^. &. ^ ^ *a^ %w^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) A m / & ^ 1.0 I.I ^ li£ l£l K£ 1^ 111112.2 Ij^ lllll^ us b. ^ ■yuu 1^ Eg ||U 1 |i.6 ^ — 6" dl A o / /A Photographic Sciences Corporation «^ V '^ O ' "p. 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 6^ CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHIVi/ICIVIH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Micrcreproductions / institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques Is vV i Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. □ Coloured covers/ Couverture de couleur I I Covers damaged/ D Couverture endommagde Covers restored and/or laminated/ Couverture restaurde et/ou pellicul6e □ Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque □ Coloured maps/ Cartes gdographiques en couleur □ Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) I I Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ D D D D Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur Bound with other material/ Relid avec d'autres documents Tight finding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ La re liure serree peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge intdrieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajoutdes lorb d'une restauration apparais^ant dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela dtait possible, ces pages n'ont pas dt6 filmdes. Additional comments:/ Commentaires suppldmentaires; L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier una image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la mdthode normale de filmage sont indiquto ci-dessous. I I Coloured pages/ D D Pages de couleur Pages damaged/ Pages endommag^es Pages restored and/oi Pages restaurdes et/ou pelliculdes Pages discoloured, stained or foxei Pages d6color6es, tachetdes ou piqudes Pages detached/ Pages ddtachdes Showthrough/ Transparence Quality of prir Qualiti indgale de I'impression Includes supplementary materia Comprend du m&tdriel suppl^mentaire I I Pages damaged/ I I Pages restored and/or laminated/ I 1 Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ I I Pages detached/ I I Showthrough/ I I Quality of print varies/ I I Includes supplementary material/ Only edition availai:/ie/ Seule Edition dispo ,iible Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc.. have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image/ Les pages totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc.. ont 6t6 filmdas d nouveau de fapon d obtenir la meilleure image possible. This item is filmed at the reduction rati-" checked below/ Ce document est filmd au taux de reduction indiqud ci-dessous. IPX 14X 18X 22X I I I I I I I I I |y| I I I 30X 12X 16X 20X 24X 28X 32X ails du difier jne lage The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks to the generosity of: National Library of Canada The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. L'exemplaire filmd fut reproduit grSce d la g6n6ros!td de: Bibliothdque nationale du Canada Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec !e plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et de la nettetd de l'exemplaire film6, et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All other original copies are filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or illustrated impres- sion, and ending on the last page with a printed or illustrated impression. Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en papier est imprimis sont filmds en commenpant par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration, soi; par le second plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont filmds en commenpant par la prei^iidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol ^^ (meaning "CON- TINUED "), or the symbol V (meaning "END '), whichever applies. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon !e cas: le symbols — ► oignifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmds d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est filmd d partir de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m§thode. rata elure. J }2X h 1: 2 3 4 i 6 ^^^72 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA =SlStl f ^yUxir I^MjUI y i rRRNCJlMAN IN AMERICA IccoUeaura:.-, df lUcn inia 'Things sy AUTHOR OK " JON^TKVh- ANC tirS 'ONTIKEN r. " "ji.iJ.V BCI.L, )Uri>'-R ' •'JACQt'RS B^MHOMME,'" " /Clt -i H.VI.!. Aa'H Hii iSL.^Nt)," jiTC. !, . < BY F. fr t^'' .\rBLP: NEW YOhiC CASSLLl' IM'BLlSHfNG rOMPANY i4 f «:■ "■ ■ , '■ '.-, ■I'l"' ' ■ •!>,■■■ ,iM:' 1 t-'ik .:.■'■•,, ■■'•W^ 'ify :•■•■■, :■'■■'*■■■;.''■;:,...; •-.,."■ ' ^ -'H;-/-^-- ' M i: .ifti^ii!;'.; . ...m t '«!»/.' ;?:3;'.«fsi,c-.'»ili'ii'':, !:?!.■ ■■^<^- fr'-nr-/ >' ./^A^ <^/€/.^ A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA SwolUctiotts 0t |«Xjctt iiXiH Shlnfls BY MAX O'RELL ic ti- cbU-.rt AUTHOR OF "JONATHAN AND HIS CONTINENT," "JOHN BULL, JUNIOR," "JACQUES BONHOMME," "JOHN BULL AND HIS ISLAND," ETC. WITH OVER ONE HUNDRED AND tHIRTY ILLUSTRATIONS BY E. W. KEMBLE NEW YORK ASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY T04 & 106 Fourth Avenue u /6 S 1454 Of; Copyright, iS()i, uy CASSELL I'ULLISHING COMPANY. Ail rights reservfd. THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J. V\ CONTENTS. f HAJ-TKR. I.-Departt.r.-The Atlantic-De.norali.a.ion of the '■ lioarders--""" lietl.ni,- 1 he Auctic.eer-An Inquisitive ^•ankee. H.-Arrival of the Mlot-First Look at An.crican Newspapers I,r._AnivaI-The Custom IIouse-Thin^.s I.ook Uad-The Inter IV.— Impressions of American Hotels, '''"''Had'Ti"'^/'"'"^''^"'"^""^ °" ^-•--- I Have Had- 1 he Man who Won't Smiie-The One who Lau.^hl too Soon, and Many Others, . ^-auglis VI.-A Connecticut Audience-Merry Meriden-A Hard Pull VII.-A Tempting Offer-The Thursday Club-Bill Nye-Vilit to V oung Ladies' Schools-The Players' Club, VHI.-The Flourishing of Coats-of-Arms in America-R.nections HorVh w '?:" '^"'^ '° ^'^^— 'f^he Phonograp a Home- f he Wealth of New York-Departure for Buffalo IX.-D,fferent Ways of Advertising a Lecture-American Imnres sanos and Their Methods, . - mciican Impres- X.— Buffalo— The Niagara Falls— A. Fr^cf u u ^"■~frr?u°" """'"''" ^Vomen-Comparisons-IIow Men Treat NN omen and Vice Versa-Scenes and lllustraZs vii I II 14 25 37 48 60 66 74 81 90 vm CONTENTS. !:i i.l. 1; ' CHAPTER. PAGH. XIII. — More about Journalism in America — A Dinner at Delmoni- co's — My First Appearance in an American Church, . .110 XIV. — Marcus Aurelius in America — Chairmen I Have Had — American, English, and Scotch Chairmen — One who had Been to Boulogne — Talkative and Silent Chairmen — A Try- ing Occasion — The Lord is Asked to Allow the Audience to See my Point ,, 124 XV. — Reflections on the Typical American, 137 XVI. — I am Asked to Express Myself Freely on America — I Meet Mrs. Blank and for the First Time Hear of Mr. Blank — Beacon Street Society — The Boston Clubs, .... 149 XVII. — A Lively Sunday in Boston — Lecture in the Boston Thea- ter — Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes — The Booth-Modjeska Combination 156 XVIII.— St. Johnsbury— The State of Maine— New England Self- control — Cold Climates and Frigid Audiences — Where is the Audience ? — All Drunk ! — A Reminiscence of a Scotch Audi- ence on a Saturday Night, 163 XIX. — A Lovely Ride to Canada — Quebec, a Corner of Old France Strayed up and Lost in the Snow — The French Canadians — The Parties in Canada — Will the Canadians become Yankees? 172 XX. — Montreal — The City — Mount Royal — Canadian Sports — Ottawa— The Government — Rideau Hall, . . . 182 XXL— Toronto— The City— The Ladies— The Sports— Strange Contrasts — The Canadian Schools, 191 XXII.-- -West Canada — Relations between British and Indians — Return to the United States — Difficulties in the Way — En- counter with an American Custom-House Officer, . . 196 XXIIL— Chicago (First Visit)— The " Neighborhood" of Chicago — The History of Chicago — Public Servants — A Very Deaf Man 203 XXIV. — St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Sister Cities — Rivalries and Jealousies between Large American Cities — Minnehaha Falls ^: — V/onderful Interviewers — My Hat gets into Trouble Again — Electricity in the Air — Forest Advertisements — Railway Speed in America, . 214 It I CONTENTS. jx CHAPTER. XXV.-Detroit-The Town-The Detroit " Free Press "-A Lady'"'''' Interviewcr-The " Unco Guid " in Detroit-Reflections on the Anglo-Saxon " Unco Guid," ... XXVI.-Miiwaukee-A Well-filled Day-Reflections on the ^ nfch m America— Chicago Criticisms 336 XXVII.-The Monotony of Traveling in the States-" Manon Lescaut " in America. . 244 XXVIII.-For the First Time I See an American Paper Abuse Me -Albany to New York-A Lecture at Daly's Theater- Afternoon Audiences, . o 248 XXIX.— Wanderings Through New York— Lecture at the Har- monie Club— Visit to the Century Ci-ib, ... 35- XXX.— Visit to the Brooklyn Academy of Music— Rev Dr Tal "^^^ ■ .257 XXXL-Virginia-The Hotels-The South-I will Kill a Railway Conductor before I Leave America-Philadelphia-Impres- sions of the Old City, . , ■" 263 XXXIL-My Ideas of the State of Texas-Why I will not Go There— The Story of a Frontier Man, XXXIII.-Cincinnati-The Town-The Suburbs-A German City -"Over the Rhine '-What is a Good Patriot ?-An Im- pressive Funeral -A,Great Fire-How It Appeared to Me and How It Appeared to the Newspaper Reporters, XXXIV. -A Journey if you Like-Terrible Encounter with an American Interviewer, 274 279 296 XXXV.— The University of Indiana-Indianapolis-The Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic on the Spree— A Marvel- ous Equilibrist, XXXVI.— Chicago (Second Visit)— Vassili Verestchagin's Exhibi- tion-The " Angelus "--Wagner and Wagnerites-Wander- 4 'ngs About the Big City— I Sit on the Tribunal, . . .311 XXXVII.— Ann Arbcr— The University of Michigan-Detroit Again— The FrtnchOut of France-Oberlin College. Ohio- Black and White— Are All American Citizens Equal ? . 322 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER. PACK XXXVIII. — Mr. and Mrs. Kendal in New York — Joseph Jefferson — Julian Hawthorne — Miss Ada Rehan — "As You Like It " at Daly's Theater, XXXIX.— Washington— The City— Wiliard's Hotel— The Politi- cians — General Benjamin Harrison, U. S. President — Wash- ington Society — Baltimore — Philadelphia XL. — Easter Sunday in New York, ...... XLL— I Mount the Pulpit and Preach on the Sabbath, in the State of Wisconsin — The Audience is Large and Appreciative; but I Probably Fail to Please One of the Congregation, XLII. — The Origin of American Humor and Its Characteristics — . The Sacred and the Profane — The Germans and American Humor — My Corpse Would " Draw," in my Impressario's Opinion, .......... XLIII.— Good-by to America-^Not "Adieu," but "Au Revoir "— On Board the Teufonic-^Home Again 361 33c 332 342 347 353 A Frenchman in America. CHAPTER I. Av ^.^"^'^^■^''s -Betting-The Auctioneer —An Inquisitive Yankee. On board the " Cdlic," Clirislmas Wccl; ,889 I Ta T^T °' ""'"2^ "^^ ^'•"'"'"■^ was to have -I sa,led to-day, but the date is the 25th of Decern! ber, and few people elect to eat tl,eir Christmas di„. ner on the ocean if they can avoid it ; so there are o, y mitted to the brave httle CeMc, while that huge float ■ng pa ace, the Taaomc, remains in harbor. Little ^Mc/ Has it come to this with her and her companions the G.r,„ani., the Bnta„nic, and the r nscirat "°"'"' 'f '"^ ^'°'y °f '"^ ^hip-build' ng craft a few years ago ? There is something almost sad m seeing these queens of the Atlantic dethroned and obliged to rank below newer and grander ships' It was even pathetic to hear the remarks of the saMors as we passed the G.n„ani. who, in her da^ hTd' Hi It U ! t; ' a A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. created even more wondering admiration than the two famous armed cruisers lately added to the " White Star " fleet. I know nothing more monotonous than a voyage from Liverpool to New York. Nine times out of ten — not to say ninety-nine times out of a hundred — the passage is bad. The Atlantic Ocean has an ugly temper; it has forever got its back up. Sulky, angry, and terrible by turns, it only takes a few days' rest out of every year, and this always oc- curs when you are not crossing. And then, the wind is invariably against you. When you go to America, it blows from the west ; when you come back to Europe, it blows from the east. If the captain steers south to avoid icebergs, it is sure to begin to blow southerly. Doctors say that sea-sickness emanates from the brain. I can quite believe them. The blood rushes to your head, leaving your extremities cold and helpless. All the vital force flies to the brain, and your legs refuse to carry you. It is with sea-sickness as it is with wine. When people say that a certain wine goes up in the head, it means that it is more likely to go down to the feet. There you are, on board a huge construction that rears and kicks like a buck-jumper. She lifts you up bodily, and, after well shaking all your members in the air several seconds, lets them down higgledy-piggledy, leaving to Providence the business of picking them up and putting them together again. That is the kind of 1^' YOUR LEGS REFUSE TO CARRY YOU. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. m 1^ , 6: ( tiling one has to go through about sixty times an hour. And there is no hope for you ; nobody dies o{ it. Under such conditions, the mental state of the board- ers may easily be imagined. They smoke, they play cards, they pace the deck like bruin pacing a cage ; or else they read, and forget at the second chapter all they have read in the first. A few presumptuous ones try to think, but without success. The ladies, the Ameri- can ones more especially, lie on their deck chairs swathed in rugs and shawls like Egyptian mummies in their sarcophagi, and there they pass from ten to twelve hours a day motionless, hopeless, helpless, speechless. Some few incurables keep to their cabins altogether, and only show their wasted faces when it is time to debark. Up they come, with cross, stupefied, pallid, yellow-green-looking physiognomies, and seem- ing to say : " Speak to me, if you like, but don't ex- pect me to open my eyes or answer you, and above all, don't shake me." Impossible to fraternize. The crossing now takes about six days and a half. By the time you have spent two in getting your sea legs on, and three more in reviewing, and being re- viewed by your fellow-passengers, you will find your- self at the end of your troubles — and your voyage. No, people do not fraternize on board ship, during such a short passage, unless a rumor runs from cabin to cabin that there has been some accident to the ma- chinery, or that the boat is in imminent danger. At the least scare of this kind, every one looks at his neigh- bor with eyes that are alarmed, but amiable, nay, even amicable. But as soon as one can say : " We have I" A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 5 come off with a mere scare this time," all the facial traits stiffen once more, and nobody knows anybody. Universal grief only will bring about universal brotherhood. We must wait till the Day of Judg- ment. When the world is passing away, oh ! how men will forgive and love one another ! What LIKE EGYPTIAN MUMMIES." outpourings of good-will and affection there will be ! How touching, how edifying will be the sight ! The universal republic will be founded in the twinkling of an eye, distinctions of creed and class forgotten. The author will embrace the critic and even the publisher, the socialist open A FAENCHMAA IN AMERICA. II ' i his arms to the capitah'st. The married men will be seen " making it up " with their mothers-in-law^ beg- ging them to forgive and forget, and admitting that they had not been always quite so-so, in fact, as they might have been. If the Creator of all is a philoso- pher, or enjoys humor, how he will be amused to see all the various sects of Christians, who have passed their lives in running one another down, throw them- selves into one another's arms. It will be a scene never to be forgotten. Yes, I repeat it, the voyage from Liverpool to New York is monotonous and wearisome in the extreme. It is an interval in one's existence, a week more or less lost, decidedly more than less. One grows gelatinous from head to foot, especially in the upper part of one's anatomy. In order to see to what an extent the brain softens, you only need look at the pastimes the poor pas- sengers go in for. A state of demoralization prevails throughout. They bet. That is the form the disease takes. They bet on anything and everything. They bet that the sun will or will not appear next day at eleven precisely, or that rain will fall at noon. They bet that the number of miles made by the boat at twelve o'clock next day will terminate with o, 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9. Each draws one of these numbers and pays his shilling, half-crown, or even sovereign. Then these numbers are put up at auction. An improvised auctioneer, with the gift of the gab, puts his talent at the service of his fellow-passengers. It is really very funny to see him swaying about the smoking-room A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA, ; table, and using all his eloquence over each number in turn for sale. A good auctioneer will run the bidding so smartly that the winner of the pool next day often pocket.] as much as thirty aiid forty pounds. On the THE AUCTIONEER. eve of arrival in New York harbor, everybody knows that twei)ty-four pilots are waiting about for the advent of the liner, and that each boat carries her number on her sail. Accordingly, twenty-four numbers are rolled 8 A r/^EA'c/rAfAjv m America. up and thrown into a cap, and betting begins again. He who has drawn the number which happens to be that of the pilot who takes the steamer into harbor pockets the pool. I, who have never bet on anything in my life, even bet with my traveling companion, when the rolling- of the ship sends our portmanteaus from one side of the cabin to the other, that mine will arrive first. Intel- lectual faculties on board are reduced to this ebb. The nearest approach to a gay note, in this concert of groans and grumblings, is struck by son>e humorous and good-tempered American. He will come and ask you the most impossible questions with an ease and impudence perfectly inimitable. These catechisings are all the more droll because they are done with a naivete which completely disarms you. The phrase is short, without verb, reduced to its most concise ex- pression. The intonation alone marks the interroga- tion. Here is a specimen. We have on board the Celtic an American who is not a very shrewd person, for it has actually taken him five days to discover that English is not my native tongue. This morning (December 30) he found it out, and, being seated near me in the smoke-room, has just had the following bit of conversation with me: ** Foreigner?" said he. ** Foreigner," said I, replying in American. " German, I guess." ** Guess again." "French?" " Pure blood." '4;;. ■■'a UOINU TO AMERICA?' 10 A IKENCHMAN IN AMKtilCA I) i " Married ? " •' Married." •' Going to America ? " " Yes— evidently." "Pleasure trip?" "No." '• On business ? " " On buiiiness, yes." "What's your line?" " H'm — French goods." " All ! what class of goods ?" " L: article de Paris, " "The what?" " The ar-ti-cle de Pa-risr " Oh ! yes, the arnticle of Pahrrissr " Exactly so. Excuse my pronunciation." This floored him. " Rather impertinent, your smoke-room neighbor ! " you will say. Undeceive yourself at once upon that point. It is not impertinence, still less an intention to offend you, that urges him to put these incongruous questions to you. It is the interest he takes in you. The Ameri- can is a good fellow ; good fellowship is one of his chief characteristic traits. Of that I became perfectly convinced during my last visit to the United States. CHAPTER II. Arrival of the .Pilot-First Look at Ameri. CAN NeWSI'AI'ERS. Saturday, January ^, 1890. \17E shall arrive in New York Harbor to-night, VV but too hite to go on shore. After sunset,' the Custom House officers are not to be disturbed! We are about to land in a country where, as I remem- ber, everything is in subjection to the paid servant. In the United States, he who is paid wages com- mands. We make the best of it. After having mercilessly tumbled us about for nine days, the wind has gra- ciously calmed down, and our last day is going to be a good one, thanks be. There is a pure atmosphere. A clear line at the horizon divides space into two innmensities, two sheets of blue sharply defined. Faces are smoothing out a bit. People talk, are becoming, in fact, quite communicative. One seems to say to another: "Why, after all, you don't look half as disagreeable as I thought. If I had only known that, we might have seen more of each other, and killed time more quickly." The pilot boat is in sight. It comes toward us, and sends ofT in a rowing-boat the pilot who will take us II 12 A FKEXCllMAN IN AMERICA. ( ■:! \\ 1 iwto port. The arrival of the pilot on board is not an incident. It is an evetit. Docs he not bring the New Yor-k newspapers? And when you have been ten days at sea, cut off from th» world, to read the papers of the day before is to come back to life again, and once more take up your place in this little planet that has been going on its jog-trot way during your temporary suppression. The first article which meets my eyes, as I open the New York World, is Vy headed " High time for Mr. Nash to put a stop to it!" This is the para- graph : Ten days ago, Mrs. Nash brought a boy into exist- ence. Three days afterward she pre- sented her husband with a little girl. Yesterday the lady was safely delivered of a third baby. '* Mrs. Nash takes her time over it " would have been another good heading. Here we are in America. Old World ways don't ob- tain here. In Europe, Mrs. Nash would have ushered t4ie little trio into this life in one day; but in Europe we are out of date, rococo, and if one came over to find riLOT WITH PAPERS. A FRENCIhMAN IN AMERICA. 13 the Americans doing things just as they are done on the other side, one might as well stay at home. I run through the papers. America. I see, is split into two camps. Two young ad.es Miss Nelly Bly and Miss Elizabeth Bisland have left New York by opposite routes to go around the world, the former sent by the New York World the latter by the Cosmopolitan. Which will be back f^rst ? ,s what all America is conjecturing upon. Bets have been made, and the betting is even. I do not know M.ss Bly, but last time I came over I had the pleasure of making Miss Bisland's acquaintance. Nat- uraiy, as soon as I get on shore, I shall bet on Miss B.sland. You would do the same yourself, would you I pass the day reading the papers. All the bits of news, insignificant or not, given in the shape of crisp hvely stories, help pass the time. They contain little information, but much amusement. The American newspaper always reminds me of a shop window with all the goods ticketed in a marvelous style, so as to at- tract and tickle the eye. You cannot pass over any- mng. The leading article is scarcely known across the wet spot ; the paper is a collection of bits of gossip, hearsay, news, scandal, the whole served h la sauce piquante. ,,, . ^ine o clock. We are passing the bar, and going to anchor. New York ,s sparkling with lights, and the Brooklyn Bridge IS a thing of beauty. I will enjoy the scene for an hour, and then turn in. We land to-morrow morning at seven. CHAPTER III. 9i »i I : Arrival — The Custom House — Things Look Bad — The Interviewers — First Visits — Things Look Brighter — "O Vanity of Vani- ties." Ne^u York Harbor, January 5. AT seven o'clock in the morning the Custom House officers came on board. One of them at once recognizing me, said, calling me by name, that he was glad to see me back, and inquired if I had not brought Madame with me this time. It is extraordinary the memory of many of these Americans ! This one had seen me for a few minutes two years before, and proba- bly had had to deal with two or three hundred thousand people since. All the passengers came to the saloon and made their declarations one after another, after which they swore in the usual form that they had told the truth, and signed a paper to that effect. This done, many a poor pilgrim innocently imagines that he has finished with the Custom House, and he renders thanks to Heaven that he is going to set foot on a soil where a man's word is not doubted. He reckons without his host. In spite of his declaration, sworn and signed, his trunks are opened and searched with all the dogged zeal of a policeman who believes he is on the «4 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. IS track of a criminal, and who will only give up after perfectly convincing himself that the trunks do not contan, the slightest dutiable article. Everything is CUSTOM HOUSE OFFICERS taken out and examined. If there are any objects of apparel that appear like new ones to that scrutinizing eye, look out for squalls. I must say that the officer was very kind to me. i6 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. '!' 'I i For tliat matter, the luggage of a man who travels alone, without Madame and her impedimenta, is soon examined. Before leaving the ship, I went to shake hands with Captain Parsell, that experienced sailor whose bright, interesting conversation, added to the tempting delica- cies provided by the cook, made many an hour pass right cheerily for those who, like myself, had the good fortune to sit at his table. I thanked him for all the kind attentions I had received at his hands. I should have liked to thank all the employees of the "White Star" line company. Their politeness is above all praise; their patience perfectly angelical. Ask them twenty times a day the most absurd ques- tions, such as, " Will the sea soon calm down? " " Shall we get into harbor on Wednesday? " " Do you think we shall be in early enough to land in the evening?" and so on. You find them always ready with a kind and encouraging answer. " The barometer is going up and the sea is going down," or, " We are now doing our nineteen knots an hour." Is it true, or not? It sat- isfies you, at all events. In certain cases it is so sweet to be deceived ! Better to be left to nurse a be- loved illusion than have to give it up for a harsh re- ality that you are powerless against. Every one is grateful to those kind sailors and stewards for the little innocent fibs that they are willing to load their consciences with, in order that they may brighten your path across the ocean a little. ■X . <. i! fl Everett House. Noon. My baggage examined, I took a cab to go to the ■*■%' . -^ J • \ -', /5?i ''\i^ ^,^««^-^ >Bt^ lAPIAIN I'AKSKLL, R M. s. " .\I AJ KSTIc' h 'f- I ttf 'I I :H A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA 17 hotel. Three dollars for a mile and a half. A mere trifle. It was pouring with rain. New York on a Sunday IS never very gay. To-day the city seemed to me hor- rible: dull, dirty, and dreary. It is not the fault of New York altogether. I have the spleen. A horribly EVERY ONE HAS THE GRIPPE. Stormy passage, the stomach upside down, the heart up «n the throat, the thought that my dear ones are three thousand miles away, all these things help to make everything look black. It would have needed a radiant sun in one of those pure blue skies that North America is so rich in to make life look agreeable and New York passable to-day. In ten minutes cabby set me down at the Everett i8 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. House. After having signed the register, I went and looked up my manager, whose bureau is on the ground floor of the hotel. The spectacle which awaited me was appalling. There sat the unhappy Major Pond in his office, his head bowed upon his chest, his arms hanging limp, the very picture of despair. The country is seized with a panic. Everybody has the influenza. Every one does not die of it, but every one is having it. The malady is not called influenza over here, as it is in Europe. It is called " Grippe." No American escapes it. Some have la grippe, others have the grippe, a few, even, have the la grippe.