| Show ENGLISH characteristics england is a mellow country and the english people are a mellow people they have hung on the tree of nations a long time and will no doubt hang as much longer for windfalls wind falls I 1 reckon are not the order in this island we are pitched several degrees higher in this country by contrast things here are loud sharp and garish our geography is loud the manners of the people are loud our climate is loud very loud so dry and sharp and full of violent violen changes and contrasts and our goings out and hud comings in as a nation are any thing but silent do we not occasionally give the door an extra slam just for effect in england every thing is on a lower key slower steadier gentler life bisno dou doubt t as full or fuller in its material onterial forms and measures but less violent and a hg aggressive r 6 asive the bu butners bummers frers the eng english ish have a v e between their cars to break the shock are typical of much one sees there all sounds are softer in Eu england augland wiand oland the surface of things is less hard the eye of day and the face of nature are less bright every thing has a mellow subdued cast there is no abruptness in the landscape no sharp and violent contrasts no brilliant and striking tints in the foliage A soft yellow pale paie sunlight is all one sees in the way of tints along the borders of the autumn woods english apples very small and inferior by the way are liot nod so highly colored as ours the blackberries just ripening in october aro less pungent and acid and the garden vegetables such as cabbage celery cauliflower beet and other root crops are less rank and fibrous and I 1 am very clear that the meats also are and sweeter there can be no doubt about the superiority of the mutton and the tender and succulent grass ana and the moist and agreeable climate must tell upon the beef bee falso also english coal is all soft coal and the stone is soft stone the found foundations actions of the hills are chalk instead of granite the stone with which most of the od old churches and cathedrals are built would not endure in our climate half a century but in britain the tooth of time is much blunter and the hunger of the old man less ravenous and the ancient arc are architecture h idec stands half a millennium until i I 1 it is slowly worn away ly by the gent gentle gentie I 1 e attrition of the wind and rain at chester the old roman boman wall that surrounds the town built in the first century and repaired in the ninth is still standing without a break or a swerve though in some places the outer face of the wall is worn through the cathedral and st johns church in the same town present to the behold or outlines as jagged and broken as rocks and cliffs and yet it is only chip by chip or grain by grain that ruin ap preaches pro aches the timber also lasts an incredibly long time beneath one of the he arched ways in the chester wall above referred to I 1 saw timbers that must have been in place five or six hundred yea yen years yearb rs the beams bealus in the old houses also fully exposed to the weather seem incapable of decay those dating from Shake time being apparently as firm as ever I 1 noticed that the characteristic aspect of the clouds in england was diali different erent from ours soft neecy fleecy vapory indistinguishable never the firm compact sharply defined deeply dyed masses and fragments so common in our own sky it rains easily but slowly storms accompanied compan compa nied led with thunder are rare while the crashing wrenching explosive thun der gusts so common with us deluging the earth and convulsing the heavens are never known in keeping with this elemental control and moderation I 1 found the character and manners of the people gentler and sweeter than I 1 had been led to believe they were no loudness brazenness impertinence no oaths no swaggering no leering at women no irreverence no flippancy no bullying no in insolence 90 of porters or clerks or conductors no importunity of bootblacks boot blacks or newsboys no of hacklen at least comparatively none all or of which an american is apt to notice and I 1 hope appreciate in london the boot blaes biaca salutes you with a respectful bow and touches his cap and would no more think of pursuing you or answering your refusal than he would of jumping into the thames the same is true of the newsboys if they were to scream and bellow in london as they do in new york or washington they would bo be suppressed by the police as they ought to be the vender of papers stands at the corner of the street with his goods in his arms and a large placard spread out at his feet giving in big letters the principal news headings street cries of all kinds are less noticeable ti less aggressive than in this country and the manners of the shop men make you feel you are conferring a benefit instead of receiving one even their locomotives are less noisy than ours having a shrill infantile whistle that contrasts strongly with the loud demoniac yell that makes a residence near a railway or depot in this country so unbearable the trains themselves move with wonderful smoothness and celerity making a mere fraction of the racket made by our flying palaces as they go swaying and jolting over our hasty ill lii ballasted ballested roads it is