for dense cover--meaning by that thickets such
as you may find in the upper end of Central Park.
They say King George is one of the best pheasant-shots in England.
He also collects postage stamps when not engaged in his regular regal
duties, such as laying cornerstones for new workhouses and receiving
presentation addresses from charity children. I have never shot
pheasants; but, having seen them in their free state as above described,
and having in my youth collected postage stamps intermittently, I should
say, speaking offhand, that of the two pursuits postage-stamp collecting
is infinitely the more exciting and dangerous.
Through the closed season the keepers mind the pheasants, protecting
them from poachers and feeding them on selected grain; but a day comes
in October when the hunters go forth and take their stands at spaced
intervals along a cleared aisle flanking the woods; then the beaters
dive into the woods from the opposite side, and when the tame and
trusting creatures come clustering about their feet expecting provender
the beaters scare them up, by waving their umbrellas at them, I think,
and the pheasants go rocketing into the air--rocketing is the correct
sporting term--go rocketing into the air like a flock of Sunday
supplements; and the gallant gunner downs them in great multitudes,
always taking due care to avoid mussing his clothes. For after all the
main question is not "What did he kill?" but "How does he look?"
At that, I hold no brief for the pheasant--except when served with
breadcrumb dressing and currant jelly he is no friend of mine. It ill
becomes Americans, with our own record behind us, to chide other
people for the senseless murder of wild things; and besides, speaking
personally, I have a reasonably open mind on the subject of wild-game
shooting. Myself, I shot a wild duck once. He was not flying at the
time. He was, as the stockword goes, setting. I had no self-reproaches
afterward however. As between that duck and myself I regarded it as an
even break--as fair for one as for the other--because at the moment I
myself was, as we say, setting too. But if, in the interests of true
sportsmanship, they must have those annual massacres I certainly should
admire to see what execution a picked half dozen of American quail
hunters, used to snap-shooting in the cane jungles and brier patches of
Georgia and Arkansas, could accomplish among English pheasants, until
such time as their consciences mastered them and they desisted from
slaughter!
Be that as it may, pheasant shooting is the last word in the English
sporting calendar. It is a sport strictly for the gentry. Except in the
capacity of innocent bystanders the lower orders do not share in it. It
is much too good for them; besides, they could not maintain the correct
wardrobe for it. The classes derive one substantial benefit from the
institution however. The sporting instinct of the landed Englishman has
led to the enactment of laws under which an ordinary person goes smack
to jail if he is caught sequestrating a clandestine pheasant bird; but
it does not militate against the landowner's peddling off his game after
he has destroyed it. British thrift comes in here. And so in carload
lots it is sold to the marketmen. The result is that in the fall of the
year pheasants are cheaper than chickens; and any person who can afford
poultry on his dinner table can afford pheasants.
The Continental hunter makes an even more spectacular appearance than
his British brother. No self-respecting German or French sportsman would
think of faring forth after the incarnate brown hare or the ferocious
wood pigeon unless he had on a green hat with a feather in it; and a
green suit to match the hat; and swung about his neck with a cord a
natty fur muff to keep his hands in between shots; and a swivel chair to
sit in while waiting for the wild boar to come along and be bowled over.
Being hunted with a swivel chair is what makes the German wild boar
wild. On occasion, also, the hunter wears, suspended from his belt, a
cute little hanger like a sawed-off saber, with which to cut the throats
of his spoil. Then, when it has spoiled some more, they will serve it at
a French restaurant.
It was our fortune to be in France on the famous and ever-memorable
occasion when the official stag of the French Republic met a tragic and
untimely end, under circumstances acutely distressing to all who believe
in the divinity bestowed prerogatives of the nobility. The Paris edition
of the Herald printed the lamentable tale on its front page and I
clipped the account. I offer it here in exact reproduction, including
the headline:
HUNTING INCIDENT SAID TO BE DUE TO CONSPIRACY
Further details are given in this morning's Figaro of the incident
between Prince Murat and M. Dauchis, the mayor of Saint-Felix, near
Clermont, which was briefly reported in yesterday's Herald.
A regular conspiracy was organized by M. Dauchis, it is alleged, in
order to secure the stag Prince Murat and Comte de Valon were hunting in
the forest of La Neuville-en-Hetz. Already, at the outset of the hunt,
M. Dauchis, according to Le Figaro, charged at a huntsman with a little
automobile in which he was driving and threatened to fire. Then when the
stag ran into the wood, near the Trye River, one of his keepers shot it.
In great haste the animal was loaded on another automobile; and before
either the prince or Comte de Valon could interfere it was driven away.
While Comte de Valon spurred his horse in pursuit Prince Murat disarmed
the man who had shot the stag, for he was leveling his gun at another
huntsman; but before the gun was wrenched from his hands he had struck
Prince d'Essling, Prince Murat's uncle, across the face with the butt.
Meantime Comte de Valon had overtaken the automobile and, though
threatened with revolvers by its occupants, would have recaptured the
stag if the men in charge of it had not taken it into the house of M.