^ Others, again, the lucky ones, think they have it. Those who have not had it, or do not think they have it yet, arc expecting it. The nation is in a complete state of demoralization. Theaters are empty, business almost suspended, doctors on their backs or run off their legs. At twelve a telegram is handed to me. It is from my friend, Wilson Barrett, who is playing in Philadel- phia. " Hearty greetings, dear friend. Five grains of quinine and two tablets of antipyrine a day, or you gGt grippe ." Then came many letters by every post. " Impossible to go and welcome you in person. I have la grippe. Take every precaution." Such is the tenor of them all. The outlook is not bright. What to do ? ¥ot a moment I have half a mind to call a cab and get on board the first boat bound for Europe. I go to my room, the windows of which overlook Union Square. The sky is somber, the street is black A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 19 and deserted, the air is suffocatingly warm, and a very heavy rain is beating against the windows. Shade of Columbus, how I wish I were home again ! • Cheer up, boy, the hand-grasps of vour dear New York friends will be sweet after the frantic grasping of stair-rails and other ship furniture for so many days. I will have lunch and go and pay calls. • Excuse me if I leave you for a few minutes. The interviewers are waiting for me downstairs in Major Pond's office. ' The interviewers! a gay note at last. The hall porter hands me their cards. They are all there : representatives of the Tribune, the Times, the Sun, the Herald, the World, the Star. What nonsense Europeans have written on the subject of interviewing in America, to be sure! To hear them speak, you would believe that it is the greatest nuisance in the world. A Frenchman writes in the Figaro: " I will go to America if my life can be insured against that terrific nuisance, interviewing." An Englishman writes to an English paper, on returning from America : " When the reporters called on me, I invariably refused to see them." Trash! Cant! Hypocrisy! With the exception of a king, or the prime minister of one of the great powers, a man is only too glad to be interviewed. Don't talk to me about the nuisance, tell the truth, it is always such a treat to hear it. I consider that jl' ao A FRENCIIMAI^ IN AMERICA. w ^ j: ' i ! interviewing is a compliment, a great compliment paid to the interviewed. In asking a man to gjive you his views, so as to enlighten the public on such and such a subject, you acknowledge that he is an important man, which is flattering to him ; or you take him for one, which is more flattering still. I maintain that American interviewers are extremely courteous and obliging, and, as a rule, very faithful reporters of what you say to them. Let me say that I have a lurking doubt in my mind whether those who have so much to say against inter- viewing in America have ever been asked to be inter- viewed at all, or have even ever run such a danger. I object to interviewing as a sign of decadence in modern, journalism ; but I do not object to being interviewed, I like it ; and, to prove it, I will go down at once, and be interviewed. • . * * • • Midnight. The interview with the New York reporters passed off very well. I went through the operation like a man. After lunch, I went to see Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, who had shown me a great deal of kindness during my first visit to America. I found in him a friend ready to welcome me. The poet and literary critic is a man of about fifty, rather below middle height, with a beautifully chiseled head. In every one of the features you can detect the artist, the man of delicate, tender, and refined feelings. It was a great pleasure for me to see him again. He has finished his " Library of American A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ai L erature, a g,ga„tic work of erudite criticism and jud.cous compilation, wind, he undertook a few year, ago ,n collaboration with Miss Ellen Mackay Hutchin- son. I hese eleven volumes form a perfect national THE INTERVIEWERS. monument, a complete cyclopedia of American liter- ature. g,v,„g extracts from the writings of every American who has published anything for the last three hundred years (1607-1890) On leaving him, I went to call on Mrs. Anna Bow- 2a J /■ A'/:. V (•//.]/. I. V /x /j//:a7C./. ii I mail Dodil, the autlior of " CatliLtlral D.iys," " Glo- riiula," '* TIjc Republic of tlic I''iiturc," and other cliarmiiif; books, and one of the brightest convcrsation- ah'sts it has ever been my good fortune to meet. After an hour's cliat witli her, I had forj^ottcn all about the grippe^ and all other more or less imag- inary miseries. I returned to the Everett House to dress, and went to the Union League Club to dine with General Horace Torter. The general possesses a rare and most happy combi- nation of brilliant flashing Parisian wit and dry, quiet, American humor. This charming causcur and con- tcur tells an anecdote as nobody I know can do ; he never misses fire. He assured me at table that the copyright bill will soon be passed, for, he added, "we have now a pure and pious Administration. At the White House they open their oysters with prayer." The conversation fell on American society, or, rather, on American Societies. The highest and lowest of these can be distinguished by the use of ran. "The blue blood of America put it before their names, as Van Nickcn ; political society puts it after, as Sulli- van y Van- TAS Van-itatum! Time passed rapidly in such delightful company. 1 finished the evening at the house of Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll. If there had been any cloud of gloom still left hanging about me, it would have van- ished at the sight of his sunny face. There was a small gathering of some thirty people, among them Mr. Edgar Fawcett, whose acquaintance I was delighted "I' -I V f f i; to make. Conversation went on briskly with one an,l I. other, and at half.past eleven I returned to the hotel completely cured. IVmorrovv morning I leave for Boston at ton o'clock to bcKm the lecture tour in that city, or, to use an Americanism, to "open the sho,v." There is a knock at the door. It is the hall porter with a letter: an invitation to HALL PORTER. pitt;::r/o'„n;.' ^"^^^^-^"'^ -^ «"^ ' - - mmmm 24 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I take a telegraph form and pen the following, which I will send to my friend, Major M. P. Handy, the president of this lively association : Many thanks. Am engaged in Pittsburg on the 16th. Thank GotI, cannot attend your dinner. I remember how those " boys " cheeked me two years ago, laughed at me, .sat on me. That's my tele- gram to you, dear Cloverites, with my love. S J I \ CHAPTER IV. Impressions of American Hotels. A ID r. T , r r. .^ Boston, yanuary 6. ^RRIVED here this afternoon, and resumed ac- ^ ^ quaintance with American hotels. American hotels are all alike. Some are worse. Describe one and you have described ti.em all On the ground floor, a large entrance hall strewed wth cuspulores for the men, and a side entrance pro v,ded w,.h a triumphal arch for the ladies. O^ Zs floor the sexes are separated as at the public baths clerks whlTh • ' r"'"" '^'""^ "'-"^ -'^-n Clerks, whose busmess faces relax not a muscle are ready w,th their book to enter your name Id a^sl you a number. A small army o< colored po ters r"'; to take you m charge. Not a salute, not a word „o^ :2::'zT:- "■'" --'''' *^'-^ ^'-^ ^^^"-^ makes a sign that your case is settled. You follou- h.m. For the time being you lose your personi Uv and become No. 375, as you would ^n jail. Don't a2 ,tJf ; "'^ -' "> — r; don't ring the be ,0 e rrL: ofr; "' ':zr ^"^ ^^"-^ "- ^°- *-- a" n vour heH "'^'^''»'""«"' «••« printed and posted •n your bedroom ; you have to submit to them No quesfon to ask-you know everything. HenTefo^h 95 26 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I),' J ' ill you will have to be hungry from 7 to 9 A.M. ; from i to 3 P.M. ; from 6 to 8 P.M. The slightest infringement /"''^f THE SAD EYED CLERK. of the routine would stop the wheel, so don't ask if you could have a meal at four o'clock ; you would be taken for a lunatic, or a crank (as they call it in Amierica). A FRE.XCHMAN nv AMERICA. 27 No privacy. No coffee-room, no smoking-room Noplace where you can go and quietly sip a cup of coffee or dr „lc a glass of beer vvitl, a cig^.r, ' You .a" ave a dr,nk at the bar, and then go and sit do.vn the hall among the crowd. Life in an American hotel is an alternation of the cellular system during the night and of the gregarious system dur,ng the day, an alternation of the peni ten farysystems carried out at Philadelphia and at Xubur . It IS not ,n the bedroom, either, that you must seel- anytiEng to cheer VON Tl„ h. i • -i" ' '"use seek tl,„ „• h -r ^ °^'^ '■' Sood, but only for he n,,ht. The room is perfectly nude. Not even Napoleon s Farewell to his Soldiers at Fontaine. Scaffold as ,n England. Not that these picrnres a e art.cu larly cheerful, still they break the monotony "f the wall paper. Here the only o.ases in the brown o gray desert are cautions. ' First of all, a notice that, in a cupboard near the wnulow, you will find some twenty yards of coiled rope 'win'!' ""-r ""' ^"' ^^^ '" fi'^ "-''-'< outside hewuKlow. The rest is guessed. You fi.. the rope eighth story, the prospect is lively. Another caution ...forms you of all that you must not do, such a your own washn,g n, the bedroom. Another warns you^ha .f, c, re ,nng. you put your boots outside the door, you near the joor, close to an electric bell. With a little ca.e and practice, you will be able to carry out e mstm I U' I i: THE HOTEL FIRE ESCAPE. ^ FKEffCllMAU hV AMEKICA. 2, instructions printed thereon. The only thing wonder- ful about the contrivance is that the servants never make mistakes. Press once twice three times four five " six " seven " eight for ice-water, hall boy. fireman, chambermaid, hot water. mk and writing materials. baggage. messenger. Another notice tells you what the proprietor's re- ^o,.s,b,ht,es are and at what time the meals take all. Woe to you >f you forget it ! For if you should s closed, no human consideration would get it open IZr";, Supplications, arguments would be of no avail. Not even money. "What do you mean.?" some old-fashioned Eu- ropean w.ll exclaim. " When the rail. d'Me is over of course you cannot expect the „,.„„ to be served to you , but surely you can order a steak or a chop " No you cannot, not even an omelette or a piece of cold meat. If you arrive at one minute past three (in small towns, at one minute past t.vo) you find the dmmg.room clo.,ed, and you must wait till six o'clock to see Its hospitable doors open again. When you enter the dining-room, "you musi not be- 30 A FREXCIIMAN I,V AMERICA. \^ :|| \\ i 1 il -i i Pl! lieve that you can go and sit where you like. The chief waiter assigns you a seat, and you must take it. With a superb wave of the hand, he signs to you to follow hinn. He does not even turn round to see if you are behind him, following him in all the meanders he de- scribes, amid the sixty, eighty, sometimes hundred tables that are in the room. He takes it for granted you are an obedient, submissive traveler who knows his duty. Altogether I traveled in the United States for about ten months, and I never came across an American so daring, so independent, as to actually take any other seat than the one assigned to him by that tremendous potentate, the head waiter. Occa- sionally, just to try him, I would sit down in a chair I took a fancy to. But he would come and fetch me, and tell me that I could not stay there. In Europe, the waiter asks you where you would like to sit. In America, you ask him where you may sit. He is a paid servant, therefore a master in America. He is in command, not of the other waiters, but of the guests. Several times, recognizing friends in the dining-room, I asked the man to take me to their tables (I should not have dared go by myself), and the permission was granted with a patronizing sign of the head. I have constantly seen Americans stop on the threshold of the dining-room door, and wait until the chief waiter had returned from placing a guest to come and fetch them in their turn. I never saw them venture alone, and take an empty seat, without the sanction of the waiter. The guests feel struck with awe in that dining-room, and solemnly bolt their food as quickly as they can. I TFiE HEAD MAN. ■nam r iS !■ 32 /^ FRENCHMAN IM AMERICA. Ml 'M I ^1 in W J fflif You hear less noise in an American hotel dining-room containing five hundred people, than you do at a French tabic d hdte accommodating fifty people, at a German one containing a dozen guests, or at a table where two Italians are dining Ute-a-tete. The head waiter, at large Northern and Western hotels, is a white man. In the Southern ones, he is a mulatto or a black ; but white or black, he is always a magnificent speci- men of his race. There is not a ghost of a savor of the serving man about him ; no whiskers and shaven upper lips reminding you of the waiters of the Old World; but al- ways a fine mustache, the twirling of which helps to give an air of nonchalant superiority to its wearer. The mulatto head-waiters in the South really look like dusky princes. Many of them arc so handsome and carry themselves so superbly that you find them very im- pressive at first and would fain apologize to them. LOOK LIKE DUSKV PRINCES. i M\ A FRENCHMAN^ IN AMEIUCA. ZZ You feel as if you wanted to thank them for kindly- condescending to concern themselves about anything so commonplace as your seat at table. In smaller hotels, the waiters are all waitresses. The "waiting" is done by dam- sels entirely — or rather by the guests of the hotel. If the South- ern head waiter looks like a prince, what shall we say of the head - wait- ress in the East, the North, and the West? No term short of queenly will describe her stately bearing as she moves about among her bevy of r-duced duchesses. She is evidently chosen for her appear- ance. She is "divinely tall," as well as "most ^ "SHE IS CROWNED WITH A GIGANTIC MASS OF FRIZZLED HAIR." 34 A J'/^ENCIIA/AN IN AMERICA. II I 1> divinely fair," and, as if to add to her import- ance, she is crowned with a gigantic mass of frizzled hair. All the waitresses liave this coiffure. It is a livery, as caps arc in the Old World ; but instead of being a badge of servitude it looks, and is, alarm- ingly emancipated — so much so that, before making close acquaintance with my dishes, I always examine them with great care. A beautiful mass of hair looks lovely on the head of a woman, but one in your soup, even if it had strayed from the tresses of your beloved one, would make the corners of your mouth go down, and the tip of your nose go up. A regally handsome woman always " goes well in the landscape," as the French say, and I have seen specimens of these waitresses so handsome and so commanding-looking that, if they cared to come over to Europe and play the queens in London pantomimes, I feel sure they would command quite exceptional prices, and draw big salaries and crowded houses. I Ww The thing which strikes me most disagreeably, in the American hotel dining-room, is the sight of the tre- mendous waste of food that goes on at every meal. No European, I suppose, can fail to be struck with this ; but to a Frenchman it would naturally be most remarkable. In France, where, I venture to say, people live as well as anywhere else, if not better, there is a horror of anything like waste of good food. It is to me, therefore, a repulsive thing to see the wanton manner in which some Americans will waste at one meal enough to feed several hungry fellow- creatures. yt /•7v7;.\'(7/J/./A' /.V AM/.KlC.t. 35 III the large hotels, coiuluctccl on the Aniericaii plan, there are rarely fewer than fifty different dishes on the menu at dinner-time. Every day, and at every meal, you may see people order three times as much of this food as they could under any circumstances eat, and, after picking it and spoiling one dish after another, send the bulk away uneaten. I am bound to say that this practice is not only to be observed in hotels where the charge is so much per day, but in those conducted on the European plan, that is, where you pay for every item you order. There I notice that people proceed in much the same wasteful fashion. It is evidently not a desire to have more than is paid for, but simply a bad and ugly habit. I hold that about five hundred hungry people could be fed out of the waste that is going on at such large hotels as the Palmer House or the Grand Pacific Hotel of Chicago — and I have no doubt that such five hundred hungry people could easily be found in Chicago every day. • • • • • I think that many Europeans arc prevented from going to America by an idea that the expense of traveling and living there is very great. This is quite a delusion. P'or my part I find that hotels are as cheap in America as in England at any rate, and railway traveling in Pullman cars is certainly cheaper than in European first-class carriages, and incompa- rably more comfortable. Put aside in America such hotels as Delmonico's, the Brunswick in New York ; the Richelieu in Chicago ; and in England such hotels as the Metropole, the Victoria, the Savoy ; and take the good hotels of the country, such as the Grand 1 \< $ n li^ m 3« A JKEXC/LMAA' /X AMKKICA. Pacific at Chicago ; the West House at Minneapolis, the Windsor at Montreal, the Cadillac at Detroit. I only mention those 1 remember as the very best. In these hotels, you are comfortably lodged and magnifi- cently fed for from three to five dollars a day. In no good hotel of England, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, would you get the same amount of com- fort, or even luxury, at the same price, and those who require a sitting-room get it for a little less than they would have to pay in a European liotel. The only very dear hotels I have come across in the United States are those of Virginia. There I have been charged as much as two dollars a day, but never in my life did I pay so dear for what I had, never in my life did I see so many dirty rooms or so many messes that were unfit for human food. But I will just say this much for the A.merican re- finement of feeling to be met with, eve ^ the hotels of Virginia, even in the "lunch" roon.^ m small sta- tions, you are supplied, at the end of each meal, with a bowl of water — to rinse your mouth. J CHAPTER V. My Opening Lkcturk— Ricflections on Audi- ences I Have Had— The Man who Won't Smile— The One who Laughs too Soon, and Many Others. Boston, January 7. BEGAN my second American tour under most favor- able auspices last night, in the Tremont Temple. The liu^c liall was crowded with an audience of about 2500 peo] 10 — a most kind, warm, keen, and appreciative audience. I was a little afraid of the Bostonians ; I had heard so much about their power of criticism that I had almost come to the conclusion that it was next to im- possible to please them. The Boston newspapers this morning give full reports of my lecture. All of them are kind and most favorable. This is a good start, and I feel hopeful. The subject of my lecture was " A National Portrait Gallery of the Anglo-Saxon Races," in which I delin- eated the English, the Scotch, and the American char- acters. Strange to say, my Scotch sketches seemed to tickle them most. This, however, I can explain to myself. Scotch " wut" is more like American hu- mor than any kind of wit I know. There is about it the same dryness, the same quaintness, the same pre- posterousness, the same subtlety. 37 33 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. If ' ' .e| t My Boston audience also seemed to enjoy my criti- cisms of America and the Americans, wliicli disposes of the absurd belief that the Americans will not listen to the criticism of their country. There are Americans and Americans, as there :ism and criticism, can speak of virtues without if you can speak their weaknesses failings w i t h ness and good .. humor, I be- 'I, lieve you can criticise to your heart's content with- out ever fear- ing to give of- fense to intelli- gent and fair- minded peo- iwifi^'»^«^^(^' ^_„^£=:^ plc- I admire Y^ M ^^fcfc>*»i^^^^ *g:-^=g^ '^^ and love the Americans. How could they help see- ing it through all the little criticisms that 1 indulged in on the platform ? On the whole, I was delighted with my Boston audience, and, to judge from the reception they gave me, I believe I succeeded in pleasing them. I have three* more engagements in BOSTON. iiil 39 A FREXCHMAX LV AMERICA. Boston, so I shall have the pleasure of nieeting the Wostonians again. '^ I have never been able to lectnre, whether in En. and. „, Scotland i„ Ireland or in America '"ho^tdif covenng, somewhere in the hall, after spe kinjo five' rn.nutes or so, an old gentleman who ,vili ,ot smile He was there last night, and it is evident tint e k ffo.ng to favor me with his presence ev " „ g, 'Zul ^ng tins second American tour. He generally! nea,: Thef i aTcirn-'bl'T ""'^^"""^""^ °" "- first ro llieie ,s a ho.nble fascination about that man. You " f ;'ci c '"'] ?."""• ^'-' <^" >"»"• "<'"osl : 1- 1 -^ "^ ^'^ °^ your duty not to senH ■m home empty-headed; your conscience te Is y"u that he has not to please you, but that j..„ are paid^o please h,m and you struggle on. You would l*e to shp .nto IMS pocket the price of his seat and have him removed, or throw the water bottle at his face ad make h.m show signs of life. As it is, you try to look the other way, bu' you know he is the e a d thit loe not improve matters. ' "' ''°" Now this man, w-l,o will not smile, very often is not ?^^^:r;^-d:°r^":-Hvt ;.;-elf and no cowSste;^;;^ k ^ to^'lar .rumTr- f ;e,atr r:t a'ft"^- ^^^^ ^■""'- a- ..u Without t:'j:;s.n^X:°sU"e;r -1! 40 A FREXC/IMA.V IN AMERICA. . I ' a certain man in the audience, he sent some one to in- quire into the state of his mind. " Excuse me, sir, did you not enjoy the lecture that has been delivered to-night? " " Very much indeed," said the man, " it was a most clever and entertaining lecture." '* But you never smiled " " Oh, no — I'm a liar myself." • • • ■ • Sometimes there are other reasons to explain the unsmiling man's attitude. One evening I had lectured in Birmingham. On the first row there sat the whole time an old gentle- man, with his umbrella standing between his legs, his hands crossed on the handle, and his chin resting on his hands. Frowning, his mouth gaping, and his eyes perfectly vacant, he remained motionless, looking at me, and for an hour aod twenty minutes seemed to say to me : " My poor fellow, you may do what you like, but you won't * fetch ' me to-night, I can tell you." I looked at him, I spoke to him, I winked at him, I aimed at him ; several times even I paused so as to give him ample time to see a point. All was in vain. I had just returned, after the lecture, to the sec- retary's room behind the platform, when he entered. " Oh, that man again ! " I cried, pointing to him. He advanced toward mc, took my hand, and said : " Thank you very much for your excellent lecture, I have enjoyed it verj'^ much." " Have you ? " said I. " Would you be kind enough to give me your auto- :|., THE OLD GENTLEMAN WHO WILL NOT SMILE. ty' "! m 42 yl FKEXCIIMAX IX AMERICA. graph ? " And he pulled out of his pocket a beauti- ful autograph book. " Well," I said to the secretary in a whisper, " this old gentleman is extremely kind to ask for my auto- graph, for I am certain he has not enjoyed my lecture." " What makes you think so ? " "Why, he never smiled once." " Oh, poor old gentleman," said the secretary ; " he is stone deaf." Many a lecturer must have met this man. It would be unwise, when you discover that certain members of the audience will not laugh, to give them up at once. As long as you are on the platform there is hope. I was once lecturing in the chief town of a great hunting center in England. On the first row sat half a dozen hair-parted-in-the-middle, single-eye-glass young swells. They stared at me unmoved, and never relaxed a muscle except for yawning. It was most distressing to see how the poor fellows looked bored. How I did wish I could do something for them ! I had spoken for nearly an hour when, by ac- cident, I upset the tumbler on my table. The water trickled down the cloth. The young men laughed, roared. They were happy and enjoying themselves, and I had " fetched " them at last. I have never for- gotten this trick, and when I see in the audience an apparently hopeless case, I often resort to it, generally with success. There are other people who do not much enjoy your lecture : your own. f-m ■> - A FKEXCI/MAX IX AMERICA. 43 Of course you must forgive your wife. The clear creature knows all your lectures by heart ; she has heard your jokes hundreds of times. She comes to your lectures rather to see how you are going to be received than to listen to you. Besides, she feels that for an hour and a half you do not belo ig to her. When she comes with you to the lecture hall, you are both ushered into the secretary's room. Two or three THE CHAPPIES WHO WOULD NOT LALGH. minutes before it is time to go on the platform, it is suggested to her that it is time she should take her seat among the audience. She looks at the secretaiy and recognizes that for an hour and a half her husband is the property ot this official, who is about to hand him over to the tender mercies of the public. As she says, " Oh, yes, I suppose I must go," she almost feels like shaking hands with her husband, as Mrs. Baldwin takes leave of the Professor before he starts on his aerial trip. But, though she may not laugh, her heart is with you, and she is busy watching the audience, ever ready to tell them, " Now, don't you think this is -.11 44 A FREJVCl/MAiV LV AMERICA. a very good point ? Well, then, if you do, why don't you laugh and cheer ?" She is part and parcel of yourself. She is not jealous of your success, for she is your helpmate, your kind and sound counselor, and I can assure you that if an audience should fail to be responsive, it would never enter her head to lay the blame on her husband , slio would feel the most su- preme coiitempt for " that stupid audier'^e that was unable to appreciate you." That's all. But your other own folk ! You are no hero to them. To judge the effect of anything, you must be placed at a certain distance, and your own folks are too near you. One afternoon I had given a iccture to a large and fashionable audience in the South of England. A near relative of mine, who lived in the neighborhood, was in the hall. He never smiled. I watched him from the beginning to the end. When the lecture was over he came to the little room behind the platform to take me to his house. As he entered the room I was settling the money matters with my impresario. I will let you into the secret. There was fifty-two pounds in the hous«, and my share was two-thirds of the gross receipts, that is about thirty-four pounds. My relative heard the sum. As we drove along in his dog-cart he nudged me and said : " Did you make thirty-four pounds this afternoon ?" "Oh, did you hear?" I said. " Yes, that was my part of the takings. For a small town I am quite satisfied." " I should think you were!" he replied. "If you had made thirty-four shillings you would have been well paid for your work ! " A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 45 Nothing is more true to life than the want of appre- ciation the successful man encounters from relatives and also from former friends. Nothing is more cer- tain than when a man has lived on terms of perfect equality and familiarity with a certain set of men, he can never hope to be anything but "plain John" to them, though by his personal efforts he may have ob- tained the applause of tlie public. Did he not rub shoulders with them for years in tiie same walk of life? Why these bravos? What was there in him more than in them ? Even though they may have gone so far as to single him out as a " rather clever fellow," while he was one of theirs, still the surprise at the public appreciation is none the less keen, ]>is ad- vance toward the front an unforgivable offense, and they are immediately seized with a desire to rush out in the highways and proclaim that he is only " Jack," and not the ** John" that his admirers think him. I remember that, in the early years of my life in England, when I had not the faintest idea of ever writing a book on John Bull, a young English friend of mine did me the honor of rppreciating highly all my observations on British life and manners, and for years urged me hard and oftcr to jot them down to make a book of. One day the book was finished and appeared in print. It attracted a good deal of public attention, but no one was more surprised than this man, who, from a kind friend, was promptly transformed into the most severe and unfriendly of my critics, and went about saying that the book and the amount of public atten- tion bestowed upon it were both equally ridiculous. He has never spoken to me since. ,., 46 A FREATIIMAiV IN AMERICA. A successful man is very often charged with wishing to turn liis back on his former friends. No accusation THE MAN WHO LAUGHS. is more false. Nothing would please him more than to retain the friends of more modest times, but it is they who have changed their feelings. They snub k^i-~ // fkexchma:^ ix America. 