characteristic of the english prudence and plain dealing that they put so litte little on the cars and so much on the road while the reverse process is equally characteristic of american enterprise ter prise our railway system no doubt has certain advantages or rather con over the Eu english glish but for my part I 1 had bad rather ride smoothly swiftly and safely in a luggage van than be jerked and jolted to destruction in the velvet and veneering of our palace cars upholster the road first and let us ride on bare boards until a cushion can be afforded not ti I 1 after the bridges are of granite and iron and the ralls rails of steel do we vve want this more than aristocratic splendor and luxury of palace and draw ingroum cars to me there is no more marked sign of the essential vulgarity of the national manners than these princely cars and beggarly claptrap clap trap roads it is like a man wearing a ruffled and jewelled shirt front but too poor to awford a shirt itself I 1 have said the english are a sweet and mellow people there is ia indeed a charm about these theae ancestral races that goes to the heart and herein was one of the profoundest surprises of my visit namely that in coming from the new world to the old from a people t the he most recently out ef cf the woods of any to oneff the ripest and vener venerable ablest of the european nationalities I 1 should find a race more simple youthful and less sophisticated than the one I 1 had left lert behind me yet this was my impression we have bave lost immensely in some things and what we have gained is not yet so 36 obvious or so definable we have lost in reverence in homeliness in heart and conscience in virtue using the word in its proper sense to some the difre difference rence which I 1 note may appear a difference in favor of the greater cuteness wideawake ness and enterprise of the american but it is simply a difference expressive of our greater forwardness we are a forward people and the god we worship is smartness in one of the worst tendencies of the age namely an impudent superficial journalistic intellectuality and glibness america in her polite and literary circles no doubt leads all other nations english books book 8 and newspapers show more homely ver more singleness of purpose in short more character than ours the great charm of such a man as darwin for instance is his simple manliness and trans transparent frent trent good faith and the absence in rim elm him of that finical self com smartness which is the bane of our literature A london crowd I 1 thought the most normal and unsophisticated I 1 had ever seen with the least ad mixture admixture of and I 1 went about very freely in the hundred and one places or of amusement where the average e working classes assemble with their wives aej and daughters and sweethearts and smoke villainous cigars and drink ale and stout there was to me something notably fresh and canny about them as if they had only yesterday ceased to be shepherds and desses they certainly were less developed in certain directions ions or shall I 1 say depraved than similar crowds in our great cities the they are easily pleased and laugh at t the 0 simple and childlike but there is little that hat hints hinti of an aa impure taste or of abnormal appetites 1 I 1 often smiled at the tameness and simplicity of the amusements but my sense of fitness or proportion or decency was never once outraged they always s stop short of a certain point the point where aher wit degenerates into mockery and H liberty into license nature is never put to shame and will commonly bear much more especially to the american sense did their humorous lu humorous and comic strokes their negro minstrelsy and attempts at yankee comedy seem in a minor key there was not enough irreverence and slang and coarse ribaldry in the whole evenings entertainment haium tain ment ent to have seasoned one line of some of our most popular comic poetry but the music and the gymnastic acrobatic and other feats were of a very high order and I 1 will say here that the characteristic flavor of the humor and fun making of the average english people as it impressed my sense is what one gets in sterne very human and and entirely free from the contempt and superciliousness of most current writers I 1 did not get one whiff of dic dickens ens anywhere no doubt it is there in some form or other but it is not patent or even appreciable to the sense of such suell au aa observer as I 1 am I 1 was not less pleased by the simple goodwill and bonhomie that pervaded the crowd there is in all these gatherings an indiscriminate mingling of the sexes a mingling without jar or noise or rudeness of any kind hind and marked marked by a mutual respect on all sides that is novel and refreshing indeed so uniform is the courtesy and so human and considerate the interest that I 1 was often at a loss to discriminate the wife or the sister from the mistress or the acquaintance of the hour and had bad many times to check my american curiosity and 9 kaare for it was curious to see young men and women from the lowest social strata meet and mingle in a public hall without lewdness or badinage but even with gentleness and consideration the truth is however that the class of women known as victims of the social evil do not sink within