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Show A LAND OF CONTRASTS. Some or the American Peculiarities "W'hic-h Struck an KiiKlish Writer Forcibly. There is a very amusintr reaper in the Arena, in which, under the title of "The Land of Contrasts," Mr. Muirhead endeavors en-deavors to give his impressions of America. Amer-ica. His most abiding impression is, he declares, that there is no abiding impression im-pression at all, as the facts on which to-day he builds a theory iu Massachusetts Massachu-setts are shattered to-morrow by the facts he encounters in Michigan. The United States seem to him preeminently preeminent-ly the "Land of Contrasts" "the land of stark, staring and stimulating inconsistencies." in-consistencies." "I have hailed with delight the democratic dem-ocratic spirit displayed in the greeting of my friend and myself by the porter of a hotel as 'you fellows,' and then had the cup of pleasure dashed from my lips by being told by the same porter that "the other gentleman vyould attend at-tend to my baggage!' I have been parboiled par-boiled with salamaaders who seemed to find no inconvenience iu a room temperature of 60 degrees, and have beca nigh frozen to death in open-air drives in which the same individuals seemed perfectly' comfortable. American Amer-ican travelers grumble (or at least are dissatisfied; no American grumbles') American travelers are dissatisfied if tho velvet pile carpets at their hotels are not at leat two inches thick, and yet endure without a murmur the hideous noises of a steam-heating apparatus ap-paratus which ceases its bubble and squeak' only to emulate the exertions of Alexander the Coppersmith. Americans Amer-icans invent the most delicate forms of machinery for their manufacturing processes and hack their meat with silver-plated hoop iron knives hardly calculated to tackle anything harder than butter. Men appear at the theater in orthodox evening dress, while the tall and exasperating hats of the ladies who accompany them would seem to indicate in-dicate a theory of street toilet. From New York to Tiuffalo I am w-hisl.-ofl through the air at the rate of fifty to sixty miles an hour; in California I traveled on a train on which the engineer en-gineer shot rabbits from the locomotive and the fireman picked them up in time to jump on the baggage car at the rear end of the train. At Santa Barbara I visited an old mission church and convent con-vent which vied in quaint picturesque-ness picturesque-ness with anything in Europe; but, alas! theold monk who showed us around, though wearing the regulation gown and knotted cord, had replaced his sandals by elastie-sided boots and covered his tonsure with what we call a chummy, bnt which in correct Bos-tonese Bos-tonese is, I believe, a Derby." |