47 ion him. and this man, who is in constant need of moral support and //W'-w-///, cannot stand it. Hut let us return to the audience. The man who won't smile is not the only person who causes you some annoyance. There is tiie one who hu.-l,s too soon ; who lauidis before you have made your points, and who thinics because you have opened your lecture with a joke' t.iat everything you say afterward is a joke. There is another rather objectionable person ; it is the one who explains your points to his neighbor, and makes them laugh aloud just at the moment when you re- quire complete silence to fire off one of your best remarks. There is the old lady who listens to you frowning and who does not mind what you are saying, but is all' the time shakmg for fear of what you are going to say next She never laughs before she has :,een other people laugh. Then she thinks she is safe is clear'" R '.T ^''"^ '" '''''' " ^'"^'"'^^ '''S-'" ' '^^^^ s clear But I am now a man of experience. I have lectured m concert room., in lecture halls, in theaters m churches, in schools. I have addressed embalmed' Bntons m English health resorts, petrified English mumm.es at hydropathic establishments, and lunatics in private asylums. I am ready for the fray. llfMi f 1 1 i> i i If f CHAPTER VI. A Connecticut Audience— Merry Meriden— A Hard Pull. From Meriden, January 8. A CONNECTICUT audience was a new experi- ence to me. Yesterday I had a crowded room at the Opera House in Meriden ; but if you had been behind the scenery, when I made my appearance on the stage, you would not have suspected it, for not one of the audience treated me to a little applause. I was frozen, and so were they. For a quarter of an hour I proceeded very cautiously, feeling the ground, as it were, as I went on. By that time, the thaw set in, and they began to smile. I must say that they had been very attentive from the beginning, and seemed very interested in the lecture. Encouraged by this, I warmed too. It was curious to watch that audience. By twos and threes the faces lit up with amusement till, by and by, the house wore quite an animated aspect. Presently there was a laugh, then two, then laughter more general. All the ice was gone. Next, a bold spirit in the stalls ventured some applause. At his second outburst he had company. The uphill work was nearly over now, and I began to feel better. The infection spread up to the circles and the gallery, 48 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 49 and at last there came a real good hearty round of appPause. I had " fetched " them after all. Hut it was tough work. When once I had thcni in hand, I took good care not to let them go. • • • • • 1 visited several interesting establishments this morning. Merry Meriden is famous for its manufac- tories of electro-[)lated silverware, Unfortunately lam not yet accustomed to the heated rooms of America, and I could not stay in the show-rooms more than a few minutes. I should have thought the heat was strong enough to melt all the goods on view. This town looks like a bee-hive of activity, with its animated streets, its electric cars. Dear old Europe! With the exception of a few large cities, the cars are still drawn by horses, like in the time of Sesostris and Nebuchad- nezzar. On arriving at the station a man took hold of my bag and asked to take care of it until the arrival of the train. I do not know whether he belonged to the hotel where I spent the night, or to the railroad com- pany. Whatever he was, I felt grateful for this won- derful show of coui'tesy. "I heard you last night at the Opera House," he said to me. " Why, were you at the lecture? " "Yes, sir, and I greatly enjoyed it." " Well, why didn't you laugh sooner?" I said. " I wanted to very much ! " "Why didn't you?" \l I M I WAS AT YOL'K LECTURE LAST NIGHT. II .4 J'/^l^Xa/M.tX /X AMlih'lCA. 51 "Well, .sir, I cuulcln't very well laugh before the rest. " Why didn't you j^ive the signal?" " Vou see, sir," l,c said, - we are in Connecticut " " Is laughter prohibited by the Statute ]Jook in Connecticut?" I remarked. "No. sir, but if you all laugh at the same time, then ' "I sec, nobody can tell ivl.o Is the real ciininal." ll.c tra„, arrived. 1 shoolc hands with n>y friend, after offenns li"n half a dollar for hokling my bar-- winch he refused— and went on board. Ch'.V'ux''",'' "'■"■;. ^ ""•■' "'y "<""1 fncnd Colonel Uu es n. Taylor, coms go I was perfectly amazed to see such discipline. These young girls are the true daughters of a great Re- public: self-possessed, self-confident, dignified, respect- ful, law-abiding. I also visited the junior departments of those schools. In one of them, eight hundred little girls from five to ten years of age were gathered together, and, as in the other departments, sang and recited to me. These young children are taught by the girls of the Normal School, under the supervision of mistresses. Here teaching is learned by teaching. A good method. Doctors are not allowed to practice before they have attended patients in hospitals. Why should people be allowed to teach before they have attended schools as apprentice teachers? I had to give a speech to these dear little ones. I wish 1 had been able to give them a kiss instead. In my little speech I had occasion to ^remark that I had arrived in America only a week before. After I left, it appears that a little girl, aged about six, went to her mistress and said to her : ** He's onl}' been here a week ! And how beautifully he speaks English already! " . • ' • • • I have been "put up" at the Players' Club by Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, and dined with him there to-night. This club is the snuggest house I know in New York. Only a few months old, it possesses treasures such as few clubs a hundred years old possess. It was a present from Mr. Edwin Booth,' the greatest actor America has produced. He bought the house iiii r •n^ V ), . 1 1 ^ I i: 58 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA, in Twentieth Street, facing Gramercy Park, furnished it handsomely and with the greatest taste, and filled it "HOW BEAUTIFULLY HE SPEAKS ENGLISH. with all the artistic treasures that he has collected dur- ing his life : portraits of celebrated actors, most valu- 1 lur- ilu- A FRENCHMAN IN A ME NIC A. 59 led I it able old engravings, photographs with the originals* autographs, china, curios of all sorts, stage properties, such as the sword used by Macready in Macbeth, and hundreds of such beautiful and interesting souvenirs. On the second floor is the library, mostly connposed of works connected with the drama. This club is a perfect gem. When in New York, Mr. Booth occupies a suite of rooms on the second floor, which he has reserved for himself; but he has handed over the property to the trustees of the club, who, after his death, will become the sole proprietors of the house and of all its priceless contents. It was a princely gift, worthy of the prince of actors. The members are all connected with litera- ture, art, and the drama, and number about one hun- dred. i'. T- ^ ! ( II.' CHAPTER VIII. The Flourishing of CoATs-or-AuMS in America — Reflections Thereon— Forefathers Made TO Order— The Phonograph at Home— The Wealth of New York — Departure for Buffalo. New Vork^ January ii. THERE are in America, as in many otlier coun- tries of the world, people who have coats-of-arms, and whose ancestors had no arms to their coats. This remark was suggested by the reading of the following paragraph in the New York World this morning: There is growing in this country the rotten influence of rank, pride of station, contempt for labor, scorn of poverty, worship of caste, such as we verily believe is growing in no country in the world. What are the ideals that fill so large apart of the day and generation ? For the boy it is riches ; for the girl the marrying of a title. The ideal of this time in America is vast riches and the trappings of ranl<. It is good that proper scorn should be expressed of such ideals. American novelists, journalists, and preachers are constantly upbraiding and ridiculing their country- women for their love of titled foreigners ; but the society women of the great Republic only love the foreign lords all the more ; and I have heard some of 60 A FRi:XC//MAA' IX .D/A'A'/C.l. 6i them openly express tlieir contempt of a form of jjjov- ernment whose motto is one of the clauses of tlie great Declaration of Independence: " All men are cre- ated equal." I really believe that if the society women of America had their own way, they would A 1 ITl.E. set up a monarchy to-morrow, in the hope of seeing an aristocracy established as the sequel of it. President Garfield once said that the only real coats- of-arms in America were shirt-sleeves. The epigram is good, but not based on truth, as every epigram should be. Labor in the States is not honorable for its own sake, but only if it brings wealth. President Garfield's epigram " fetched " the crowd, no doubt, as any smart democratic or humanitarian utterance will anywhere, If w 62 A J^'KEXa/MAA' LV AMERICA. whether it be emitted from the platform, the stage, tlie pulpit, or the hustings ; but if any American philosopher heard it, he must have smiled. A New York friend who called on me this morning, and with whom I had a chat on this subject, assured me that there is now such a demand in the States for pedigrees, heraldic insignia, mottoes, and coronets, that it has created a new industr}'. He also informed me that almost every American city has a college of heraldry, which will provide unbroken lines of ances- tors, and make to order a new line of forefathers "of the most approved pattern, with suitable arms, etc." Addison's prosperous foundling, who ordered at the second-hand picture-dealer's "a complete set of ances- tors," is, according to my friend, a typical personage to be met with in the States nowadays. m i' 1 1 j: i 1 i I'l r^ 1, ■1 ! Bah ! all. r all, every country has her snobs. Why should America be an exception to the rule? When I think of the numberless charming people I have met in this country, I may as well leave it to the Europeans who have come in contact with American snobs to speak about them, inasmuch as the subject is not par- ticularly entertaining. What amuses me much more here is the effect of democracy on what we Europeans would call the lower classes. A few days ago, in a hotel, I asked a porter if my trunk had arrived from the station and had been taken to my room. "I don't know," he said majestically ; "you ask that gentleman." A FKEXCI/M.IX /X LUJ-.A'/CI. 63 The gentleman pointed out to me was the negro who looks after the luggage in the establishment. In the papers you may read in the advertisement columns: " Washing wanted by a lady at such and such ad- dress." The cabman will ask, " If you are the man as wants a ^'■ ■ . 1 '\ ,• , i t i^ iS; 1 1 i 1 H i M^ fa ii me. I was glad to know I left at least one friend and admirer behind me in Pittsburg. • • • • • I had a charming audience last night, a large and most appreciative one. I was introduced by Mr. George H. Welshons, of the Pittsburg Times, in a neat little speech, humorous and very gracefully worded. After the lecture, I was entertained at supper in the rooms of the Press Club, and thoroughly enjoyed my- self with the members. As I entered the Club, I was amused to see two journalists, who had heard me at the lecture discourse on chewing, go to a corner of the room, and there get rid of tlieir wads, before coming to shake hands with me. • • • • • If you have not journeyed in a vestibule train of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, you do not know what it is to travel in luxurious comfort. Dining saloon, drawing room, smoking room, reading room with writing tables, supplied with the papers and a library of books, all furnished with exquisite taste and luxury. The cookery is good and well served. The day has passed without adventures, but in com- fort. We left Pittsburg at seven in the morning. At nine we passed Johnstown. The terrible calamity that befell that city two years ago was before my mind's eye; the town suddenly inundated, the people rushing on the bridge, and there caught and burnt alive. America is the country for great disasters. Every- thing here is on a huge scale. Toward noon, the country grew hilly, and, for an hour before we reached Harrisburg, it gave me great enjoyment, for in Amer- A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 83 ii ica, where there is so much sameness in the land- scapes, it is a treat to see the mountains of Central Pennsylvania breaking the monotony of the huge flat stretch of land. The employees ( I must be careful not to say " ser- vants") of the Pennsylvania Railroad are polite and form an agreeable contrast to those of the other rail- way companies. Unhappily, the employees whom you find on board the Pullman cars are not in the con- trol of the company. ' ! The train will reach Jersey City for New York at seven to-night. I shall dine at my hotel. About 5.30 it occurred to me to go to the dining- room car and ask for a cup of tea. Before entering the car I stopped at the lavatory to wash my hands. Some one was using the basin. It was the conductor, tiie autocrat in charge of the dining car, a fat, sleek, ciiewing, surly, frowning, snarling cur. He turned round. " What do you want ? " said he. " I should very much like to wash my hands," I timidly ventured. *• You see very well I am using the basin. You go to the next car." I came to America this time with a large provision of philosophy, and quite determined to even enjoy such little scenes as this. So I quietly went to the next lavatory, returned to the dining-car, and sat down at one of the tables. " Will you, please, give me a cup of tea?" I said to one of the colored waiters. s 1 tt ^ mmmmmmm 11 f i* ! Hi' it 84 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ** I can't do dat, sah," said the negro. " You can hrve diiinah." " But I don't want dinnah" I replied ; " I want a cup of tea." " Den you must ask dat gem'man if you can have it," said he, pointing to the above mentioned "gentle- man." I went to him. *' Excuse me," said I, "are you the nobleman who runs this show ? " He frowned. " I don't want to dine ; I should like to have a cup of tea." He frowned a little more, and deigned to hear my request to the end. " Can I ? " I repeated. He spoke not ; he brought his eyebrows still lower down, and solemnly shook his head. •'Can't I really?" I continued. At last he spoke. *' You can," quoth he, " for a dollar." And, taking the bill of fare in his hands, without wasting any more of his precious utterances, he pointed out to me : ** Each meal one dollar." The argument was unanswerable. I went back to my own car, resumed my seat, and betook myself to reflection. What I cannot, for the life of me, understand is why, in a train which has a dining car and a kitchen, a man cannot be served with a cup of tea, unless he pays the price of a dinner for it, and this notwithstanding WELL, WHAT DO YOU WANT?' ir"«rr- iriuM 86 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA, % ' II i \k the fact of his having paid five dollars extra to enjoy the extra luxury of this famous vestibule train. After all, this is one out of the many illustrations one could give to show that whatever Jonathan is, he is not the master in his own house. The Americans are the most docile people in the world. They are the slaves of their servants, whether these are high officials, or the " reduced duchesses " of domestic service. They are so submitted to their lot that they seem to find it quite natural. The Americans are lions governed by bull-dogs and asses. They have given themselves a hundred thousand masters, these folks who laugh at monarchies, for example, and scorn the rule of a king, as if it were better to be bullied by a crowd than by an individual. In America, the man who pays does not command the paid. I have already said it ; I will maintain the truth of the statement that, in America, the paid ser- vant rules. Tyranny from above is bad ; tyranny from below is worse. Of my many first impressions that have deepened into convictions, this is one of the firmest. When you arrive at an English railway station, all the porters seem to say : " Here is a customer, let us treat him well." And it is who shall relieve you of your luggage, or answer any questions you may be pleased to ask. They are glad to see you. In America, you may have a dozen parcels, not a hand will move to help you with them. So Jonathan is obliged to forego the luxury of hand baggage, so convenient for long journeys. A FRENCHMAN IX AMERICA. 87 When you arrive at an American station, the officials are all frowning and seem to say: "Why the deuce ENGLISH RAILWAY STATION. don't you go to Chicago by some other line instead of coming here to bother us?" This subject reminds me of an interesting fact, told me by Mr. Chauncey M. Depew on board the Teutonic. When tram-cars were first used in the States, it was a long time before the drivers and conductors would ; .A f f ri;i If nf ^ r '>rii['i- 'iBfii(i 88 7 FAV:.\'r//A/.1X IN AMERICA. consent to wear any kind of uni'orni, so great is the horror of anytiiing lii"y to *-- me that I stood m his way. But the women ! Oh, the women ! why, it was simply lovely. They would just push me away with the tips of their fingers, and turn "Psuch disgusted and haughty noses! You would have imagined it was a heap of dirty rubbish in their way. :|iS Would you have a fair illustration of the respective Ame^aV ""'"''" '" ^""^'^' '" ^"^'-''' '""^ '" thf dVnrgirom. '"' "^'^" '"^ ^^"■^^' °' -"p- ■•" Now don't go to the Louvre, the Grand Hotel or the Bristol, m Paris. Don't go to the Savoy he Victoria, or the Metropole, in London. Don't go to the Brunswick, in New York, because in all these hotels io6 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. you will see that all behave alike. Go elsewhere and, I say, watch. In France, you will see the couples arrive together, walk abreast toward the table assigned to them, very IN FRANCE. often arm in arm, and smiling at each other — though married. In England, you will see John Bull leading the way. He does not like to be seen eating in public, and thinks it very hard that he should not have the dining- ^l! 1! A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 107 room all to himself. So he enters, with his hands in his pockets, looking askance at everybody right and IN ENGLAND left. Then, meek and demure, with her eyes cast down, follows Mrs. John Bull. In America, behold the dignified, nay, the majestic entry of Mrs. Jonathan, a perfect queen going toward her throne, bestowing a glance on her subjects right and left— and Jonathan behind ! ,^! u I& li , ■ fl^p U ,i 1 III ]:! i- i li ( ' i' ■ i-' H ■ ili. IN AMERICA. ^ A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 4 09 They say in France that Paris is the paradise of women. If so, there is a more blissful place than paradise; there is another word to invent to give an idea of the social position enjoyed by American ladies. If I had to be born a ;ain, and might choose my sex and my birthplace, I would shout at the top of my voice : " Oh, make me an American woman ! " mi Hilr^'i'^ CHAPTER XIII. More about Journalism in America — A Dinner AT Delmonico's— My First Appearance in an American Church. Ne2u York, Sunday Nighty January 19. HAVE been spending the whole day in reading the Sunday papers. I am never tired of reading and studying the Ameri- can newspapers. The whole character of the nation is there : Spirit of enterprise, liveliness, childishness, inquisitiveness, deep interest in everything that is human, fun and humor, indiscretion, love of gossip, brightness. Speak of electric light, of phonographs and grapho- phones, if you like ; speak of those thousand and one inventions which have come out of the American brain ; but if you wish to mention the greatest and most wonderful achievement of American activity, do not hesitate for a moment to give the palm to American journalism ; it is simply the ne plus ultra. You will find some people, even in America, who condemn its loud tone ; others who object to its med- dling with private life ; others, again, who have some- thing to say of its contempt for statements which are not in perfect accordance with strict truth. I even believe that a French writer, whom I do not wish to I 'A A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. Ill name, once said that very few statements to be found in an American paper were to be relied upon — beyond the date. People may say this and may say that about American journalism ; I confess that I like it, simply because it will supply you with twelve — on Sundays with thirty — pages that are readable from the first line to the last. Yes, from the first line to the last, including the advertisements. The American journalist may be a man of letters, but, above all, he must possess a bright and graphic pen, and his services are not wanted if he cannot write a racy article or paragraph out of the most trifling in- cident. He must relate facts, if he can, but if he can- not, so much the worse for the facts ; he must be entertaining and turn out something that is readable. Suppose, for example, a reporter has to send to his paper the account of a police-court proceeding. There is nothing more important to bring to the office than the case of a servant girl who has robbed her mistress of a pair of diamond earrings. The English reporter will bring to his editor something in the following style: Mary Jane So-and-So was yesterday charged before the magis- trate with stealing a pair of diamond earrings from her mistress. It appears [always // appears, that is the formula] that, last Mon- day, as Mrs. X. went to her room to dress for dinner, she missed a pair of diamond earrings, which she usually kept in a little drawer in her bedroom. On questioning her maid on the subject, she re- ceived incoherent answers. Suspicion that the maid was the thief arose in her mind, and A long paragraph in this dry style will be published jn the TimeSy or any other London morning paper. I mm i f ¥ 112 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. Now, the American reporter will be required to bring something a little more entertaining if he hopes to be worth his salt on the staff of his paper, and he will probably get up an account of the case somewhat in the following fashion : Mary Jane So-and-so is a pretty little brunette of some twenty summers. On looking in the glass at her dainty little ears, she fancied how lovely a pair of diamond earrings would look in them. So one day she thought she would try on those of her mistress. How lovely she looked ! said the looking-glass, and the Mephi- stopheles that is hidden in the corner of every man or woman's breast suggested that she should keep them. This is how Mary Jane found herself in trouble, etc., etc. The whole will read like a little story, probably en- titled something like " Another Gretchen gone wrong through the love of jewels." The heading has to be thought of no l?s£ than the paragraph. Not a line is to be dull in a paper spark- ling all over with eye-ticklers of all sorts. Oh ! those delicious headings that would resuscitate the dead, and make them sit up in their graves ! A Tennessee paper which I have now under my eyes announces the death of a townsman with the following heading : " At ten o'clock last night Joseph W. Nelson put on his angel plumage." • * ■*. * ' • ** Racy, catching advertisements supplied to the trade," such is the announcement that I see in the same paper. I understand the origin of such literary productions as the following, which I cull from a Colo- rado sheet : .7 FREXCHMAN IN AMERICA. J»3 This morning our Saviour summoned away the jeweler William T. Sumner, of our city, from iiis shop to another and a bt-tler world. The undersigned, his widow, will weep upon his tomb, as will also his two daughters, Maud and Emma, the former of whom is married, and the other is open to an offer. The funeral will take place to-morrow. Signed. His disconsolate widow, Mathilda Sumner. P. S. — This bereavement will not interrupt our business, which will be carried on as usual, only our place of business will be re- moved from Washington Street to No. \^ St. Paul Street, as our grasping landlord has raised our rent. — M. S. The following advertisement probably enfianates from the same firm : Personal — His Love Suddenly RETURNED.—Recently they had not been on the best of terms, owing to a little family jar occasioned by the wife insisting on being allowed to renovate his wearing apparel, and which, of course, was done in a bungling manner; in order to prevent the trouble, they agreed to send all their work hereafter toD., the tailor, and now everything is lovely, and peace and happiness-again reign in their household. All this is lively. Never fail to read the advertise- ments of an American paper, or you will not have got out of it all the fun it supplies. Here are a few from the Cincinnati Enquirer^ which tell different stories: I. The young Madame J. C. Antonia, just arrived from Europe, will remain a short time ; tells past, present, and future ; tells by the letters in hand who the future husband or wife will be; brings back the husband or lover in so many days, and guarantees to settle family troubles ; can give good luck and success; ladies call at once; also cures corns and bunions. Hours lo A. M. and 9 P. M. " Also cures corns and bunions " is a poem ! w i '11 I 'l i XI4 /f FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 2. The acquaintance desired of lady passing along Twelfth Street at three o'clock Sunday afternoon, by blond gent standing at corner. Address Lou K., 48, Enquirer Office. 3. Will the three ladies that got on the electric car at the Zoo Sunday afternoon favor three gents that got off at Court and Wal- nut Streets with their address } Address Electric Car, En- quirer Office. 4. Will (wo ladies on Clark Street car, that noticed two gents in front of Grand Opera House about seven last evening, please address Jands, Enquirer Office. A shoit time ago a man named Smith was bitten by a rattlesnake and treated with whisky at a New York hospital. An English paper would have just men- tioned the fact, and have the paragraph headed : " A Remarkable Cure"; or, " A Man Cured of a Rattle- snake Bite by Whisky " ; but a kind correspondent sends me the headings of this bit of intelligence in five New York papers. They are as follows : 1. "Smith Is All Right!" 