many degrees as low in europe as they do in this country either in their own opinion or in that of the public there can be but little doubt that gatherings of the kind referred to if permitted in our great cities would be tenfold ten fold more scandalous and disgraceful than they are in london or paris there is something so reckless and desperate in the career of manor man or woman in this country when they begin to go down that the only feeling they too often excite is one of loathsomeness and disgust the lowest de depth th must be reached and it is renewed reneged reached quickly but in london the same characters seem to keep a sweet side from corruption to the last and you will see good manners everywhere we boast of our deference to women but if the old world make her a tool too we are fast making her a toy and the latter is the more hopeless condition but among the better classes in england I 1 am convinced that woman is regarded more as a sister and an equal than in this country and is less subject to insult and to leering brutal comment there than here we are her slave or her tyrant so seldom her brother and friend I 1 thought it a significant fact that I 1 found no place 0 of f amusement set apart for the men where one sex went the other went what was sauce for the gander was sauce for the goose and the spirit that prevailed was soft and human accordingly the hotels had no ladles ladies entrance but all passed in and out the same door and commonly met and mingled in the same room and the place was as much for one as for the other it was no more a masculine monopoly than it was a feminine in deed in the country towns and villages the character of the inns inna is unmistakably given by woman hence the sweet domestic atmosphere that pravades pr evades and fills them is balm to the spirit even the large hotels of liverpool and london have a private cosy home character that is most delightful on entering them instead of finding yourself in a sort of public thoroughfare or political caucus amid crowds of men talking and smoking and spitting with stalls on either side where cigars and and books and papers are sold you perceive you are in something like a larger hall of a private house with perhaps a parlor and coffee room on one side and the office and smoking room and stairway on the other you may leave your coat and hat on the rack in the hall and stand your umbrella there also with full assurance that you will find them there when you want them if it be the next morning or the next week instead of that petty tyrant the hotel clerk a young woman sits in the office with her sewing or other needlework and quietly receives you she he gives you your number on a card rings for a chambermaid to show you to your room and directs your luggage to be sent up and there is something in the look of things and the way they are done that goes to the right spot at once at the hotel in london where I 1 stopped the daughters of the landlord three fresh comely young women did the duties of the office and their presence so quiet and domestic gave the prevailing hue and tone to the whole house I 1 wonder how long a young woman could preserve her self respect and sensibility in such a position in new york or wash 33 to I 1 the eglash english regard us as a wonderfully patient people and there can be no doubt but we put up with abuses unknown elsewhere tf if we have no big tyrant we have ten thousand little ones who tread upon our toes at every turn the tyranny of corporations and of public servants of one kind and another as the ticket man the railroad conductor or even the country stage driver seem to be features peculiar to american democracy in england the traveller is never snubbed or made to feel that it is by sufferance that he is allowed aboard or to pass on his way if you get into an omnibus or a railroad or tramway carriage in london you are sure of a seat not another person can get aboard after the seats are all full or if you enter a public hall you know you will not be required to stand up unless you pay the standing up price there is ever everywhere y here that system and order and fi fair r ade dealing all ali ng which all men love the science of living has been reduced to a fine point you pay a sixpence and get a sixpence worth of whatever you buy there are all grades and aud an d prices and the robbery and extortion so current at home appear to bo be unknown I 1 am not contending for the superiority of every thing english but would not disguise from myself or my readers the fact of the greater humanity and consideration that prevail in the mother country things here are yet in the green but I 1 trust there is no good reason to doubt that our fruit will mellow and ripen in time like the rest jonn JOHN BURROUGHS Appleton appie Apple tons tong ls journal A man ran through detroit shouting that he was looking for the road to heaven the crowd called him crazy for looking for it in detroit in a paragraph on vacations the christian union says it strikes gs us that society y is so arranged that the american young lady has a pretty easy time of it compared with her brother A female who ought to know says no women indulge in the disgustingly dirty habit of wearing trains on the street but those whose pedal extremities cover a large amount of real |