Dauchis' father.
The only course left for Prince Murat and Comte de Valon was to lodge a
complaint with the police for assault and for killing the stag, which M.
Dauchis refused to give back.
From this you may see how very much more exciting stag hunting is in
France than in America. Comparing the two systems we find but one point
of resemblance--namely, the attempted shooting of a huntsman. In the
North Woods we do a good deal of that sort of thing: however with us
it is not yet customary to charge the prospective victim in a little
automobile--that may come in time. Our best bags are made by the
stalking or still-hunting method. Our city-raised sportsman slips up on
his guide and pots him from a rest.
But consider the rest of the description so graphically set forth by
Le Figaro--the intriguing of the mayor; the opposing groups rampaging
round, some on horseback and some in automobile runabouts; the intense
disappointment of the highborn Prince Murat and his uncle, the Prince
d'Essling, and his friend, the Comte de Valon; the implied grief of the
stag at being stricken down by other than noble hands; the action of the
base-born commoner, who shot the stag, in striking the Prince d'Essling
across his pained and aristocratic face with the butt--exact type of
butt and name of owner not being given. Only in its failure to clear
up this important point, and in omitting to give descriptions of the
costumes worn by the two princes and the comte, is Le Figaro's story
lacking. They must have been wearing the very latest creations too.
This last brings us back again to the subject of clothes and serves
to remind me that, contrary to a belief prevalent on this side of the
water, good clothes cost as much abroad as they cost here. In England a
man may buy gloves and certain substantial articles of haberdashery in
silk and linen and wool at a much lower figure than in America; and in
Italy he will find crocheted handbags and bead necklaces are to be had
cheaper than at home--provided, of course, he cares for such things as
crocheted handbags and bead necklaces. Handmade laces and embroideries
and sundry other feminine fripperies, so women tell me, are moderately
priced on the Continent, if so be the tourist-purchaser steers clear of
the more fashionable shops and chases the elusive bargain down a back
street; but, quality considered, other things cost as much in Europe
as they cost here--and frequently they cost more. If you buy at the
shopkeeper's first price he has a secret contempt for you; if you haggle
him down to a reasonably fair valuation--say about twice the amount a
native would pay for the same thing--he has a half-concealed contempt
for you; if you refuse to trade at any price he has an open contempt for
you; and in any event he dislikes you because you are an American. So
there you are. No matter how the transaction turns out you have his
contempt; it is the only thing he parts with at cost.
It is true that you may buy a suit of clothes for ten dollars in London;
so also may you buy a suit of clothes for ten dollars in any American
city, but the reasonably affluent American doesn't buy ten-dollar suits
at home. He saves himself up to indulge in that form of idiocy abroad.
In Paris or Rome you may get a five-course dinner with wine for forty
cents; so you may in certain quarters of New York; but in either place
the man who can afford to pay more for his dinner will find it to his
ultimate well-being to do so. Simply because a boarding house in France
or Italy is known as a pension doesn't keep it from being a boarding
house--and a pretty average bad one, as I have been informed by
misguided Americans who tried living at a pension, and afterwards put in
a good deal of their spare time regretting it.
Altogether, looking back on my own experiences, I can at this time of
writing think of but two common commodities which, when grade is taken
into the equation, are found to be radically cheaper in Europe than
in America--these two things being taxicabs and counts. For their
cleanliness and smartness of aspect, and their reasonableness of
meter-fare, taxicabs all over Europe are a constant joy to the traveling
American. And, though in the United States counts are so costly that
only the marriageable daughters of the very wealthy may afford to buy
them--and even then, as the count calendars attest, have the utmost
difficulty in keeping them after they are bought--in Continental Europe
anywhere one may for a moderate price hire a true-born count to do
almost any small job, from guiding one through an art gallery to waiting
on one at the table. Counts make indifferent guides, but are middling
fair waiters.
Outside of the counts and the taxicabs, and the food in Germany, I
found in all Europe just one real overpowering bargain--and that was in
Naples, where, as a general thing, bargains are not what they seem.
For the exceedingly moderate outlay of one lira--Italian--or twenty
cents--American--I secured this combination, to wit, as follows:
In the background old Vesuvius, like a wicked, fallen angel, wearing his
plumy, fumy halo of sulphurous hell-smoke; in the middle distance
the Bay of Naples, each larcenous wave-crest in it triple-plated with
silvern glory pilfered from a splendid moon; on the left the riding
lights of a visiting squadron of American warships; on the right the
myriad slanted sails of the coral-fishers' boats, beating out toward
Capri, with the curlew-calls of the fishermen floating back in shrill
snatches to meet a jangle of bell and bugle from the fleet; in the
immediate foreground a competent and accomplished family troupe of six
Neapolitan troubadours--men, women and children--some of them playing
guitars and all six of them, with fine mellow voices and tremendous
dramatic effect, singing--the words being Italian but the air good
American--John Brown's Body Lies a-Moldering in the Grave!
I defy you to get more than that for twenty cents anywhere in the world!