2. " Whisky Does It ! " 3. "The Snake Routed at all Points!" 4. " The Reptile is Nowhere ! " 5. " Drunk for Three Days and Cured." Let a batch of officials be dismissed. Do not sup- pose that an American editor will accept the news with such a heading as " Dismissal of Officials." The reporter will have to bring some label that will fetch the attention. " Massacre at the Custom House," or, " So Many Heads in the Basket," will do. Now, I maintain that it requires a wonderful imagination — something little short of genius, to be able, day after A FRENCH.\fAN hV AMERICA. 1,5 day, to hit on a hundred of such headings. Rut the American journalist does it. An American paper is a collection of short stories. Ihe Siniday edition of the New York World, the New York Herald^ tlie Boston Herald, the Boston SMITH CURED OF RATTLESNAKE BITE. Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Herald, and many others, ,s something like ten volumes of miscel- laneous htetature. and I -o not know of any achieve, ment to be compared to it. I cannot do better than compare an American fr,r K ? ! ^'■^' '""■"' *'■"" ""^ eoods, the articles, are labeled so as to immediately strike the customer ; 1 Ii6 // FKEXC//A/AN AV AMEKICA, III I Hi m A few days ago, I heard my friend, Colonel Charles H. Taylor, editor of the Boston Globe, give an inter- esting summary of an address on journalism which he is to deliver next Saturday before the members of the New England Club of Boston. He maintained that the proprietor of a newspaper has as much right to make his shop-window attractive to the public as any trades- man. If the colonel is of opinion that journalism is a trade, and the journalist a mere tradesman, I agree with him. If journalism is not to rank among the highest and noblest of professions, and is to be noth- ing more than a commercial enterprise, I agree with him. Now, if we study the evolution of journalism for the last forty or fifty years, we shall see that daily journal- ism, especially in a democracy, has become a commer- cial enterprise, and that journalism, as it was understood forty years ago, has become to-day monthly journalism. The dailies have now no other object than to give the news — the latest — just as a tradesman that would suc- ceed must give you the latest fashion in any kind of business. The people of a democracy like America are educated in politics. They think for themselves, and care but little for the opinions of such and such a jour- nalist on any question of public interest. They want news, not literary essays on news. When I hear some Am.ericar-s say that they object to their daily journal- ism, I answer that journalists are like other people who supply the public — they keep the article that ir wanted. A free country possesses the government it deserves, and the journalism it wants. A people active and ^/ rKi:xc//MAX liV am/ikic.l "7 busy as the Americans arc, want a journalism tliatwill keep their interest awake and amuse them ; ami they naturally get it. The average American, for example, cares not a pin for what his representatives say or do in Washington ; but he likes to be acquainted with what is going on in Europe, and that is why the American journalist will give him a far more detailed account of what is going on in the Palace at West- minster than of what is being said in the Capitol. In France, journalism is personal. On any great question of the day, domestic or foreign, the I'rench- man will want to read the opinion of John Lemoinne in i\\c Jourftal dvs Dt'batSy or the opinion of Edouard Lockroy in the Rappd, or maybe that of Paul de Cassaguac or Henri Rochefort. Every Frenchman is more or less led by the editor of the newspaper which he patronizes. But the Frenchman is only a democrat in name and aspirations, not in fact. France made the mistake of establishing a republic before she made republicans of her sons. A French journalist signs his articles, and is a leader of public opinion, so much so that every successful journalist in France has been, is now, and ever will be, elected a representative of the people, In America, as in England, the journalist has no personality outside the literary classes. Who, among the masses, knows the names of Bennett, Dana, White- law Reid, Medill, Childs, in the United States? Who, in England, knows the names of Lawson, Mudford, Robinson, and other editors of the great dailies? If it had not been for his trial and imprisonment, Mr. W. T. Stead himself, though a most brilliant journalist, (t!^ w W'l i !'^ Ii8 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. would never have seen his name on anybody's lips. A leading article in an American or an English newspaper will attract no notice at home. It will only be quoted on the European Continent. It is the monthly and the weekly papers and maga- zines that now play the part of the dailies of bygone days. An article in the Spectator or Saturday Review, or especially in one of the great monthly magazines, will be quoted all over the land, and I believe that this relatively new journalism, which is read only by the cultured, has now for ever taken the place of the old one. In a country where everybody reads, men as well as women ; in a country where nobody takes much interest in politics outside of the State and the city in which he lives, the journalist has to turn out every day all the news he '.an gather, and present them to the reader in the most readable form. Formerly daily journalism was a branch of literature ; now it is a news store, and is so not only in America. The Eng- lish press shows signs of the same tendency, and so does the Parisian press. Take the London Pall Mall Ga^:t*e and Star, and the Paris Figaro, as illustrations of what I advance. As democracy makes progress in England, journalism will become more and more American, although the English reporter will have some trouble in succeeding to compete with his American confrere in humor and liveliness. Under the guidance of political leaders, the news- papers of Continental Europe direct public opinion. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 119 In a democracy, the newspapers follow public opinion and cater to the public taste ; they are the servants of the people. The American says to his journalists: " I don't care a pin for your opinions on such a question. Give me the news and I will comment on it myself. Only don't forget that I am an overworked man, and that before, or after, my fourteen hours' work, I want to be entertained." So, as I have said elsewhere, the American journalist must be spicy, lively, and bright. He must know how, not merely to report, but to relate in a racy, catching style, an accident, a trial, a conflagration, and be able to make up an article of one or two columns upon the most insignificant incident. He must be interesting, readable. His eyes and ears must be always open, every one of his five senses on the alert, for he must keep ahead in this wild race for news. He must be a good conversationalist on most subjects, so as to bring back from his interviews with different people a good store of materials. He must be a man of courage, to brave rebuffs. He must be a philos- opher, to pocket abuse cheerfully. He must be a man of honor, to inspire confidence in the people he has to deal with. Personally I can say this of him, that wherever I have begged him, for instance, to kindly abstain from mentioning this or that which might have been said in conversation with him, I have invariably found that he kept his word. But if the matter is of public interest, he is, before and above all, the servant of the public ; so, never challenge his spirit of enterprise, or he will leave no '':%m w I20 A FUENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 15' fi stone unturned until he has found out your secret and exhibited it in public. I do not think that American journalism needs an apology. It is the natural outcome of circumstances and the democratic times we live in. The Th6atre-Fran9ais is not now, under a Republic, and probably never again will be, what it was when it was placed under the pat- ronage and supervision of the French Court. Democ- racy is the form of government least of all calculated to foster literature and the fine arts. To that purpose. Monarchy, with its Court and its fashionable society, is the best. This is no reason to prefer a monarchy to a republic. Liberty, like any other luxury, has to be paid for. Journalism cannot be now what it was when papers were read by people of culture. In a democracy, the stage and journalism have to please the masses of the people. As the people become better and better edu- cated, the stage and journalism will rise with them. What the people want, I repeat it, is news, and jour- nals are properly called neivs papers. Speaking of American journalism, no man need use apologetic language. Not when the proprietor of an American paper v, iii not hesitate to spend thousands of dollars to prov-dt^ his readers with the minutest details about some great European event. Not when an American paper will, at its own expense, send Henry M. Stanley to Africa in search of Living- stone. Not so long as the American press is vigilant, and A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 121 keeps its thousand eyes open on the interests of the American people. Midnight. Dined this evening with Richard Mansfield at Del- monico's. I sat between Mr. Charles A. Dana, the first of American journalists, and General Horace Por- ter, and had what my American friends would call " a mighty elegant time." The host was delightful, the dinner excellent, the wine "extra dry," the speeches quite the reverse. "Speeches" is rather a big word for what took place at dessert. Every one supplied an anecdote, a story, a reminiscence, and contributed to the general entertainment of the guests. The Americans have too much humor to spoil their dinners with toasts to the President, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the army, the navy, the militia, the volunteers, and the reserved forces. I once heard Mr. Chauncey M. Depew referring to the volunteers, at some English public dinner, as " men invincible — in peace, and invisible — in war." After dinner I remarked to an English peer : " You have heard to-night the great New York after- dinner speaker; what do you think of his speech ? " " Well," he said, " it was witty ; but I think his remark about our volunteers was not in very good taste." I remained composed, and did not burst. ^'i i'lU Newburgh, N. Y,, Jamiary 2\. I lectured in Melrose, near Boston, last night, and 1 1 122 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. had the satisfaction of pleasing a Massachusetts audi- ence for the second time. After the lecture, I had supper with Mr. Nat Goodwin, a very good actor, who is now playing in Boston in a new play by Mr. Steele Mackaye. Mr. Nat Goodwin told many good stories at supper. He can entertain his friends in private as well as he can the public. !l ii i I To-night I have appeared in a church, in Newburgh. The minister, who took the chair, had the good sense to refrain from opening the lecture with prayer. There are many who have not the tact necessary to see that praying before a humorous lecture is almost as irrever- ent as praying before a glass of grog. It is as an artist, however, that I resent that prayer. After the audience have said Amen, it takes them a full quarter of an hour to realize that the lecture is not a sermon ; that they are in a church, but not at church ; and the whole time their minds are in that undecided state, all your points fall flat and miss fire. Even without the preliminary prayer, I dislike lecturing in a church. The very atmosphere of a church is against the suc- cess of a light, humorous lecture, and many a point, which would bring down the house in a theater, will be received only with smiles in a lecture hall, and in re- spectful silence in a church. An audience is greatly influenced by surroundings. Now, I must say that the interior of an American church, with its lines of benches, its galleries, and its platform, does not inspire in one such religious feelings as the interior of a European Catholic church. In ^ FREA^CinTAX IX AMERICA. 123 many American towns, the church is let for meetings concerts, exhibitions, bazaars, etc., and so far as you' can see, there is nothing to distinguish it from an ordi- nary lecture hall. Yet it is a church, and both lecturer and audience feel It. li I ii II ■:;. I ) » "il '^il i: CHAPTER XIV. Marcus Aurelius in America— Chairmen I have HAD— American, English, and Scotch Chair- men — One who had Been to Boulogne — Talk- ative AND Silent Chairmen — A Trying Oc- casion — The Lord is Asked to Allow the Audience to See my Points. JVezv York, January 22. THERE are indeed very few Americans who have not either tact or a sense of humor. They make the best of chairmen. They know that the audience have not come to hear them, and that all that is re- quired of them is to introduce the lecturer in very few words, and to give him a good start. Who is the lecturer that would not appreciate, nay, love, such a chairman as Dr. R. S. MacArthur, who introduced me yesterday to a New York audience in the following manner? " Ladies and Gentlemen," said he, " the story goes that, last summer, a party of Americans staying in Rome paid a visit to the famous Spithover's bookshop in the Piazza di Spagna. Now Spithover is the most learned of bibliophiles. You must go thither if you need artistic and archaeological works of the profoundest research and erudition. But one of the ladies in this »a4 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 125 tourists' partyonly wanted the lively travels in America of Max O'Rell, and she asked for the book at Spit- hover's. There came in a deep guttural voice— an Anglo-German voice— from a spectacled clerk behind a desk, to this purport : ' Marcus Aurelius vos neffer in te Unided Shtaates ! ' But, ladies and gentlemen, he is now, and here he is." With such an introduction, I was immediately in touch with my audience. What a change after English chairmen ! A few days before lecturing in any English town, under the auspices of a Literary Society or Mechanics' Institute, the lecturer generally receives from the secretary a letter running somewhat as follow : Dear Sir: I have much pleasure in informing you that our Mr. Blank, one of our vice-presidents and a well-known resident here, will take the chair at your lecture. - Translated into plain English, this reads : My poor fellow, I am much grieved to have to inform you that a chairman will be inflicted upon you on the occasion of your lecture before the members of our Society. In my few years' lecturing experience, I have come across all sorts and conditions of chairmen, but I can recollect very few that " have helped me." Now, what is the office, the duty, of a chairman on such occasions .? He is supposed to introduce the lecturer to the audience. For this he needs to be able to make a neat •speech. He has to tell the audience who the lecturer is, in case they should not know it, which is seldom the case. I was once introduced to an audience who m isfr 11 w "MARCUS AURELIUS VOS NEFFfiR IN TE UNIDED SHTAATES ! " A FRENCHMAN IX AMERICA. "7 knew me, by a chairman vvlio, I don't think, had ever heard of me in his life. Before going on the platform he asked me whether I had written anything, next whether I was an Irishman or a Frenchman, etc' Sometimes the chairman is nervous; he'hems and haws, cannot find the words he wants, and only suc- ceeds in fidgeting the audience. Sometimes, on the other hand, he is a wit. There is danger again. I was once introduced to a New York audience by General Horace Porter. Those of my readers who know the delightful general and have heard him deliver one of those little gems of speeches in his own inimitable manner, will agree with me that certainly there was danger in that ; and they will not be surprised when I tell them that after his delightfully witty and graceful little introduction, I felt as if the best part of the show was over. Sometimes the chair has to be offered to a magnate of the neighborhood, though he may be noted for his long, prosy orations— which annoy the public ; or to a very popular man in the locality who gets all the ap- plause — which annoys the lecturer. "Brevity is the soul of wit," should be the motto of chairmen, and I sympathize with a friend of mine who says that chairmen, like little boys and girls, should be seen and not heard. Of those chairmen who can and do speak, the Scotch ones are generally good. They have a knack of start- ing the evening with some droll Scotch anecdote, told with that piquant and picturesque accent of theirs, and of putting the audience in a good humor. Oc-asion- ally they will also make apropos and equally droll little w [!l?,l!. i'i-l«li r i! f: I ■ ill : : I 128 A fKEXC/IMAiV IN AMERICA, I h speeches at the close. One evening, in talking of America, I had mentioned the fact that American ban- quets were very lively, and that I thought the fact of Americans being able to keep up such a flow of wit for so many hours, was perhaps due to their drinking Apol- linaris water instead of stronger things after dessert. At the end of the lecture, the chairman rose and said he had greatly enjoyed it, but that he must take ex- ception to one statement the lecturer had made, for he thought it " fery deeficult to be wutty on Apollinaris watter." Another kind of chairman is the one who kills your finish, and stops all the possibility of your being called back for applause, by coming forward, the very instant the last words are out of youi mouth, to inform the audience that the next lecture will be given by Mr. So- and-So, or to make a statement of the Society's finan- cial position, concluding by appealing to the members to induce their friends to join. Then there is the chairman who does not know what you are going to talk about, but thinks it his duty to give the audience a kind of summary of what he imag- ines the lecture is going to be. He is terrible. But he is nothing to the one who, when the lecture is over, will persist in summing it up, and explaining your own jokes, especially the ones he has not quite seen through. This is the dullest, the saddest chairman yet invented. Some modest chairmen apologize for standing be- tween the lecturer and the audience, and declare they cannot speak, but do. Others promise to speak a min- ute only, but don't. THE CHAIRMAN. , : I .In !Mi i ,,\ I30 // FA'EXC/IM.LV I.V AMERICA, \ • f :! ! 1 ? " VVliat shall I speak about ? " said a cliairman to me one day, after I had been introduced to him in the little back room behind the platform. " If you will oblige me, sir," I replied, " kindly speak about — one minute." Once I was introduced to the audience as the pro- moter of good feelings between France and England. " Sometimes," said the chairman, " we see clouds of misunderstanding arise between the French — between the English — between the two. The lecturer of this evening makes it his business to disperse these clouds — these clouds — to — to But I will not detain you any longer. His name is familiar to all of us. I'm sure he needs no introduction to this audience. We all know him. I have much pleasure in introducing to you Mr. — Mosshiay — Mr. " Then he looked at me in despair. It was evident he had forgotten .j name. "Max O'Rell is, I believe, what you are driving at," I whispered to him. • • • • • The most objectionable chairmen in England are, perhaps, local men holding civic honors. Accustomed to deliver themselves of a speech whenever and wher- ever they get a chance, aldermen, town councilors, members of local boards, and school boards, never miss an opportunity of getting upon a platform to address a good crowd. Not long ago, I was introduced to an audience in a large English city by a candidate for civic honors. The election of the town council was to take place a fortnight afterward, and this gen- tleman profited by the occasion to air all his grievances I A /Ki:xa/M.IX /y AMERICA. 131 against the sitting council, and to assure the citizens that if they would only elect him, there were bright days in store for them and their city. This was the gist of the matter. The speech lasted twenty minutes. Once the chair was taken by an alderman in a Lan- k "how do you pronounce your name?" cashire city, and the hall was crowded. " What a fine house ! " I remarked to the chairman as we sat down on the platform. " Very fine indeed," he said ; " everybody in the town knew I was going to take the chair." I was sorry I had spoken. "fi \\ Ml Vi I Hi I I I I ! II j 132 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. More than once, when announced to deliver a lec- ture on France and the French, I have been introduced by a chairman who, having spent his holidays in that country once or twice, opened the evening's proceed- ings by himself delivering a lecture on France. I have felt very tempted to imitate a confrere, and say to the audience : " Ladies and Gentlemen, as one lecture on France is enough for an evening, perhaps you would rather I spoke about something else now." The con- frere I have just mentioned was to deliver a lecture on Charles Dickens one evening. The chairman knew something of Charles Dickens and, for quite a quarter of an hour, spoke on the great English novelist, giving anecdotes, extracts of his writings, etc. When the lecturer rose, he said : " Ladles and Gentlemen, two lectures on Charles Dickens are perhaps more than you expected to hear to-night. You have just heard a lecture on Charles Dickens. I am now going to give you one on Charles Kingsley." Sometimes I get a little amusement, however (as in the country town of X.), out of the usual proceedings of the society before whose members I am engaged to appear. At X., the audience being assembled and the time up, I was told to go on the platform alone and, being there, to immediately sit down. So I went on, and sat down. Some one in the room then rose and proposed that Mr. N. should take the chair. Mr. N., it appeared, had been to Boulogne {to B'long), and was particularly fitted to introduce a Frenchman. In a speech of about five minutes* duration, all Mr. N.'s qualifications for the post of chairman that evening were duly set forth. Then some one else rose and A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. m seconded the proposition, re-enumerating most of these qualifications. Mr. N. then marched up the hall, ascended the platform, and proceeded to return thanks for the kind manner in which he had been proposed for the chair and for the enthusiasm (a few friends had applauded) with which the audience had sanctioned the choice. He said it was true that he had been in France, and that he greatly admired the country and the people, and he was glad to have this opportunity to say so before a Frenchman. Then he related some of his traveling impressions in France. A few people coughed, two or three more bold stamped their feet, but he took no heed and, for ten minutes, he gave the audience the benefit of the information he had gath- ered in Boulogne. These preliminaries over, I gave my licture, after which Mr. N. called upon a member of the audience to propose a vote of thanks to the lecturer "for the most amusing and interesting dis- course, etc." Now a paid lecturer wants his check when his work is over, and although a vote of thanks, when it is spontaneous, '^ a compliment which he greatly appre- ciates, he is more likely to feel awkwardness than pleasure when it is a mere red-tape formality. The vote of thanks, on this particular occasion, was pro- posed in due form. Then it was seconded by some one who repeated two or three of my points and spoiled them. By this time I began to enter into the fun of the thing, and, after having returned thanks for the vote of thanks and sat down, I stepped forward again, filled with a mild resolve to have the last word : " Ladies and Gentlemen," I said, " I have now much 't,.- '\ ij 134 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. \\V ■M W \\ \l\ \ ■ , pleasure in proposing that a hearty vote of thanks be given Mr. N. for the able manner in which he has filled the chair. I am proud to have been introduced to you by an Englishman who knows my country so well." I went again through the list of Mr. N.'s qualifications, not forgetting the trip to Boulogne and the impressions it had left on him. Somebody rose and seconded this. Mr. N. delivered a speech to thank the audience once more, and then those who had survived went home. Some Nonconformist societies will engage a light or humorous lecturer, put him in their chapel, and open his mouth with prayer. Prayer is good, but I would as soon think of saying grace before dancing as of be- ginning my lecture with a prayer. This kind of ex- perience has been mine several times. A truly trying experience it was, on the first occasion, to be accom- panied to the platform by the minister, who, motioning me to sit down, advanced to the front, lowered his head, and said in solemn accents : " Let us pray." After I got started, it took me fully ten minutes to make the people realize that they were not at church. This experience I have had in America as well as in England. Another experience in this line was still worse, for the prayer was supplemented by the singing of a hymn of ten or twelve verses. You may easily imagine that my first remark fell dead flat. I have been introduced to audiences as Mossoo, Meshoe, and Mounzeer O'Reel, and other British adap- tations of our word Monsieur, and found it very diffi- cult to bear with equfinimity a chairman who maltreated a name which I had taken some care to keep correctly lie A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 135 spelt before the public. Yet this man is charming when compared with the one who, in the midst of his introductory remarks, turns to you, and in a stage whisper perfectly audible all over the hall, asks : "How do you pronounce your name?" Passing over chairman chatty and chairman terse, chairman eloquent and chairman the reverse, I feel de- cidedly most kindly toward the silent chairman. He is very rare, but he does exist and, when met with, is ex- ceedingly precious. Why he exists, in some English Institutes, I have always been at a loss to imagine. Whether he comes on to see that the lecturer does not run off before his time is up, or with the water bottle, which is the only portable thing on the platform gen- erally ; whether he is a successor to some venerable deaf and dumb founder of his Society ; or whether he goes on with the lecturer to give a lesson in modesty to the public, as who should say : " I could speak an if I would, but I forbear." Be his raison d'etre what it may, we all love him. To the nervous novice he is a kind of quiet support, to the old stager he is as a pic- ture unto the eye and as music unto the ear. • • • * • Here I pause. I want to collect my thoughts. Does my memory serve me? Am I dreaming, or worse still, am I on the point of inventing? No, I could not in- vent such a story, it is beyond my power. I was once lecturing to the students of a religious college in America. Before I began, a professor stepped forward, and offered a prayer, in which he asked the Lord to allow the audience to see my points. Now, I duly feel the weight of responsibility attach- .ilt ; '>i t, I; m L SI') Hi! 't 11 i I- 136 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ing to such a statement, and in justice to myself I can do no less than give the reader the petition just as it fell on my astonished ears : *' Lord, Thou knowest that we work hard for Thee, and that recreation is necessary in order that we may work with renewed vigor. We have to-night with us a gentleman from France [excuse my recording a com- pliment too flattering], whose criticisms are witty and refined, but subtle, and we pray Thee to so prepare our minds'that we may thoroughly understand and enjoy them." " But subtle! " I am still wondering whether my lectures are so subtle as to need praying over, or whether that audi- ence was so dull that they needed praying for. Whichever it was, the prayer was heard, for the au- dience proved warm, keen, and thoroughly apprecia- tive. \ CHAPTER XV. Reflections on the Typical American. New York, January 23. T WAS asked to-day by the editor of the North A American Review to write an article on the typi- cal American. The typical American ! In the eyes of my beloved compatriots, the typical American is a man with hair falling over his shoulders weanng a sombrero, a red shirt, leather leggings a pair of revolvers in his belt, spending his life on horse- back, and able to shoot a fly off the tip of your nose without for a moment endangering your olfactory organ; and, since Buffalo Bill has been exhibiting his Indians and cowboys to the Parisians, this impression has become a deep conviction. I shall never forget the astonishment I caused to mv mother when I first broke the news to her that I wanted to go to America. My mother had prac- tically never left a lovely little provincial town of 'T^^' ^^""^ expressed perfect bewilderment. Jou don't mean to say you want to go to Amer- ica ? she said. " What for ? " " I am invited to give lectures there." " Lectures? in what language ? " \i i , I I' -f i, : ! ; I; ' i ■ :ii I; ! I ■- m m I t i- !: !■ i I ! i i ■ i J-: I l' i It 138 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. " Well, mother, I will try my best in English." " Do they speak English out there ? " " H'm— pretty well, I think.'^ We did i.ot go any further on the subject that time. Probably the good mother thought of the time when the Californian gold-fields attracted all the scum of Europe, and, no doubt, she thought that it was strange for a man who had a decent position in Europe, to go and " seek fortune" in America. Later on, however, after returning to England, I wrote to her that I had ma ^ up my mind to go. Her answer was full of gentle reproaches, and of sorrovv at seeing that she had lost all her influence over her son. She signed herself " always your loving mother," and indulged in a postscript. Madame de S^vign^ said that the gist of a woman's letter was to be found in the postscript. My mother's was this : " P.S. — I shall not tell any one in the town that you have gone to America." This explains why I still dare show my face in my little native town. « • • • • The typical American ! First of all, does he exist ? I do not think so. As I have said elsewhere, there are Americans in plenty, but the American has not made his appearance yet. The type existed a hundred years ago in New England. He is there still ; but he is not now a national type, he is only a local one. I was talking one day with two eminent Americans on the subject of the typical American, real or imag. 'v l<- li ! 1 if THE TYPICAL AMERICAN. 'i; n I. i- ^! 'II' ! i if ' iHf ! I ,' is: i'" ll» fi 'i M I.! P !' ll: I I j; J: ■III '•, in 140 /f FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. inary. One of them was of opinion that he was a tac- iturn being ; the other, on the contrary, maintained that he was talkative. How is a foreigner to dare decide, where two eminent natives find it impossible to agree ? In speaking of the typical American, let us under- stand each other. All the civilized nations of the earth are alike in one respect ; they are all composed of two kinds of men, those that are gentlemen, and those that are not. America is no exception to this rule. Fifth Avenue does not differ from Belgravia and Mayfair. A gentleman is everywhere a gentle- man. As a type, he belongs to no particular country, he is universal. When the writer of some " society " paper, English or American, reproaches a sociologist for writing about the masses instead of the classes, suggesting that " he probably never frequented the best society of the nation he describes," that writer writes himself down an ass. Ill the matters of feeling, conduct, taste, culture, I 1 :; never discovered the least difference between a gentleman from America and a gentleman from France, England, Russia, or any other country of Europe — including Germany. So, if we want to find a typical American, it is not in good society that we must search for him, but among the mass of the popula- tion. Wei!, it is just here that our search will break down. We shall come across all sorts and conditions of Amer- icans, but not one that is really typical. A little while ago, the Century Magazine published s ill III THE AMERICAN OF A HUN^^RED YEARS AGO. I \ I Ill in I ,1 i i 1 I t I i \ 142 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. specimens of composite photography. First, there was the portrait of one person, then that of this same face with another superposed, then another containing three faces blended, and so on up to eight or nine. On the last page the result was shown. I can only com- pare the typical American to the last of those. This appears to me the process of evolution through which the American type is now going. What it will be when this process of evolution is over, no one, I im- agine, can tell. The evolution will be complete when immigration shall have ceased, and all the different types have been well mixed and assimilated. While the process of assimilation is still going on, the result is suspended, and the type is incomplete. But, meanwhile, are there not certain characteristic traits to be found throughout almost all America ? That is a question much easier to answer. Is it necessary to repeat that I put aside good society and confine myself merely to the people? Nations are like individuals : when they are young, they have the qualities and the defects of children. The characteristic trait of childhood is curiosity. It is also that of the American. I have never been in Aus- tralia, but I should expect to find this trait in the Australian. Look at American journalism. What does it live on ? Scandal and gossip. Let a writer, an artist, or any one else become popular in the States, and the papers will immediately tell the public at what time he rises and what he takes for breakfast. When any one of the least importance arrives in America, he is quickly beset by a band of reporters who ask him a j4 FREiyCIlMAN IN AMERICA. J43 host of preposterous questions and examine him mi- nutely from head to foot, in order to tell the public next day whether he wears laced, buttoned, or elastic boots, enlighten them as to the cut of his coat and the I ', i'll' CURIOSITY IN AUSTRALIA. color of his trowsers, and let them know if he parts his hair in the middle or not. Every time I went into a new town to lecture I was interviewed, and the next day, besides an account of .1: M 144 A FNENCllMAiW AV AMERICA, II. I IlL 1' I ■ the lecture, there was invariably a paragraph somewhat in this style : The lecturer is a man of about forty, whose cranium is getting visible through his hair. He wears a double eye-glass, with which he plays while talking to his audience. His handkerchief was black-bordered. He wore the regulation patent leather shoes, and his shirt front was fastened with a single stud. He spoke without effort or j)retension, and often with his hands in his pockets, etc. A few days ago, on reading the morning papers in a town where I had lectured the night before, I found, in one of them, about twenty lines consecrated to my lecture, and half a column to my hat. I must tell you that this hat was brown, and all the hats in America are black. If you wear anything that is not exactly like what Americans wear, you are gazed at as if you were a curious animal. The Amer- icans are as great badauds as the Parisians. In Lon- don, you may go down Regent Street or Piccadilly got up as a Swiss admiral, a Polish general, or even a Highlander, and nobody will take the trouble to look at you. But, in America, you have only to put on a brown hat or a pair of light trowsers, and you will become the object of a ci; osity which will not fail very promptly to bore you, if you are fond of tranquillity, and like to go about unremarked. I was so fond of that poor brown hat, too! It was an incomparably obliging hat. It took any shape, and adapted itself to any circumstances. It even went into my pocket on occasions. I had bought it at Lincoln & Bennett's, if you please. But I had to give it up. To my great regret, I saw that it was imperative : its popularity bid fair to make me jealous. Twenty lines •// FRF.XCI/AfA.V /AT AMERICA. MS about mc, and half a colunin about that hat! It was time to come to some lietermination. It was not to be put up with any longer. So I took it up tenderly, smoothed it with care, and laid it in a neat box which was then posted to the chief editor of the paper with the following note: DkarSir: I see by your estimable paper that my hat has attracted a good deal of piibhc attention during its short sojourn in your city. I am even tempted to think that it has attracted more of it than my lecture. I send you the interesting headgear, and beg you will accept it as a souvenir of my visit, and with my respectful compli- ments. A citizen of the Great Republic knows how to take a joke. The worthy editor inserted my letter in the next number of his paper, and informed his readers that my hat fitted him to a nicety, and that he was going to have it dyed and wear it. He further .said, "Max O'Rell evidently thinks the song, 'Where did you get that hat?' was specially written to annoy him," and went on to the effect that " Max O'Rell is not the only man who does not care to tell where he got his hat." Do not run away with the idea that such nonsense as this has no interest for the American public. It has. American reporters have asked me, with the most serious face in the world, whether I worked in the morning, afternoon, or evening, and what color paper I used i^sic). One actually asked me whether it was true that M. Jules Claretie used white paper to write his novels on, and blue paper for his newspaper articles. Not having the honor of a personal acquaintance with t' I. II .,11 Hi' 146 ^ FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA,. the director of the Com6die-Fran9ai.se, I had to confess my inability to gratify my amiable interlocutor. Look at the advertisements in the newspapers. There you have the bootmaker, the hatter, the travel- ing quack, publishing their portraits at f;he head of their advertisements. Why arc those portraits there, if it be not to satisfy the curiosity of customers ? The mass of personalities, each more trumpery than the other, those details of people's private life, and all the gossip daily served up in the newspapers, are they not proof enough that curiosit}^ is a characteristic trait of the American ? Tliis curiosity, which often shows itself in the most impossible questions, gives immense amusement to Europeans. Unhappily, it amuses them at the ex- pense of well-bred Americans — people who are as inno- cent of it as the members of the stiffest aristocracy in the world could be. The English, especially, persist in not distinguishing Americans who are gentlemen from Americans who are not. \ And even that easy-going American bourgeois, with his childish but good-humored nature, they often fail to do justice to. They too often look at his curiosity as impertinence and ill-breeding, and will not admit that, in nine cases out of ten, the freedom he uses with you is but a show of good feeling, an act of good- fellowship. Take, for instance, the following little story : An Anierican is seated in a railway carriage, and opposite him is a lady in deep mourning, and looking a picture of sadness; a veritable mater dolorosa. A FRENCHMAN- IN AMERICA. 147 <( << Lost a father ? " begins the worthy fellow. No, sir." " A mother, maybe ? " "No, sir." "Ah! a child then?" " No, sir ; I have lost my husband." " Your husband ! Ah! Left you comfortable?" The lady, rather offended, retires to the other end of the car, and cuts short the conversation. " Rather stuck up, this woman," remarks the good Yankee to his neighbor. The intention was good, if the way of showing it was not. He had but wanted to show the poor lady the interest he took in her. After having seen you two or three times, the American will suppress " Mr." and address you by your name without any handle to it. Do not say that this is ill placed familiarity; it is meant as an act of good-fellowship, and should be received by you as such. If you are stiff, proud, and stuck-up, for goodness' sake, never go to America : you will never get on there. On the contrary, take over a stock of simple, affable manners and a good temper, and you will be treated as a friend everywhere, feted, and well looked after. In fact, try to deserve a certificate of good-fellow- ship, such as the Clover Club, of Philadelphia, awards to those who can sit at its hospitable table without taking affront at the littje railleries leveled at them by the members of that lively association. With people of refinement who have humor, you can indulge in a joke at their expense. So says La Bruycre. Every i .:.( ! v I : I ij .M \ 1M i ! ' * H': t \i:. t nr ; i . : ' A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. visitor to America, who wants to bring back a pleasant recollection of his st:^/ there, should lay this to heart. Such are the impiessions that I fori led of the Ameri can during my first trip to his country, and the more I think over the matter, the more sure I am that they were correct. Ctiriosity is his chief little failing, and good-fellowship his most prominent quality. This is the theme I will develop and send to the Editor of the North American Revieiv. I will profit by having a couple of days to spend in New York to install myself in a cosy corner of that cosiest of clubs, the " Players," and there write it. It seems that, in the same number of this magazine, the same subject is to be treated by Mr. Andrew Lang, lie has never seen Jonathan at home, and it will be in- teresting to see what impressions he has formed of him abroad. In the hands of such a graceful writer, the "typical American" is sure to be treated in a pleasant and interesting manner. DYNAMITE CHAPTER XVI. I AM Asked to Express Myself Freely on America— I Meet Mrs. Blank and for the First Time Hear of Mr. Blank — Beacon Street Society— The Boston Clubs. .it • Boston, January 25. IT amuses me to notice bow the Americans to whom I have the pleasure of being introduced, refrain from asking me what I think of America. But they invariably inquire if the impressions of my first visit are confirmed. This afternoon, at an "At Home," I met a lady from New York, who asked me a most extraordinary ques- tion. "I have read * Jonathan and His Continent,* " she said to me. " I suppose that is a book of impressions written for publication. But now, tell me en confidence, what do you think of us ? " " Is there anything in that book," I replied, ** which can make you suppose that it is not the faithful ex- pression of what the author thinks of America and the Americans? " " Well," she said, *' it is so complimentary, taken al- together, that I must confess I had a lurking suspicion of your having purposely flattered us and indulged our 149 n 150 .1 /-R/:xc/f.\r.ix /x ./ m erica. Ilfli: ii^ I 11' Mi- "»; i! m \t . 1 i ( national weakness for hearing ourselves praised, so as to make sure of a warm reception for your book." " No doubt," I replied, "by writing a flattering book on any country, you would greatly increase your chance of a large sale in that country ; but, on the other hand, you may write an abusive book on any country and score a great success among that nation's neighbors. For my part, I have always gone my own quiet way, philosophizing rather than opinionating, and when I write, it is not with the aim of pleasing any particular public. I note down what I see, say what I think, and people may read me or not, just as they please. But I think I may boast, however, that my pen is never bitter, and I do not care to criticise unless I feel a certain amount of sympathy with the subject of my criticism. If I felt that I could only honestly say hard things of people, I would always abstain altogether." " Now," said my fair questioner, "how is it that you have so little to say about our Fifth Avenue folks ? Is it because a'ou have seen very little of them, or is it be- cause you could only have said hard things of them ?" " On the contrary," I replied ; " I saw a good deal of them, but what I saw showed me that to describe them would be only to describe polite society, as it exists in London and elsewhere. Society gossip is not in my line; boudoir and club smoking-room scandal has no charm for me. Fifth Avenue resembles too much Mayfair and Belgravia to make criticism of it worth attempting." I knew this answer would have the effect of putting mc into the l.idy's good graces at once, and I was not e» ^4 FREXa/MAy AV AMERICA. 15, disappointed. She accorded to me her sweetest smile, as I bowed to her to go and be introduced to anothe lady by the mistress of the house. The next lady was a Bostonian. I had to explain to FIFTH AVENUE FOLK. her why I had not spoken of Beacon Street people using the same argument as in the case of Fifth Avenue society, and with the same success. At the same "At Home," I had the ple-isure of ¥ n ^r' i ;| \' i \U- fl. II u li } ; r'^ 15a .-/ FM/iXcy/A/A.V LV AMEKICA. meeting Mrs. Blank, whom I had met many times in London and Paris, She is one of the crowd of pretty and-clever women whom America sends to brighten up European society, and who reappear in London and Paris with the regularity of the swallows. You meet them every- where, and conclude that they must be married, since A TELEPHONE AND TICKER. they are styled Mrs. and not Miss. But whether they are wives, widows, or divorcees, you rarely think of in. quiring, and you may enjoy their friendship for years without knowing whether they have a living lord or not. Mrs. Blank, as I say, is a most fascinating specimen of America's daughters, and to-day I find that Mr. Blank is also very much alive, but that the companions A FRF.XClf.VA.V /X AMERICA. »53 of his joys and sorrows are the telephone and the ticker ; in fact it is thanks to his devotion to these that the wife of his bosom is able to adorn European society during every recurring season. American women have such love for freedom and are so cool-headed that their visits to Europe could not arouse suspicion even in the most malicious. But, nevertheless, I am glad to have heard of Mr, Blank, because it is comfortable to have one's mind at rest on these subjects. Up to now, whenever I had been asked, as sometimes happened, though seldom: •* Who is Mr. Blank, and where is he ?" I had always answered : " Last puzzle out ! " \ Lunched to-day in the beautiful Algonquin Club, as the guest of Colonel Charles H. Taylor, and met the editors of the other Boston papers, among whom was John Boyle O'Reilly,* the lovely poet, and the delight- ful man. The general conversation turned on two subjects most interesting to me, viz., American journ- alism, and American politics. All these gentlemen seemed to agree that the American people take an interest in local politics only, but not in imperial politics, and this explains why the papers of the smaller towns give detailed accounts of what is going on in the houses of legislature of both city and State, but do not concern themselves about what is going on in Washington. I had come to that conclu- sion myself, seeing that the great papers of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago devoted columns to the * J. B. O'Reilly died in 1890. il! 1-1^ iH'i M M n w /i.;' ;■ 1 •, 1 i [ 1 i. 1 i 1 i : ill 154 ^ Fl^F.h'CHMAN IN AMERICA. sayings and doings of the political world in London and Paris, and seldom a paragrapli to the sittings of Congress in Washington. In the morning, before lunch, I had called on Mr. John Holmes, the editor of the Boston Herald, and there met a talented lady who writes under the noin de plume of " Max Eliot," and with whom I had a delight- ful lialf-hour's chat. I have had to-day the pleasure of meeting the edi- tors of all the Boston newspapers. • • • • • In the evening, I dined with the members of the New England Club, who meet every month to listen, at dessert, to some interesting debate or lecture. The wine is supplied by bets. You bet, for instance, that the sun will shine on the following Friday at half-past two. If you lose, you are one of those who will have to supply one, two, or three bottles of champagne at the next dinner, and so on. This evening the lecture, or rather the short address, was given by Colonel Charles H. Taylor on the history of American journalism. I was particularly interested to hear the history of the foundation of the New York Herald, by James Gordon Bennett, and that of the New York World, by Mr. Pulitzer, a Hungarian emigrant, who, some years ago, arrived in the States, unable to speak English, became jack-of-all-trades, then a reporter on a German pa- per, proprietor of a Western paper, and then bought the World, which is now one of the best paying con- cerns in the whole of the United States. This man, who, to maintain himself, not in health, but just alive, is obliged to be constantly traveling, directs the paper 1 ./ I'REXCIIMAN LY AMERICA. '55 by telegraph from Australia, from Japan, from London, or wherever he happens to be. It is nothing- short of marvelous. I finished the evening in the St. Botolph Club, and I may say that I have to-day spent one of the most deljghtfu days of my life, with those charming and irghly cultured Bostonians, who, a New York witty friend of mine declares, •' are educated beyond their intellects. 1 I m 1 :iii Ir, CHAPTER XVII. A Lively Sunday in Boston — Lfxture in THE Boston Theater— Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes — The Bootii-Modieska Comblxation. M ■ I / i- i 1 ■ << • Boston, January 26. MAX ELIOT " devotes a charming and most flattering article to me in this morning's Her- ald, embodying the conversation we had together yesterday in the Boston Herald's office. Many thanks, Max. A reception was given to me this afternoon by Citizen Geurge Francis Train, and I met many artists, journalists, and a galaxy of charming women. The Citizen is pronounced to be the greatest crank on earth. I found him decidedly eccentric, but enter- taining, witty, and a first-rate raconteur. He shakes hands with you in the Chinese fashion — he shakes his own. He has taken a solemn oath that his body shall never come in contact with the body of any one. A charming programme of music and recitations was gone through. The invitation cards issued for the occasion speak for themselves. 13C ^0^^^r :.' ii I THE CITIZEN SHAKES HANDS, 158 CITIZKN y1 /■'A'/:.V(7/.'l/.I.V /.V AMERICA, GKORcaC KRANCIS TRAIN'S RL:CEFnON To CITOYEN MAX O'RELL. 1'. S.— " Demons " have check- mated " I'sychos " I Invitations canceled ! " Hul) " Moycotts Sun- Jay Receptions ! lioston half centniy heiund New York and Europe's Elite S()ci(;ty. (Ancient Athens still Ancient !) Regrets and Regards ! (lood-by, Tre- mont ! (The Proprietors not to blame.) Vide some of his " Apothegmic Works " ! (Reviewed in Pulitzer's New York World diX\<\ Cosmos Press!) 1- . John Bull et Son He ! Les Filles de John Bull ! Les Chers Voisins I L'Ami Macdonald I John Bull, Junior! Jonathan et Son Continent ! L'Eloquence Francjaise ! etc. YOU ARE INVITED TO MEET this distinguished French Traveler, Author, and Lecturer (From the land of Lafayette, Rochambeau, and De Grasse), AT MY SIXTH "POP-CORN RECEPTION"! SUNDAV, January Twenty-Sixth, From 2 to 7 p. m. (Tremont House !) Private Banquet Hall ! Fifty " Notaries " ! Talent from Dozen Operas and Theaters ! All Stars ! No Airs ! No " Wall Flowers " ! No Amens ! No Selahs ! But "MUTUAL ADMIRATION CLUB OF GOOD FELLOW- .7 /'W/;,\(7/j/,/,\' /,v .iM/./ac.t, '5y SHIP"! No llomlom ! No Formality ! (Dress as you likf !) No rrof^Mainiiif I (I'iannsI Ct-llos I CiuitarsI Mandolins I lianjos ! \'it)liii.sl Harmonicas! ZithfrsI) Opera, Tlicatti an(l I'ress RtprcscMilfd ! Succeedinjr Receptions : To Steele Mackaye ! Nat Goodwin ! Count Zubof (St. I'etcrsburj;; ! I'rima Donna Clementina De Vere (Italy) ! Albany I'ress Club I (Duly announced printed invitations !) GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN. Tremont House for Winter! Psychic Press thanks for friendly notices of Sunday Musicales! It will be seen from the " P. S." tliat the reception could not be held at the Tremont House; but the plucky C'tizcn did not allow liimself to be beaten, and the reception took place at the liouse of a friend. • • • • ( In the evening I lectured in the lioston Theater to a beautiful audience. If there is a horrible fascination about " the man who won't smile," as I mentioned in a foregoiti-m i 16 J ./ J'A'J:\CI/.\/.i\ /.V .l.]//:A'/CJ. Mr. Booth is too old to play Hamlet as he does, that is to say, without any attempt at makiiig-up. He puts on a black wig, and that is all, absolutely all. It is, however, a most remarkable, subtle piece of acting in his hands. Madame Modjeska was beautiful as Opluiia. No tragedienne that I have ever seen weeps more natu- rally. In all sad situations she makes the chords of one's heart vibrate, and that without any trick or arti- fice, but simply by the modulations of her singularly sympathetic voice and such like natural means. It is very seldom that you can see in America, out- side of New York, more than one very good actor or actress playing together. So you may imagine the success of such a combination as Booth-Modjeska. Every night the theater is packed from floor to ceil- ing, although the prices of admission are doubled. :t CHAPTER XVIII. I St. Joiinskury— The State of Maine— New Eng- land Sei/f-Control— Cold Climates AND Frigid Audiences— Where is the Audience? — All Drunk !— A Reminiscence of a Scotch Audi- ence ON A Saturday Night. 5/. JoJinsbury ( F/.), January 28. ST. JOHNSBURY is a charming little town perched on the top of a mountain, from w'hich a lovely scene of hills and woods can be enjoyed. »The whole country is covered with snow, and as I looked at it in the evening by the electric light, the effect was very beautiful. The town has only six thousand inhabi- tants, eleven hundred of whom came to hear my lec- ture to-night. Which is the European town of six thousand inhabitants that would supply an audience of eleven hundred people to a literp-y causvrie} St. Johnsbury has a dozen churches, a public library of 15,000 volumes, with a reading-room beautifully fitted with desks and perfectly adapted for study. .\ museum, a Young Men's Christian Association, with gymnasium, school-rooms, reading-rooms, play-rooms, and a lecture hall capable of accommodating over 1000 people. Who, after that, would consider himself an exile if he had to live in St. Johnsbury? There is it ■1! II a;, •f t 1 ! i : t 1 !• ' ii m 164 // FREXCI/AfA.V AV AMERICA. more intellectual life in it than in any French town outside of Paris and about a dozen more large cities. • • • • • Portsea^ January 30. I have been in the State of Maine for two days ; a strange State to be in, let me tell you. After addressing the Connecticut audience in Meri- den a few days ago, I thought I had had the experi- ence of the most frigid audience that could possibly be gathered together. Last Tuesday night, at Portsea, I was undeceived. Half-way between St. Johnsbury and Portsea, the day before yesterday, I was told that the train would be very late, and would not arrive at Portsea before half-past eight. My lecti\re in that city was to begin at eight. The only thing to do was to send a telegram to the manager of the lecture. At the next station I sent the following : " Train late. If possible, keep audience waiting half an hour. Will dress on board." I dressed in the state-room of the parlor-car. At forty minutes past eight the train arrived at Portsea. I immediately jumped into a cab and drove to the City Hall, where the lecture was to take place. The building was lighted, but, as I ascended the stairs, there was not a person to be seen or a sound to be heard. " The place is deserted," I thought ; " and if anybody came to hear me, they have all gone." I opened the door of the private room behind the platform and there found the manager, who expressed his delight to see me. I excused myself, and was ! I li W I'KEyCIIMAX LV AMERICA. i6s going to enter into a detailed explanation when he interrupted : *' Oh, that's all right." "What do you mean? "said I. "Have you got an audience there, on the other side of that door? " " Why, we have got fifteen hundred people." "There?" said I , /j pointing to the door. "Yes, on the other side of that door." " But I can't hear a sound." " I guess you can't. But that's all right ; they are there." " I suppose," I said, " I had better apologize to them for keeping them waiting three- quarters of an hour." " Well, just as you please," said the man- ager. " I wouldn't." "Wouldn't you?" " No ; I guess they would have waited another half-hour without showing any sign of impatience," I TIP-TOED OUT. i66 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. %i m ' I opened the door treni ing. My desk was far, far away. My manager was rij^it ; the audience was there. I stepped on the platform, shut the door after me, making as little noise as I could, and, walking on tiptoe so as to wake up as few people as possible, proceeded toward the table. Not one person applauded. A few people looked up unconcernedly, as if to say, " I guess that's the show." The rest seemed asleep, although their eyes were open. Arrived at the desk, I faced the audience, and ven- tured a little joke, which fell dead flat. I began to realize the treat that was in store for me that night. I tried another little joke, and — missed fire. " Never mind, old fellow," I said to myself ; " it's two hundred and fifty dollars ; go ahead." And I went on. I saw a few people smile, but not one laughed, al- though I noticed that a good many were holding their handkerchiefs over their mouths, probably to stifle any attempt at such a frivolous thing as laughter. The eyes of the audience, which I always watch, showed signs of interest, and nobody left the hall until the conclusion of the lecture. When I had finished, I made a small bow, when certainly fifty people applauded. I imagined they were glad it was all over. " Well," I said to the manager, when I had returned to the little back room, " I suppose we must call this a failure." "A failure !" said he ; " it's nothing of the sort. Why, I have never seen them so enthusiastic in my life ! " I went to the hotel, and tried to forget the audience 111 jj ./ FR/-:.yC//.]f.l.V IX AMF'.RICA. ^C^^ I I had just had by recaUing to my mind a joyous even- ing in Scothind. This happened about a year ago, in a mining town in the neighborhood of Glasgow, where I had been invited to lecture, on a Saturday night, to th dar — Institute. e members ot a popular — very popular — institul I arrived at the station from Glasgow at half-past seven, and there found the secretary and the treasurer of r-i:.f .1 111 I AM ESCORTED I'O THE HALL. the Institute, who had been kind enough to come and meet me. Wc shook hands. They gave me a few words of welcome. I thought my friends looked a little bit queer. Tliey proposed that we should walk to the lecture hall. The secretary took my right arm, the treasurer look my left, and, abreast, the three of us n hi' I' I? I!; I r if ■: ; \ 168 // FKKXCI/AfAX //V AMKKILW. proceeded toward the hall. They did not take me to that place ; / took them, holding them fast all the way —the treasurer especially. We arrived in good time, although we stopped once for light refreshment. At eight punctually, I entered the hall, preceded by the president, and followed by the members of the committee. The president intro- duced me in a most queer, incoherent speech. I rose, and was vociferously cheered. "When silence was re- stored, I said in a calm, almost solemn manner: " Ladies and Gentlemen." This was the signal for more cheer- ing and whistling. In France whistling means hissing, and I began to feel uneasy, but soon 1 bore in mind that whistling, in the North of Great Britain, was used to express the highest pitch of enthusiasm. So I went on. The audience laughed at everything I said, and even before I said it. I had never addressed such keen people. They seemed so anxious to laugh and cheer in the right place that they laughed and cheered all the time — so much so that in an hour and twenty minutes, I had only got through half my lecture, which I had to bring to a speedy conclusion. The president rose and proposed a vote of thanks in another most queer speech, which was a new occasion for cheering. When we had retired in the committee room, I said to the secretary : " What's the matter with the presi- dent? Is he quite right?" I added, touching my forehead. ' "Oh!" said the secretary, striking his chest as proudly as possible, " he is drunk — and so am I." .-I ''r L r *n: u ■% tN\^ y "he's drunk, and so am I." 'I i. 1- ' hi.- hv , i fi ;: »
^ "W ^ / ^4 7 I.C HKf. la 1.1 f^KS 'yi iiu 11.6 Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 (716)872-4503 iV [v :i7 <^ <* V <^, '<^ ^- CHAPTER XIX. I'M- >lv'i I'M it M m.'i Ir A Lovely Ride to Canada— Quebec, a Corner OF Old France Strayed up and Lost in the Snow— The French Canadians— The Parties IN Canada — Will the Canadians Become Yan- kees? Montreal, February i. THE ride from the State of Maine to Montreal is very picturesque, even in the winter. It offers you four or five hours of Alpine scenery through the American Switzerland. The White Mountains, com- manded by Mount Washington, are, for a distance of about forty miles, as wild and imposing as anything the real Switzerland can supply tho: tourist. Gorges, precipices, torrents, nothing is wanfing. Nearly the whole time we journeyed across pine forests, coming, now and then, across saw mills, and little towns looking like bee-hives of activity. Now there was an opening, and frozen rivers, covered with snow, formed, with the fields, a huge uniform mass of dazzling whiteness. The effect, under a pure blue sky and in a perfectly clear atmosphere, was very beautiful. Now the country became hilly again. On the slopes, right down to the bottom of the valley, we r iW Berlin Falls, bathing its feet in the river. The yellow houses with their red roofs and gables, rest the eyes from that «7« !i A FA'KXC/lArAX LV AMERICA. I'/3 long stretch of blue and white. How beautiful this town and its surroundings must he in the fall, when Dame Nature in America puts on her cloak of gold and scarlet ! All the cou'itry on the line we traveled is engaged in the lumber trade. For once I had an amiable conductor in the parlor car ; even more than amiable — quite friendly and familiar. He put his arms on my shoul- ders and got quite pa- tronizing. I did not mind that a bit. I hate anonymous landscapes, and he explained and named everything to me. My innocence of American things in general touched him. He was a great treat after those " ill-licked bears " that you so often come across in the American cars. He went further than that kindly recommended me to the Canadian custom- house officers, when we arrived at the frontier, and the examination of my trunk and valise did not last half a minute. Altogether, the long journey passed rapidly and agreeably. We were only two people in the parlor car, and my traveling companion proved a very pleas- ant man. First, I did not care for the look of him. THE AMIABLE CONDUCTOR. he !'; 174 A FRENCIIMAX I.V AMERICA. !i '' i-rHi u:' m ^1- i! Jf.i • ■, X He had a new silk hat on, a multicolored satin cravat with a huge diamond pin fixed in it; a waistcoat cov- ered with silk embroidery work, green, blue, and pink; a coat with silk facings, patent-leather boots. Alto- gether, he was rather dressed for a garden party (in more than doubtful taste) than for a fifteen hours' rail- way jourue)'. JUit in America the cars are so luxurious and kept so warm that traveling dresses are not known in the country. Ulsters, cloaks, rugs, garments made of tweed and rough materials, all these things are un- necessary and therefore unknown. I soon found out, however, that this quaintly got-up man was interesting to speak to. He knew every bit of the country we passed, and, being easily drawn out, he poured into my ears information that was as rapid as it was valuable. He was well read and had been to Europe several tim'^s. He spoke of France with great enthusiasm, which en- rolled my sympathy, and he had enjoyed my lecture, which, you may imagine, secured for his intelligence and his good taste my boundless admiration. When we arrived at Monti eal, we were a pair of friends. • • • • ■ I begin my Canadian tour here on Monday and then shall go West. I was in Quebec two years ago; but the dear old place is not on my list this time. No words could express my regret. I shall never forget my feelings on landing under the great cliff on which stands the citadel, and on driving, bumped along in a sleigh over the half-thawed snow, in the street that lies under the fortress, and on through the other quaint winding steep streets, and again under the majestic archways to the upper town, where I was set down at A /'REXC/LMAX /.V AMERICA. I7S the door of the Florence, a quiet, delightful little hotel that the visitor to Quebec should not fail to stop at, if he like home comforts and care to enjoy magnificent scenery from his window. It seemed as though I v/as in France, in my dear old Brittany. It looked like St. Malo strayed up here and lost in the snow. The illu- sion became complete when I saw the gray houses, heard the people talk with the Breton intonation, and saw over the shops Langlois, Maillard, Clouet, and all the names familiar to my childhood. But why say "illusion"? It was a fact: I was in France. These f<^lks have given their faith to England, but, as the Canadian poet says, they have kept their hearts for France. Not only their hearts, but their mani'crs and their language. Oh, there was such pleasure in it all I The lovely weather, the beautiful scenery, the kind wel- come given to me, the delight of seeing these children of Old France, more than three thousand miles from home, happy and thriving — a feast for the eyes, a feast for the heart. And the drive to Montmorency Falls in the sleigh, gliding smoothly along on the hard snow! And the sleighs laden with wood for the Quebec folks, the carmen stimulating their horses with a hue la or Jiuc done! And the return to the Florence, where a good dinner served in a private room awaited us ! And that polite, quiet, attentive French girl who waited on us, the antipodes of the young Yankee lady who makes you sorry that breakfasting and dining are necessary, in some American hotels, and whose waiting is like taking sand and vinegar with your food ! The mere spanking along through the cold, brisk ail, when you ar« well muffled in furs is exhilarating. 111 ^ In 1 w i: m r , ■- ''if ;:! ill . ' f 1?'! I »• v. ■ [I ; ; ; ■ If IP 176 y^ FRENCHMAN /iV AMKKICA. especially when the sun is shining in a cloudless blue skj'. The beautiful scenery at Quebec was, besides, a feast for eyes tired with the monotonous flatness of America. The old city is on a perfect mountain, and as we came bumping down its side in our sleigh over the roads which were there in a perfect state of sher- bet, there was a lovely picture spread out in front of I " IITAT QUIET, ATTENTIVE FRENCH CilRL. us. In the distance the bluest mountains I ever saw (to paint them one must use pure cobalt); away to the right the frozen St. Lawrence and the Isle of Orleans, all snow-covered, of course, but yet distinguishable from the farm lands of Jacques Bonhomme, whose cosy, clean cottages we soon began to pass. The long, ribbon-like strips of farm were indicated by the tops of the fences peeping through the snow, and told us of French thrift and prosperity. .-/ rREiXCIIMAX IX AMERICA. -^11 Yes, it was all delightful. When I left Quebec I felt as much regret as I do every time that I leave my little native town. It I have been told that the works of Voltaire are pro- hibited in Quebec, not so much because they are irre- ligious as because they were written by a man who, after the loss of Quebec to the French Crown, ex- claimed: "Let us not be concerned about the loss of a few acres of snow." The memory of Voltaire is execrated, and for having made a flattering reference to him on the platform in Montreal two years ago, I was near being " boycotted" by the French popula- tion. The French Canadians take very little interest in politics — I mean in outside politics. They are steady, industrious, saving, peaceful, and so long as the Eng- lish leave them alone, in the safe enjoyment of their belongings, the/ will not give them cause for any anxiety. Among the French Canadians there is no desire for annexation to the United States. Indeed, during the War of Independence, Canada was saved to the English Crown by the French Canadians, not be- cause the latter loved the English, but because they hated the Yankees. When Lafayette took it for granted that the French Canadians would rally round his flag, he made a great mistake; they would have, if compelled to fight, used their bullets against the Americans. If they had their own way, the French in Canada would set up a little country of their own under the rule of the Catholic Church, a little corner of France two hundred years old. !: I: 17-i ./ /■-A/..\c7/.]/.LV /.v jm/:k/c.l The education of the lower classes is at a very low stage; thirty per cent, of the cliildrcn of school aj^c in Quebec do not attend school. The English dare not introduce gr.ituitous and cor."«pulsory education. They have an understanding with the Catholic Church, which insists upon exercising entire control over public education. The Quebec schools are little more than branches of the confessional box. The English shut their eyes, for part of the undcistanding with the Church is that the latter will keep loyalty to the Eng- lish Crown alive among her submissive flock. The tyranny exercised by the Catholic Church may easily be imagined from the following newspaper ex- tract : A well-to-do butcher of Montreal atteiuled the Catholic Church at He Perrault last Sunday. He was suffering at the time with acute cramps, and when that part of the service arrived during which the congregation kneel, he found himself unable to do more than assume a reclining devotional position, with one knee on the floor. His action was noticed, and the church-warden, in concert with others, had him brought before the court charged with an act of irreverence, and he was fined $8 and costs. Such a judgment does not only expose the tyranny of the Catholic Church, but the complicity of the English, who uphold Romanism in the Province of Quebec as they uphold Buddhism in India, so as not to endanger the security of their possessions. The French Canadians are multiplying so rapidly that in a very few years the Province of Quebec will be as French as the town of Quebec itself. Everyday they push their advance from east to west. They generally marry very young. When a lad is seen in TF // FA'EXC//M.i\ LV .I.U/-A7C,I. 179 the company of a girl, he is asked by tlic priest if lie is courting that girl. In wliich case he is bidden to go straightway to the altar, and these young couples rear AN INTERVIEW WITH THK TRIFST. families of twelve and fifteen children, none of whom leave the country. The English have to make room for them. I'l ■ ■ F i if' ^^\ Hi I' lit 5;i- W I l[, .■ li. ■1. Si 1 80 J FKEXCI/MAX fX AMERICA. TIic average attendance in Catholic churches on Sundays in Montreal is 1 1 1,483 ; in the sixty churches that belong to the different Protestant denominations, the average attendance is 34,428. The former num- ber has been steadily increasing, the latter steadily de- creasing. • • • • • What is the future reserved to French Canada, and indeed to the whole Dominion ? There are only two political parties. Liberals and Conservatives, but I find the population divided into four camps : Those in favor of Canada, an indepen- dent nation ; those in favor of the political union of Canada and the United States ; those in favor of Can- ada going into Imperial Federation, and those in favor of Canada remaining an English colony, or in other words, in favor of the actual state of things. Of course the French Canadians are dead against going into Imperial Federation, which would simply crush them, and Canadian " society " is in favor of re- maining English. The other Canadians seem pretty equally divided. It must be said that the annexation idea has been making rapid progress of late years, among prominent men as well as among the people. The Americans will never fire one shot to have the idea realized. If ever the union becomes an accomplished fact, it will be- come so with the assent of all parties. The task will be made easy through Canada and the United States having the same legislature. The local and provincial governments are the same in the Canadian towns and provinces as they are in the American towns and ./ IKENCHMAN IN AMERICA, i8i States — a House of Representatives, a Senate, and a Governor, with this difference, this great difference, to the present advantage of Canada : whereas every four years the Americans elect a new master, who ap- points a ministry responsible to himself alone, the Canadians have a ministry responsible to their parlia- ment, that is, to themselves. The representation of the American people at Washington is democratic, but the government is autocratic. In Canada, both legis- lature and executive are democratic, as in England, that greatest and truest of all democracies. The change in Canada would have to be made on the American plan. With the exception of Quebec and parts of Mon- treal, Canada is built like America ; the country has the same aspect, the currency is the same. Suppress the Governor-General in Ottawa, who is there to re- mind Canada that she is a dependency of the English Crown, strew the country with more cuspidores, and you have part of Jonathan's big farm. m :\ %'.i' CHAPTER XX. Montreal— Thp: City- Mount Royal— Canadian Sports — Ottawa — The Government— Rideau Hall. . Montreal, February 2. MONTREAL is a large and well-built city, con- taining many buildings of importance, mostly churches, of which about thirty are Roman Catholic, and over sixty are devoted to Protestant worship, in all its branches and variations, from the Anglican church to the Salvation Army. I arrived at a station situated on a level with the St. Lawrence River. From it, we mounted in an om- nibus up, up, up, through narrow streets full of shops with Breton or Norman names over them, as in Que- bec ; on through broader ones, where the shops grew larger and the names became more frequently English ; on, on, till I thought Montreal had no end, and, at last alighted on a great square, and found myself at the door of the Windsor Hotel, an enormous and fine construction, which has proved the most comfortable, and, in every respect the best hotel I have yet stopped at on the great American continent. It is about a quarter of a mile from my bedroom to the dining-hall, which could, I believe, accommodate nearly a thousand guests. My first visit was to an afternoon " At Home," given i8a T // I'KEiXCHMAN IN AMERICA, 183 by the St. Geoige's Club, who have a club-house high up on Mount Royal. It was a ladies' day, and there was music, dancing, etc. We went in a sleigh up the very steep hill, much to my astonishment. I should have thought the thing practically impossible. On our way we passed a toboggan slide dov/n the side of Mount Royal. It took my breath away to think of coming down it at the rate of over a mile a min- ute. The view from the club-house was splendid, taking in a great sweep of snow- covered country, the city and the frozen St. Lawrence. There are daily races on the river, and last year they ran tram-cars on it. It was odd to hear the phrase, " after the flood." When I came lo inquire into it, I learned that when the St. Lawrence ice breaks up, the lower city is flooded, and this is yearly spoken of as " the flood." I drove back from the club with my manager and two English gentlemen, who are here on a visit. As we passed the toboggan slide, my manager told me of an old gentleman over sixty, who delights in those breathless passages down the side of Mount Royal. One may see h!m out there *' at it," as early as ten in the morning. Plenty of people, however, try one ride THE OLD GENTLEMAN AND TKE TOBOGGAN SLIDE. !'i ^.! 12 i! Ii|- ijii 'Hit 'III III- K i I ' : I M \A 184 A FKEXCIJMAN. IN AMERICA. and never ask for another. One gentleman my man- ager told me of, after having tried it, expressed pretty well the feelings of many others. He said, " I wouldn't do it again for two thousand dollars, but I wouldn't have missed it for three." I asked one of the two Eng- lishmen who accompanied us, whether he had had a try. He was a quiet', solemn, middle-aged Eng- lishman. "Well," he said, "yes, I have. It had to be done, and I did it." Last night I was most interested in watching the mem- bers of the Snow- siioe Club start from the Windsor, on a kind of a picnic over the country. Their costumes were very picturesque; a rjhort tunic of woolen material fastened round the waist by a belt, a sort of woolen nightcap, with tassel failing on the shoulder, thick woolen stockings, and knickerbockers. In Russia and the northern parts of the United States, the people say : " It's too cold to go out." In Canada, they say : " It's very cold, let's all go out." Only rain A SNOWSHOER. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I«^5 w keeps them indoors. In the coldest vveatlier, with a tem- perature of many degrees below zero, you have great difficulty in jfinding a closed carriage. All, or nearly all, are open sleighs. The driver wraps you up in furs, and as you go, gliding on the snow, your face is whipped by the cold air, you feel glowing all over with warmth, and altogether the sensation is delightful. This morning, Joseph Howarth, the talented Ameri- can actor, breakfasted with me and a few friends. Last night, I went to see him play in Steele Mackaye's " Paul Kauvar." Canada has no actors worth mention- ing, and the people here depend on American artists for all their entertainments. It is wonderful how the feeling of independence engenders and develops the activity of the mind in a country. Art and liter- ature want a home of their own, and do not flourish in other people's houses. Canada has produced nothing in literature : the only two poets she can boast are French, Louis Frechette and Octave Cr^mazie. It is not because Canada has no time for brain productions. America is just as busy as she is, felling forests and reclaiming the land ; but free America, only a hundred years old as a nation, possesses already a list of his- torians, novelists, poets, and essayists, that would do honor to any nation in the world. ( )■ 1) .1 ; \ \ I February 4. I had capital houses in the Queen's Hall last night and to-night. The Canadian audiences are more demonstrative than the American ones, and certainly quite as keen and appreciative. When you arrive on the platform 1 86 A FRENCHMAN- IN AMERICA. they are glad to see you, and they let you know it ; a fact which in America, in New England especially, you have to find out for yourself. Montreal possesses a very wealthy and fashionable community, and what strikes me most, coming as I do from the United States, is the stylish simplicity of the women. I am told that Canadian women in their tastes and ways have always been far more English than American, and that the fashions have grown more and more simple since Princess Louise gave the example of always dressing quietly when occupying Rideau Hall in Ottawa. lii: I* rW-'X^ ii:i ■I i If'* Ml I; 'i ) I* I 1 Ottawa, February 5. One of the finest sights I have yet seen in this country was from the bridge on my way from the station to the Russell this morning. On the right the waterfalls, on the left, on the top of a high and almost perpendicular rock, the Houses of Parliament, a grand pile of buildings in gray stone, standing out clear against a cloudless, intense blue sky. The Russell is one of those huge babylonian hotels so common on the American continent, where unfortunately the cookery is not on a level with the architectural preten- sions ; but most of the leading Canadian politicians are boarding here while Parliament is sitting, and I am interested to see them. After visiting the beautiful library and other parts of tlie government buildings, I had the good luck to hear, in the House of Representatives, a debate be- tween Mr. Cha[)leau, a minister and one of the leaders of the Conservatives now in office, and Mr. Laurier, A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 187 one of the chiefs of the Opposition. Both gentlemen are French. It was a fight between a tribune and a scholar ; between a short, thickset, long-maned lion, and a tall, slender, delicate fox. After lunch, I went to Rideau Hall, the residence of the Governor-General, Lord Stanley of Preston. The "the radiant, lovely canadienne." executive mansion stands in a pretty park well wooded with firs, a mile out of the town. His Excellency was out, but his aid-de-camp, to whom 4 had a letter of introduction, most kindly showed me over the place. Nothing can be more simple and unpretentious than the interior of Rideau Hall. It is furnished like any comfortable little provincial hotel patronized by the gentry of the neighborhood. The panels of the draw- I ■ 1' • ' i i 1 1- I. i/ 1: i! •i;!' iS'i }« ■ 1 1' ;» *!l; il ,' 1 ! ij I i88 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ing-room were painted by Princess Louise, when she occupied the house with the Marquis of Lome some eight or ten years ago. This is the only touch of luxury about the place. In the time of Lord Dufferin, a ball-room and a tennis court were added to the build- ing, and these are among the many souvenirs of his popular rule. As a diplomatist, as a viceroy, and as an ambassador, history will one day record that this noble son of Erin never made a mistake. In the evening, I lectured in the Opera House to a large audience. • • • • • Kingston^ February 6. This morning, at the Russell, I was called at the telephone. It was His Excellency, who was asking me to lunch at Rideau Hall. I felt sorry to be obliged to leave Ottawa, and thus forego so tempting an invita- tion. Kingston is a pretty little town on the border of Lake Ontario, possessing a university, a penitentiary, and a lunatic asylum, in neither of which I made my appearance to-night. But as soon as I had started speaking on the platform of the Town Hall, I began to think the doors of the lunatic asylum had been care- lessly left open that night, for close under the window behind the platform, there began a noise which was like Bedlam let loose. Bedlam with trumpets and other instruments of torture. It was impossible to go on with the lecture, so I stopped. On inquiry, the unearthly din was found to proceed from a detachment of the Salvation Army outside the building. After •il- !i; A FRENCHMAN IN AMENICA. 189 some parleying, they consented to move on and storm some other citadel. But it was a stormy evening, and peace was not yet. A SALVATIONIST. As soon as I had fairly restarted, a person in the audience began to show signs of disapproval, and Vi I ■' I if M Hi; ! V\\ ii i II 'iN ;■■■' 1^ ii i 190 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. twice or thrice he gave vent to his disapproval rather loudly. I was not surprised to learn, at the close of the even- ing, that this individual had come in with a free pass. He had been admitted on the strength of his being an- nounced to give a " show " of some sort himself a week later in the hall. If a man is inattentive or creates a disturbance at any performance, you may take it for granted that his ticket was given to him. He never paid for it. To-morrow I go to Toronto, where I am to give two lectures. I had not time to see that city properly on my last visit to Canada, and all my friends prophesy that I shall have a good time. So does the advance booking, I understand. CHAPTER XXI. Toronto-The City-The Ladies-The Sports —Strange Contrasts-The Canadian Schools, Toronto, February 9. TT AVE passed three very pleasant days in this city, A X and had two beautiful audiences in the Pavilion' Toronto is a thoroughly American city in appear- ance, but only in appearance, for I f^nd the inhabitants British in heart, in tastes, and habits. When I say that it is an American city, I mean to say that Toronto IS a large area, covered with blocks of parallelograms and dirty streets, overspread with tangles of telegraph and telephone wires. The hotels are perfectly Ameri- can in every respect. The suburbs are exceedingly pretty. Here once more are fine villas standing in large gardens, a sight rarely seen near an American city. It reminds me of England. I admire many buildings, the University* especially. ' English-looking, too, are the rosy faces of the To- ronto ladies whom I passed in my drive. How charm- ing they are with the peach-like bloom that their out- door exercise gives them ! I should like to be able to describe, as it deserves, * Destroyed by fire three days after I left Toronto. 191 I ; I i i< A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. the sight of these Canadian women in their sleighs, as the horses fly along with bells merrily jingling, the coachman in his curly black dogskin and huge busby on his head. Furs float over the back of the sleigh, and, in it, muffled up to the chin in sumptuous skins and also capped in furs, sits the radiant, lovely Cana- dienne, the milk and roses of her complexion enhanced by the proximity of the dark furs. As they skim past over the white snow, under a glorious sunlit blue sky, I can call to mind no prettier sight, no more beautiful picture, to be seen on this huge continent, so far as I have got yet. One cannot help being struck, on coming here from the United States, at the number of lady pedestrians in the streets. They are not merely shopping, I am assured, nor going straight from one point to another of the town, but taking their constitutional walks in true English fashion. My impresario took me in the afternoon to a club for ladies and gentlemen, and there I had the, to me, novel sight of a game of hockey. On a large frozen pond chere was a party of young people engaged in this graceful and invigorating game, and not far off was a group of little girls and boys im- itating their elders very sensibly and, as it seemed to me, successfully. The clear, healthy complexion of the Canadian women is easy to account for, when one sees how deep-rooted, even after transplantation, is the good British love of exercise in the open air. Last evening I was taken to a ball, and was able to see more of the Canadian ladies than is possible in furs, and on further acquaintance I found them as de- lightful in manners as in appearance ; English in their A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 193 coloring and in their simplicity of dress, American in their natural bearing and in their frankness of speech. Churches, churches, everywhere. In my drive this K A HOCKEY PLAYER. afternoon, I counted twenty-eight in a quarter of an hour. They are of all denominations, Catholic, Angli- can, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, etc., etc. The : t Mf !i( 194 // FREXCI/MAN IN AMERICA. i ! ili ■ ;' '.'■ 1 i' ■■ s: 1 U i m . ;)'• i\ il ■ ■ ■ i iif ; r '? Canadians must be still more religious — 1 mean still more church-going — than the English. From seven in the evening on Saturday, all the tav- erns are closed, and remain closed throughout Sunday. In England the Bible has to compete with the gin bottle, but here the Bible has all its own way on Sun- days. Neither tram-car, omnibus, cab, nor hired car- riage of any description is to be seen abroad. Scotland itself is outdone completely ; the land of John Knox has to take a back seat. The walls of this city of churches and chapels are at the present moment covered with hugh coarse posters announcing in loud colors the arrival of a company of performing women. Of these posters, one represents Cleopatra in a bark drawn through the water by nude female slaves. Another shows a cavalcade of women dressed in little more than a fig-leaf. Yet an- other represents the booking-ofifice of the theater stormed by a crowd of ^/(r^J/- looking, single eye-glassed old beaux, grinning with pleasure in anticipation of the show within. Another poster displays the charms of the proprietress of the undertaking. You must not, however, imagine any harm of the performers whose attractions are so liberally placarded. They are taken to their cars in the depot immediately after the performance and locked up ; there is an announcement to that effect. These placards are merely eye-ticklers. But this mixture of churches, strict Sabbatarianism, and posters of this kind, is part of the eternal history of the Anglo-Saxon race — violent contrast. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. «95 A school inspector has kindly shown me several schools in the town. The children of rich and poor alike are educated together in the public schools, from which they get promoted to the high schools. All these schools are free. Boys and girls sit on the same benches and re- ceive the same education, as in the United States. This enables the women in the New World to com- pete with men for all the posts that we Europeans consider the monopoly of man ; it also enables them to enjoy all the intellectual pleasures of life. If it does not prevent them, as it has yet to be proved that it does, from being good wives and mothers, the educational system of the New World is much superior to the European one. It is essentially democratic. Europe will have to adopt it. Society in the Old World will not stand long on its present basis. There will always be i ich and poor, but every child that is born will require to be given a chance, and, according as he avails himself of it or not, will be successful or a failure. But give him a chance, and the greatest and most real grievance of mankind in the present day will be removed. Every cb'M that is born in America, whether in the United States or in Canada, has that chance. i'l ^ n Ill 1 ' % i' f. f,: ' M «.^!i » I, 1. 1^:1 illli CHAPTER XXII. West Canada— Relations hetwekn British and Indians— Return to the United Siates — Difficulties in the Way— Encounter with AN American Custom-House Officer. In the train from Canada to Chicago, February 15. LECTURED in Bowmanville, Out., on the i2tli, ^ in Brantford on the 13th, and in Sarnia on the 14th, and am now on my way to Chicago, to go from there to Wisconsin and Minnesota. From Brantford I drove to the Indian Reservation, a few miles from the town. This visit explained to me why the EngUsh are so successful with their colonies : they have inborn in them the instinct of diplomacy and government. Whereas the Americans often swindle, starve, and shoot the Indians, the English keep them in comfort. England makes paupers and lazy drunkards of them, and they quietly and gradually disappear. She sup- plies them with bread, food, Bibles, and fire-water, and they become so lazy that they will not even take the trouble to sow the land of their reser- vations. Having a dinner supplied to them, they 196 A /'JR/:XC//A/.LV LW AMERICA. 197 give up hunting, ridinjr, and all their native spoils, and become enervated. They \^o to school and die of attacks of civilization. England gives them money to celebrate their national fetes and rejoic- ings, and the good Indians shout at the top of \ "v V". '"ft TIIK BRITISH INDIAN. their voices, God save the Queen ! that is — God save our pensions ! England, or Great Britain, or again, if you prefer, Greater Britain, goes further than that. In Brantford, in the middle of a large square, you can see the statue of the Indian chief Brant, erected to his memory by public subscriptions collected among the British Canadians. II ':■ HI? 1: 198 ji FRENCHMAISr IN AMERICA. Here lies the secret of John Bull's success as a colonizer. To erect a statue to an Indian chief is a stroke of genius. \m U't : III* 'i I^Uii 'Ijifl 5 J (ft:' p. I-V' 1 m ■li ;i, 'ill I •i What has struck me as most American in Canada is, perhaps, journalism. Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec possess excel- lent newspapers, and every little town can boast one or two journals. The tone of these papers is thoroughly Ameri- can in its liveliness — I had almost said, in its loudness. All are readable and most cleverly edited. Each paragraph is preceded by a neat and attractive heading. As in the American papers, the editorials, or leading articles, are of secondary importance. The main portion of the publication is devoted to news, interviews, stories, gossip, jokes, anecdotes, etc. The Montreal papers are read by everybody in the Province of Quebec, and the Toronto papers in the Province of Ontario, so that the newspapers published in small towns are content with giving all the news of the locality. Each of these has a " society " column. Nothing is more amusing than to read of the society doings in these little towns. " Miss Brown is visiting Miss Smith." " Miss Smith had tea with Miss Robin- son yesterday." When Miss Brown, or Miss Smith, or Miss Robinson has given a party, the names of all the guests are inserted as well as what they had for dinner, or for supper, as the case may be. So I take it for granted that when anybody gives a party, a ball. t • A FKENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 199 a dinner, a reporter receives an invitation to describe the party in the next issue of the paper. At nine o'clock this evening, I left Sarnia, on the frontier of Canada, to cross the river and pass into the United States. The train left the town, and, on arriving on the bank of the River St. Clair, wis divided into two sections which were run on board the ferry- boat and made the crossing side by side. The passage across the river occupied about twenty minutes. On arriving at the other bank, at Port Huron, in the State of Michigan, the train left the boat in the same fashion as it had gone on board, the two parts were coupled together, and the journey on terra firma was smoothly resumed. There is something fascinating about crossing a river at night, and I had promised myself some agree- able moments on board the ferry-boat, from which I should be able to see Port Huron lit up with twinkling lights. I was also curious to watch the train boarding the boat. But, alas, I had reckoned without my host. Instead of star-gazing and reverie, there was in store for me a " bad quarter of an hour." No sooner had the train boarded the ferry-boat than there came to the door of the parlor car a surly-look- ing, ill-mannered creature, who roughly bade me come to the baggage van, in the other section of the train, and open my trunks for him to inspect. As soon as I had complied, he went down on his knees among my baggage, and it was plain to see that he meant business. it 1 »^;k I B I l^i: III m ¥* mm i i 4 I ''# ;■■? ill' ^1 1 ' » -f ■ * 1' i 'M i uf- 9 {¥: 1 Ml lLss=9 200 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. The first thing he took out was a suit of clothes, which he threw on the dirty floor of the van. " Have these been worn ? " he said. " They have," I replied. Then he took out a blue jacket which I used to cross the Atlantic. "HAVE YOU WORN THIS?" " Have you worn this ? " ** Yes, for the last two years." ** Is that all ?" he said, with a low sardonic grin. My trunk was the only one he had to examine, as I was the only passenger in the parlor car; and I saw that he meant to annoy me, which, I imagined, he could do with perfect impunity. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 20I The best thing, in fact, the only thing to do was to take the misadventure good-humoredly. He took out my linen and examined it in detail. " Have these shirts all been worn ? " "Well, I guess they have. But how is it that you, an official of the government, seem to ignore the law of your own country? Don't you know that if all these articles are for my own private use, they are not dutiable, whether new or not ? " The man did not answer. He took out more linen, which he put on the floor, and spreading open a pair of unmentionables, he asked again : " Have you worn this? It looks quite new." I nodded affirmatively. He then took out a pair of socks. " Have yon worn these ? " " I don't know," I said. " Have a sniff at them." He continued his examination, and was about to throw my evening suit on the floor. I had up to now been almost amused at the proceedings, but I felt my good-humor was going, and the lion began to wag its tail. I took the man by the arm, and looking at him sternly, I said : " Now, you put this carefully on the top of some other clothes." He looked at me and complied. By this time all the contents of my large trunk were spread on the floor. He got up on his feet and said : i !, ;' i i \ m 202 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. %. ^' m 1*!'; Ii: 'r I'" iii! i I M \i\' If' ^ % ^ f -■PI ; 'I " Have I looked everywhere?" " No," I said, ** you haven't. Do you know how the famous Regent diamond, worn by the last kings of France on their crowns, was smuggled into French territory?" The creature looked at me with an air of impudence. "No, I don't," he replied. I explained to him, and added: "You have not looked there'* The lion, that lies dormant at the bottom of the quietest man, was fairly roused in me, and on the least provocation, I would have given this man a first-class hiding. He went away, wondering whether I had insulted him or not, and left me in the van to repack my trunk as best I could, an operation which, I understand, it was his duty to perform himself. THE CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXIII. II Chicago (First Vi jIt) — The " Neighborhood " OF Chicago— The History of Chicago — Pub- lic Servants— A Very Deaf Man. Chicago, February 17. OH ! a lecturing tour in America ! I am here on my way to St. Paul and Min- neapolis. Just before leaving New York, I saw in a comic . paper that Bismarck must really now be considered as a great man, because, since his departure from office, there had been no rumor of his having applied to Major Pond to get up a lecturing tour for him in the United States. It was not news to me that there are plenty of people in America who laugh at the European author's trick of going to the American platform as soon as he has made a little name for himself in his own country. The laugh finds an echo in England, especially from some journalists who have never been asked to go, and from a few men who, having done one tour, think it wise not to repeat the experience. For my part, when I consider that Emerson, Holmes, Mark Twain, have been lecturers, that Dickens, Thackeray, Matthew Arnold, Sala, Stanley, Archdeacon Farrar, and many i U: I li !'t ■ •: li '(:i: - '■; (! { Hi 1 i ^ii ^' 1 ■ : 1 1 ' 1 i iS-,' 204 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. more, all have made their bow to American audiences, I fail to discover anything very derogatory in the pro- ceeding. Besides, I feel bound to say that there is nothing in a lecturing tour in America, even in a highly success- ful one, that can ex- ^,^^^^— --^ cite the envy of the most jealous " fail- ure" in the world. Such work is about the hardest that a man, used to the comforts of this life, can undertake. Ac- tors, at all events, stop a week, some- times a fortnight, in the cities they visit ; but a lecturer is on the road every day, happy when he has not to start at night. No words can picture the monotony of journeys through an immense continent, the sameness of which strikes you as almost unbearable. Everything is made on one pattern. All the towns are alike. To be in a railroad car for ten or twelve hours day after day can hardly be called luxury, or even comfort. To have one's poor brain matter thus shaken in the cranium is terrible, especially when the cranium is not quite full. Constant traveling softens the brain, liquefies it, churns it, evaporates it, and it runs out of you through all the cracks of your head. I own that traveling is comfort- A PIG SQUEALING. A rRENCIIMAN IN AMERICA. 205 able in America, even luxurious; but the best fare becomes monotonous and unpalatable when the dose is repeated every day. To-morrow night I lecture in Minneapolis. The next night I am in Detroit. Distance about seven hundred miles. "Can I manage it?" said I to my impresario, when he showed me my route. " Why, certn'ly," he replied; "if you catch a train after your lecture, I guess you will arrive in time for your lecture in Detroit the next day." These remarks, in America, are made without a smile. On arriving at Chicago this morning, I found await- ing me at the Grand Pacific Hotel, a letter from my impresario. Here is the purport of it : I know you have with you a trunk and a small portmanteau. I would advise you to leave your trunk at the Grand Pacific, and to take with you only the portmanteau, while you are in the neighbor- hood of Chicago. You will thus save trouble, expense, etc. On looking at my route, I found that the " neighbor- hood of Chicago " included St. Paul, Minneapolis, Mil- waukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Indianapolis: something like a little two-thousand-mile tour "in the neighborhood of Chicago," to be done in about one week. When I confided my troubles to my American friends, I got little sympathy from them. "That's quite right," they would say; "we call the neighborhood of a city any place which, by starting after dinner, you can reach at about breakfast time the '#': ll ll El ■IIHJ! ' m\ \ '1 1 1; 1 , ,'!ttr I 1 I 2o6 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. next day. You dine, you go on board the car, you have a smoke, you go to bed, you sleep, you wake up, you dress — and there you are. Do you see ? " After all you may be of this opinion, if you do not reckon sleeping time. But I do reckon it, when I have to spend the night in a closed box, six feet long, and three feet wide, and about two feet high, and especially when the operation has to be repeated three or four times a week. \ :i l!.;i- I \..^ -^ : i :-, i 1 ' % ■ '! 'J ■ (', ; 1 i J ■ i Li" ■ And the long weary days that are not spent in traveling, how can they be passed, even tolerably, in an American city, where the lonely lecturer knows nobody, and where there is absolutely nothing to be seen beyond the hotels and the dry-goods stores? Worse still ; he sometimes has the good luck to make the acquaintance of some charming people : but he has hardly had time to fix their features in his memory, when he has to go, probably never to see them again. The lecturer speaks for an hour and a half on the platform every evening, the rest of his time is exclus- ively devoted to keeping silence. Poor fellow! how grateful he is to the hotel clerk who sometimes — alas, very seldom — will chat with him for a few minutes. As a rule the hotel clerk is a mute, who assigns a room to you, or hands you the letters waiting for you in the box corresponding to your number. His mouth is closed. He may have seen you for half a minute only; he will rememberyou. Even in a hotel accommodating over a thousand guests, he will know you, he will know the number of your room, but he won't speak. He is not the only American that won't speak. Every man I t t ; THE SLEEPING CAR. I ii: is::^ I. 208 // FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I': • ' !i I ii H in America who is attending to some duty or other, has his mouth closed. I have tried the railroad con- ductor, and found him mute. I have had a shot at the porter in the Pullman car, and found him mute. I ^ -«»^ have endeavored to draw out the janitors of the halls where I was to speak in the evening, and I have failed. Even the negroes won't speak. You would imagine that speaking was prohibited b y t h e statute-book. When my lecture was over, I returned to the hotel, and like a cul- prit crept to bed. How I do love New York! It is not that it pos- sesses a single building that I really care for ; it is be- cause it contains scores and scores of delightful people, brilliant, affable, hospitable, warm-hearted friends, who were kind enough to welcome me when I returned from a tour, and in whose company I could break up the cobwebs that had had time to form in the corners of my mouth. THE JANITOR. »: ! ^ ., -t (" The history of Chicago can be written in a few lines. So can the history of the whole of America. A FRENCHMAN IN AME.KICA. 209 In about 1830 a man called Benjamin Harris, with his family, moved to Chicago, or Fort Dearborn, as it was then called. Not more than half a dozen whites, all of whom were Indian traders, had preceded them. In 1832 they had a child, the first white female born in Chicago — now married, called Mrs. S. A. Holmes, and the mother of fourteen children. In 1871 Chi- cago had over 100,000 inhabitants, and was burned to the ground. To-day Chicago has over 1,200,000 in- habitants, and in ten years* time will have two mil- lions. The activity in Chicago is perfectly amazing. And I don't mean commercial activity only. Compare the following statistics: In the great reading rooms of the British Museum, there was an average of 620 readers daily during the year 1888. In the reading- room of the Chicago Public Library, there was an av- erage of 1569 each day in the same year. Considering that the population of London is nearly five times that of Chicago, it shows that the reading public is ten times more numerous in Chicago than in London. ^1 ■•! ' '\ ; \ It is a never failing source of amusement to watch the ways of public servants in this country. I went to pay a visit to a public museum this after- noon. In Europe, the keepers, that is to say, the servants of the public, have cautions posted in the museums, in which "the public are requested not to touch." In France, they are *' begged," which is perhaps a more suitable expression, as the museums, after all, belong to the public. aio A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. \\\ In America, the notice is " Hands off ! " This is short and to tlie point. The servants of the public al- low you to enter the museums, charge you twenty-five THE "DRUSH-UP cents, and warn you to behave well. "Hands off" struck me as rather off-handed. I really admire the independence of all the ser- ants in this country. You may give them a tip, you will not run the risk of making them servile or even polite. A FR Eh' CUM AN IN AMERICA. 211 The railway conductor says " ticket ! " The word please docs not belong to his vocabulary any more than the words " thank you." He says " ticket " and frowns. You show it to him. He looks at it suspi- ciously, and gives it back to you with a haughty air that seems to say : " I hope you will behave properly while you are in my car." The tip in America is v\oi de rigueur as in Europe. The cabman charges you so much, and expects noth- ing mere. He would lose his dignity by accepting a tip (many run the risk). He will often ask you for more than you owe him; but this is the act of a sharp man of business, not the act of a servant. In doingso, he does not derogate from his character. The negro is the only servant who smiles in Amer- ica, the only one who is sometimes polite and attentive, and the only one who speaks English with a pleasant accent. The negro porter in the sleeping cars has seldom failed to thank me for the twenty-five or fifty cent piece I always give him after he has brushed — or rather, swept — my clothes with his little broom. • • • • • A few minutes ago, as I was packing my valise for a journey to St. Paul and Minneapolis to-night, the porter brought in a card. The name was unknown tome; but the porter having said that it was the card of a gentleman who was most anxious to speak to me, I said, ** Very well, bring him here." The gentleman entered the room, saluted me, shook hands, and said • ** I hope I am not intruding." 1 1 I ' 1 1 i M '■ !' It m 212 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. Mi' i l' I ■ Vi Mi ' "Well," said I, " I must ask you not to detain me long, because I am off in a few minutes." " I understand, sir, that some time ago you were en- gaged in teaching the French language in one of the great public schools of England." " I was, sir," I replied. " Well, I have a son whom I wish to speak French properly, and I have come to ask for your views I '""'T. on the subject. In other words, will you be good enough to tell me what are the best methods for teaching this larguage ? Only excuse me, I am very deaf." He pulled out of his back pocket two yards of gutta- percha tube, and, applying one end to his ear and placing the other against my mouth, he said, " Go ahead." " Really ? " I shouted through the tube. *' Now 11 I A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 13 please shut your eyes ; nothing is better for increasing the power of hearing." The man shut his eyes and turned his head side- ways, so as to have the h'stening ear in front of me. I took my valise and ran to the elevator as fast as I could. That man may still be waiting for aught I know and care. W Before leaving the hotel, I made the acquaintance of Mr. George Kennan, the Russian traveler. His articles on Russia and Siberia, published in the Cen- tury Magazine, attracted a great deal of public atten- tion, and people everywhere throng to hear him relate his terrible experiences on the platform. He has two hundred lectures to give this season. He struck me as a most remarkable man — simple, unaffected in his manner, with unflinching resolution written on his face ; a man in earnest, you can see. I am delighted to find that I shall have the pleasure c' meeting him again in New York in the middle of April. He looks tired. He, too, is lecturing in the " neighborhood of Chicago," and is off now to the night train for Cincin- nati. i r. II I CHAPTER XXIV. n; Mi ' I.. 't i ! il 1; If if 1 If:^ III v^l li I ! il St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Sister Cities — Ri- valries AND Jealousies between Large Amer- ican Cities — Minnehaha Falls — Wonderful Interviewers— My Hat gets into Trouble Again — Electricity in the Air — Forest Ad- vertisements— Railway Speed in America. SL Paul, Minn.y February 20. ARRIVED at St. Paul the day before yesterday - to pay a professional visit to the two great sister cities of the north of America. Sister cities ! Yes, they are near enough to shake hands and kiss each other, but I am afraid they avail themselves of their proximity to scratch each other's faces. If you open Bouillet's famous Dictionary of History and Geography (edition 1880), you will find in it neit 'lor St. Paul nor Minneapolis. I was told yesterday tlui' in 1834 there was one white inhabitant in Minneapo- lis. To-day the two cities have about 200,000 inhabi- tants each. Where is the dictionary of geography that can keep pace with such wonderful phantasmagoric growth ? The two cities are separated by a distance of about nine miles, but they are every day growing 314 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 215 up toward each other, and to-morrow they will practi- cally have become one. Nothing is more amusing than the jealousies which exist between the different, large cities of the United States, and when these rival places are close to each other, the feeling of jealousy is so intensified as to become highly entertaining. St. Paul charges Minneapolis with copying into the census names from tombstones, and it is aflfirmed that young men living in either one of the cities will marry girls belonging to the other so as to de- crease its population by one. The story goes that once a preacher having announced, in a Min- neapolis church, that he had taken the text of his sermon from St. Paul, the congregation walked out en masse. New York despises Philadelphia, and pokes fun at Boston. On the other hand, Boston hates Chicago, and vice versa. St. Louis has only contempt for Chi- cago, and both cities laugh heartily at Detroit and Milwaukee. San Francisco and Denver are left alone in their prosperity. They are so far away from the east and north of America, that the feeling they in- spire is only one of indifference. " Philadelphia is a city of, homes, not of lodging- houses," once said a Philadelphian to a New Yorker ; " and it spreads over a far greater area than New York, with less than half the inhabitants." "Ah," replied the New Yorker, "that's because it has been so much sat ur,»on." "You are a city of commerce," said a Bostonian to a New York wit ; " Boston is a city of culture." Ii'' . in f t ■=r 2l6 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. m i i ■■ ■■ H ii i^ I'- "Yes," replied the New Yorker, "you spell culture with a big C, and God with a small g." Of course St. Paul and Minneapolis accuse each other of counting their respective citizens twice over. All that is diverting in the highest degree. This feel- ing does not exist only between the rival cities of the New World, it exists in the Old. Ask a Glasgow man what he thinks of Edinburgh, and an Edinburgh man what he thinks of Glasgow ! • • • • • On account of the intense cold (nearly thirty degrees below zero), I have not been able to see much eitherof St. Paul or of Minneapolis, and I am unable to please or vex either of these cities by pointing out their beauties and defects. Both are large and substantially built, with large churches, schools, banks, stores, and all the temples that modern Christians erect to Jehovah and Mammon. I may say that the Ryan Hotel at St. Paul and the West House at Minneapolis are among the very best hotels I have come across in America, the latter especially. When I have added that, the day before yesterday, I had an immense audience in the People's Church at St. Paul, and that to-night I have had a crowded house at the Grand Opera House in Minneapolis, it is hardly necessary for me to say that I shall have enjoyed myself in the two great towns, and that I shall carry away with me a delightful recollec- tion of them. ^ Soon after arriving in Minneapolis yesterday, I went to see the Minnehaha Falls, immortalized by Long- fellow. The motor line gave me an idea of rapid tran- A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 217 sit. I returned to the West House for lunch and spent the afternoon writing. Many interviewers called The first who came sat down in my room and point- r. " WHAT YEARLY INCOME DOES YOUR BOOKS AND LECTURES BRING IN?" blank asked me my views on contagious diseases, beeing that I was not disposed to talk on the subject he asked me to discourse on republics and the pros! ! ly m % ■■ 1 1- Si: ) i m ' : It-; 1- M : 111 I : J Hi;:] 1 hj ' 111 2l8 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. pects of General Boulanger. In fact, anything for copy. Tlie second one, after asking me where I came from and where I was going, inquired whether I had ex- hausted the Anglo-Saxons and whether I should write on other nations. After I had satisfied him, he asked me what yearly income my books and lectures brought in. Another wanted to know why I had not brought my wife with me, how many children I had, how old they were, and other details as wonderfully interesting to the public. By and by I saw he was jotting down a description of my appearance, and the different clothes I had on! "I will unpack this trunk," I said, "and spread all its contents on the floor. Perhaps you would be glad to have a look at my things." He smiled : " Don't trouble any more," he said ; " I am very much obliged to you for your courtesy." This morning, on opening the papers, I see that my hat is getting into trouble again. I thought that, after getting rid of my brown hat and sending it to the editor in the town where it had created such a sensation, peace was secured. Not a bit. In the Minneapolis yiy«r;m/ I read the following: The attractive personality of the man [allow me to record this for the sake of what follows], heightened by his iidgUgd sack coat and vest, with a background of yellowish plaid trowsers (sic^ occasional glimpses of which were revealed from beneath the folds of a heavy ulster, which swept the floor [I was sitting of course] and was trimmed with fur collar and cuffs. And then that hat ! On the table, carelessly thrown ahiid a pile of correspondence, was- his nondescript headgear. One of those half-sombreros affected by the wild Western cowboy when on dress parade, an impossible com- bination of dark-blue and bottle-green. A FKEN-CIIMAN' /.V AMERICA. 219 Fancy treating in this off-handed Avay a $7.50 soft black felt hat bought of the best hatter in New York! No, nothing is sacred for those interviewers. Dark-blue and bottle-green! Why, did that man imagine that I wore my hat inside out so as to show the silk lining? The air here is perfectly wonderful, dry and full of electricity. If yoirr fingers come into contact with anything metallic, like the hot-water pipes, the chan- deliers, the stopper of your washing basin, they draw a spark, sharp and vivid. One of the reporters who called here, and to whom I mentioned the fact, was able to light my gas with his finger, by merely obtain- ing an electric spawk on the top of the burner. When he said he could thus light the gas, I thought he was joking. I had observed this phenomenon before. In Ottawa, for instance. Whether this air makes you live too quickly, I do not know; but it is most bracing and healthy. I have never felt so well and hearty in my life as in these cold, dry climates. • • • • • I was all the more flattered to have such a large and fashionable audience at the Grand Opera House to- night, ^hat my causerie was not given under the auspices of any society, or as one of any course of lectures. I lecture in Detroit the day after to-morrow. I shall have to leave Minneapolis to-morrow morning at six o'clock for Chicago, which I shall reach at ten in the evening. Then I shall have to run to the Michigan Central Station to catch the night train to Detroit at v-\. I I i' i 1 1 Hii I . I il: i'|h If!) H 220 /f FKEXCHMAiy IN AMERICA. l \ % '.- , ^f f* it ,' *-f* ^:^ 1 i (♦ ■ ■'■ F % \\ . ' -' Iw i ' '( !'- RK r , s J i * i Iw f:f. ^ J J 1- F ^ -'i 1' \i tl .r : '<;j < ^'j ;f ; 1 1 •■- w :'?': \ ii ■ ■ '(V ■ ■! ' WmL^ ».. "-""m eleven. Altogether, twenty-three hours of railway traveling — 745 miles. And still in " the neighborhood of Chicago ! " • • ■ • « Jn the train to Chicago, February 21. Have just passed a wonderful advertisement. Here, BEAUT CRAY PERFUMES AN ADVERTISEMENT. in the midst of a forest, I have seen a huge wide board nailed on two trees, parallel to the railway line. On it was written, round a daub supposed to represent one of It ? A FREi\'CIIMAN IX AMERICA. 221 the loveliest Eiifrlish ladies: " If )-oii would be as lovely as the beautiful Lady de Gray, use Gray perfumes." Soyez done bclle^ to be used as an advertisement in the forests of Minnesota! My lectures have never been criticised in more kind, flattering, and eulogistic terms than in the St. Paul and the Minneapolis papers, which I am reading on my way to Chicago. I find newspaper reading a great source of amuse- ment in the trains. First of all because these papers always are light reading, and also because reading is a possibility in a well lighted carriage going J only at a moderate speed. Eating is com- fortable, and even writ- ing is possible en route. With the exception of a few trains, such as are run from New York to Boston, Chicago, and half a dozen other important cities, rail- way traveling is slower in America than in England and France ; but I have never found fault with the speed of an American train. On the contrary, I have always felt grateful to the driver for running slowly. And every time that the car reached the other side of some of the many rotten wooden bridges on which the train had to pass, I returned thanks. I KETURNED THANKS. w r i^ i ^ • >1 ' ■ ■ 1 i.J Hi^ r s'l; ; !^: :iU III!! CHAPTER XXV. Detroit — The Town — The Detroit "Free Press"— A Lady Interviewer— The "Unco Guid" in Detroit — Reflections on the Anglo-Saxon " Unco Guid." Detroit, February 22. AM delighted with Detroit. It possesses beautiful ^ streets, avenues, and walks, and r. nne square in the middle of which stands a remarkably fine monument. I am also grateful to this city for breaking the monot- ony of the eternal parallelograms with which the whole of the United States are built. My national vanity almost suggests to me that this town owes its gracefulness to its French origin. There are still, I am told, about 25,000 French people settled in Detroit. I have had to-night, in the Church of Our Father, a crowded and most brilliant audience, whose keen- ness, intelligence, and kindness were very flattering. I was interviewed, both by a lady and a gentleman, for the Detroit Free Press, that most witty of Ameri- can newspapers. The charming young lady inter- viewer came to talk on social topics. I remarked that she was armed with a copy of " Jonathan and his Continent," and I came to the conclusion that she 323 THE LADY INTERVIEWER. ..<' r::J. I ,•/ I'A'EXCI/MAX IX AMERICA. \m- f!>. ! J J W i 'lii: III I'i'^i would probably ask for a few explanations about that bt)ok. I was not mistaken. She took exception, slie infonned me, to many statements concerning tiie American girl in the book. I made a point to prove to her that all was right, and all was truth, and I think I persuaded her to abandon the prosecution. To tell the truth, now the real truth, mind you, I am rather tired of l.earing about the American girl. The more I see of her the more I am getting con- vinced that she is — like the other girls in the world. t • « • • A friend, who came to have a chat with me after this lecture, has told me that the influential people of the city are signing a petition to the custodians of the museum calling upon them to drape all the nude statues, and intimating their intentir-< of boycotting the institution, if the Venuses and "^oUos are not forthwith provided with tuckers and togas. It is a well-known fact in the history of the world, that young communities have no taste for fine art — they have no time to cultivate it. If I had gone to Oklahoma, I should not have expected to find any art feeling at all ; but that in a city like Detroit, where there is such evidence of intellectual life :Ind high culture among the inhabitants, a party should be found numerous and strong enough to issue such a heathen dictate as this seems scarcely credible. I am inclined to think it must be a joke. That the " unco guid " should flourish under the gloomy sky of Great Britain I understand, but under the bright blue sky of America, in that bracing atmosphere, I cannot. It is most curious that there should be people who, -/ /''A'/:X(7/A/,IX /x AMERICA. 225 when confronted with some jrlorious masterpiece of sculpture, should not sec the poetry, the beauty of the ^^"^ THE DRAPED STATUES. human form divine. This is beyond me, and beyond any educated Frenchman. Does the " unco guid " exist in America, then ? I W' . i mi ■M-nir''FWlg3BB OBBS U 226 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. V. \. \ " k: I '". ■: ill J 11' r i^ f h r , t : !:l i 1 j: '!; 1 '' 1 'I' i i.s:, ; should have thought that these people, of the earth earthy, were not found out of England and Scotland. When I was in America two years ago, I heard that an English author of some repute, talking one day with Mr. Richard Watson Gilder about the Venus of Milo, had remarked that, as he looked at her beautiful form, he longed to put his arms around her and kiss her. Mr. Gilder, who, as a poet, as an artist, has felt only respect mingled with his admiration of the match- less divinity, replied : " I hope she would have grown a pair of arms for the occasion, so as to have slapped your face." It is not so much the thing that offends the " unco guid " ; it is the name, the reflection, the idea. Un- healthy-minded himself, he dreads a taint where there is none, and imagines in others a corruption which exists only in himself. Yet the One, whom he would fain call Master, but whose teachings he is slow in following, said : '* Woe be to them by whom offense cometh." But the " unco guid" is a Christian failure, 2. parvenu. • * • • • ThQ parvenu is a person who makes strenuous efforts to persuade other people that he is entitled to the position he occupies. There ^cc^ parvemis in religion, as there 2,xq parvenus in the aristocracy, in society, in literature, in the fine arts, etc. The worst type of the French parvenu is the one whose father was a worthy, hard-working man called Dubois or Dumonty and who, at his father's death, dubs himself du Bois or du Mont, becomes a clericalist and \\\ B V A FRENCHMAN- IN AMERICA. -7 the stanchest monarch- ist, and runs down the great Revolution which made one of his grand - parents a man. M. du Bois or du Mont outdoes the genuine nobleman, who needs make no noise to at- tract attention to a name vhich everybody knows, and which, in spite of what may be said on the subject, often recalls the mem- ory oi some glorious event in the past. The worst type of Anglo - Saxon parvenu is probably the '* unco guid," or religious par- venu. The Anglo-Saxon " unco guid " is seldom to be found among Roman Catholics; that is, among the followers of the most ancient Christian religion. He is to be found among the followers of the newest forms of " Christianity." This is quite natural. He has to try to eclipse his V- I THE PARVENU. I . I i ^ \iV. It i. m J i :' |- hi' '^-f t'iV \ II ii I !l 228 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. fellow-Christians by his piety, in order to show that the iijvv religion to which he belongs was a necessary invention. The Anglo-Saxon " unco guid " is easily recognized. He is dark (all bigots and fanatics are). He is dressed in black, shiny broadcloth raiment. A wide-brimmed felt hat covers his head. He walks with light, short, jaunty steps, his head a little inclined on one side. He never carries a stick, which might give a rather fast appearance to his turn-out. He invariably carries an umbrella, even in the brightest weather, as being more respectable — and this umbrella he never rolls, for he would avoid looking in the distance as if he had a stick. He casts right and left little grimaces that are so many forced smiles of self-satisfaction. " Try to be as good as I am," he seems to say to all who happen to look at him, " and you will be as happy." And he ** smiles, and smiles, and smiles." He has a small soul, a small heart, and a small brain. As a rule, he is a well-to-do person. It pays better to have a narrow mind than to have broad sympathies. He drinks tea, but prefers cocoa, as being a more virtuous beverage. He is perfectly destitute of humor, and is the most inartistic creature in the world. Everything suggests to him either profanity or indecency. The " Remi- niscences of Scottish Life and Character," by Dean Ramsay, would strike him as profane, and if placed in the Mus^e du Louvre, before the Venus of Milo, he would see nothing but a woman who has next to no clothes on. His distorted mind makes him take everything in ill A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 229 part. His hands get pricked on every thorn that he comes across on the road, and he misses all the roses. If I were not a Christian, the following story, which is not as often told as it should be, would have con- verted me long ago : Jesus arrived one evening at the gates of a certain city, and he sent his disciples forward to prepare supper, while he himself, in- tent on doing good, walked through the streets into the market- place. And he saw at the corner of the market some people gath- ered together, looking at an object on the ground ; and he drew near to see what it might be. It was a dead dog, with a halter round his neck, by which he appeared to have been dragged through the dirt ; and a viler, a more abject, a more unclean thing, never met the eyes of man. And those who stood by looked on with abhorrence. "Faugh!" said one, stopping his nose, "it pollutes the air." " How long," said another, " shall this foul beast offend our sight .'"' •* Lool: at his torn hide," said a third; " one could not even cut a shoe out of it! " " And his ears," said a fourth, " all draggled and bleeding! " " No doubt," said a fifth, " he has been hanged for thieving! " And Jesus heard them, and looking down compassionately on the dead creature, he said : " Pearls are not equal to the whiteness of his teeth ! " If I understand the Gospel, the gist of its teachings is contained in the foregoing little story. Love and forgiveness : finding something to pity and admire even in a dead dog. Such is the religion of Christ. The " Christianity " of the " unco guid " is as like this religion as are the teachings of the Old Testa- ment. Something to condemn, the discovery of wickedness in the most innocent, and often elevating, recreations, such is the favorite occupation of the Anglo-Saxon *' unco guid." Music is licentious, laughter wicked, (11 ..1: \ I M 230 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. i ; f ; , I dancing immoral, statuary almost criminal, and, by and by, the " Society for the Suggestion of Inde- cency," which is placed under his immediate patron- age and supervision, will find fault with our going out in the streets, on the plea that under our garments we carry our nudity. The Anglo-Saxon "unco guid " is the successor of the Pharisee. In reading Christ's description of the latter, you are immediately struck with the likeness. The modern "unco guid" " loves to pray standing in the churches and chapels and in the corners of the streets, that he may be seen of men." " He uses vain repetitions, for he thinks that he shall be heard for his much speaking." " When he fasts, he is of sad coun- tenance; for he disfigures his face, that he may appear unto men to fast." There is not one feature of the portrait that does not fit in exactly. The Jewish *' unco guid " crucified Christ. The Anglo-Saxon one would crucify Him again if He should return to earth and interfere with the prosperous busi- ness firms that make use of His name. The "uncoguid's" Christianity consists in extoll- ing hisvirtues and ignoring other people's. He spends his time in *' pulling motes out of people's eyes," but cannot see clearly to do it, " owing to the beams that are in his own." He overwhelms you, he crushes you, with his virtue, and one of the greatest treats is tc catch him tripping, a chance which you may occasion- ally have, especially when you meet him on the Conti- nent of Europe. The Anglo-Saxon " unco guid " calls himself a Christian, but the precepts of the Gospel are the very ^'1 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 231 opposite of those he practices. The gentle, merciful, forgiving, Man-God of the Gospel has not for him the charms and attractions of the Jehovah who commanded the cowardly, ungrateful, and bloodthirsty people of- his choice to treat their women as slaves, and to ex- terminate their enemies, sparing neither old men, women, nor children. This cruel, revengeful, implaca- ble deity is far more to the Anglo-Saxon ** unco guid's " liking than the Saviour who bade His disciples love their enemies and put up their swords in the presence of his persecutors. The '* unco guid " is not a Christian, he is a Jew in all but name. And I will say this much for him, that the Commandments given on Mount Sinai are much easier to follow than the Sermon on the Mount. It is easier not to commit murder than to hold out your right check after your left one has been slapped. It is easier not to steal than to run after the man who has robbed us, in order to offer him what he has not taken. It is easier to honor our parents than to love our enemies. The teachings of the Gospel are trying to human nature. There is no religion more difficult to follow; and this is why, in spite of its beautiful, but too lofty, precepts, there is no religion in the world that can boast so many hypocrites — so many followers who pretend that they follow their religion, but who do not, and very probably cannot. Being unable to love man, as he is bidden in the Gospel, the " unco guid " loves God, as he is bidden in the Old Testament. He loves God in the abstract. He tells Him so in endless prayers and litanies. For him Christianity consists in di.scussing theologi- , \ ! i \ \ \ ^ ',.,-;«-* 111 i f .r if i: 1,1 (; I 'i i; I li! 11 ii'-:' If - ■< \ ■'1 h 1 1 ' ^ 1 ■ ', ^ if 1 i { i ;! [1; il- l il ! f 1 ; ■ ' -J ,1', 1 M |i 232 /i FRENCHMAN IN A xM ERICA. cal questions, whether a minister shall preach with or without a white surplice on, and in singing hymns more or less out of tune. As if God cculd be loved to the exclusion of man ! You love God, after all, as you love anybody else, not by professions of love, but by deeds. When he prays, the " unco guid " burios his face in his hands or in his hat. He screws up his face, and the more fervent the prayer is (or the more people are looking at him), the more grimaces he makes. Hein- rich Heine, on coming out of r n English church, said that " a blaspheming Frenchman must be a more pleasing object in the sight of God than many a pray- ing Englishman." He had, no doubt, been looking at the " unco guid." If you do not ho>d the same religious views as he does, you are a wicKed man, an atheist. He alone has the truth. Being engaged in a discussion with an " unco guid " one day, I told him that if God had given me hands to handle, surely He had given me a little brain to think. ** You are right," he quickly irtterrupted; " but, with the hands that God gave you you can commit a good action, and you can also com- mit murder." Therefore, because I did not think as he did, I was the criminal, for, of course, he was the righteous man. For all those who, like myself, believe in a future life, there is, I believe, a great treat in store : the sight of the face he will make, when his place is assigned to him in the next world. Qui mourra,verra. Anglo-Saxon land is governed by the "unco guid." Good society cordially despises him ; the aristocracy of Anglo-Saxon intelligence — philosophers, scientists, A FRENCHMAN IN A .V ERICA. 'II ave men of letters, artists— simply loathe him ; but all h„_ to bow to his rule, and submit their works to his most incompetent criticism, and all are afraid of him. Oil ID Tcfi'iM// THE POOR man's SABBATH In a moment of wounded national pride, Sydney Smith once exclaimed : «' What a pity it is we have no amusements in England except vice and religion !" The same exclamation might be uttered to-day, and the it .!^ J ,' ill 234 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. \\m I*: . iL ■\-\ m :.l cause laid at the Anglo-Saxon " uncogutd's " door. It is he who is responsible for the degradation of the Brit- ish lower classes, by refusing to enable them to elevate their minds on Sundays at the right of the master- pieces of art which are contained in the museums, or at the sound of the symphonies of Beethoven and Mozart, which might be given to the people at reduced prices on that day. The poor people must choose between vice and religion, and as the wretches know they are not wanted in the churches, they go to the taverns. It is this same " unco guid" who is responsible for the state of the streets in the large cities of Great Briti in by refusing to allow vice to be regulated. If you were to add the amount of immorality to be found in the streets of Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and the other capitals of Europe, no fair-minded Englishman " who knows" would contradict me, if I said that the total thus ob- tained would be much below the amount supplied by London alone ; but the ** unco guid " stays at home of an evening, advises you to do the same, and ignoring, o ? ^tending to ignore, what is going on round his o\. .1 nouse, he prays for the conversion — of the French. The " unco guid " thinks that his own future safety is assured, so he prays for his neighbors'. He reminds one of certain Scots, who inhabit two small islands on the west coast of Scotland. Tneir piety is really most touching. Every Sunday in their churches, they com- mend to God's care " the puir inhabitants of the two adjacent islands of Britain and Ireland." A few weeks ago, there appeared in a Liverpool pa- per a letter, signed " A Lover of Reverence," in which A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 23s this anonymous person complained of a certain lec- turer, who had indulged in profane remarks. " \ was not present myself," he or she said, ** but have heard of what took place," etc. You see, this person was not present, but as a good ** Christian," he hastened to judge. However, this is nothing. In the letter, I read : " Fortunately, there are in Liverpool, a few Christians, like myself, always on the watch, and ever looking after our Maker's honor." Fortunate Liverpool ! What a proud position for the Almighty, to be placed in Liverpool under the protection of the "Lover of Reverence ! ' Probably this " unco guid " and myself would not agree on the definition of the word profanity, for, if I had written and published such a letter, I would consider myself guilty, not only of profanity, but of blasphemy. If the ** unco guid " is the best product of Chris- tianity, Christianity must be pronounced a ghastly fail- ure, and I should feel inclined to exclaim, with the late Dean Milman, " If all this is Christianity, it is high time we should try something else — say the religion of Christ, for instance." ^11, ! f I) 1 |i I 1 1 1 ; » .-»' ii 1 1 i ;1: !■ :i . 1 y hh . ! i' '1 ; j fir 111- ill I;! '4 If ■1 c It! i* Si W' y' ■ CHAPTER XXVI. Milwaukee— A Well-filled Day— Reflections ON THE Scotch in America— Chicago Criti- cisms. Mihvaukcc, February 25. ARRIVED here from Detroit yesterday. Mil- . waukee is a city of over two hundred thousand inhabitants, a very large proportion of whom are Ger- mans, who have come here to settle down, and wish good luck to tile Vaterland, at the respectful distance of five thousand miles. At the station I was met by Mr. John L. Mitchell, the railway king, and by a compatriot of mine, M. A. de Guerville, a young enthusiast who has made up his mind to check the German invasion of Milwaukee, and has succeeded in starting a French society, composed of the leading inhabitants of the city. On arriving, I found a heavy but delightful programme to go through during the day: a lunch to be given me by the ladies at Milwaukee College at one o'clock ; a reception by the French.. Club at Mrs. John L. Mitchell's house at four ; a dinner at six ivcxy. lecture at/eight,'and a tetrep-- tion and a supper by the PressGiub at half-past ten ; the rest of the evening to be spent as circumstances would allow or suggest. I was to be the guest of Mr. Mit- chell at his magnificent house in town; f' i; A CITIZEN OF MILWAUKEE. if I w ill Hi /. • ru'''^ '1 - ' i ' '. '■' )! : j: 1 ll • 238 .1 FREXCllMA.y IX AMERICA. " Good," I said, " let us begin." • • » • Went tliroiigli the whole programme. Tlic recep- tion by the French Club, in the beautiful Moorish- looking rooms of Mrs. John L. Mitchell's superb man- sion, was a great success. I was amazed to meet so many French-speaking people, and much amused to see my young compatriot go from one group to an- other, to satisfy himself that all the members of the club were speaking French ; for I must tell you that, among the statutes of the club, there is one that im- poses a fine of ten cents on any member caught in the act of speaking English at the gatherings of the association. The lecture was a great success. The New Plym- outh Church* was packed, and the audience extremely warm and appreciative. The supper offered to me by the Press Club proved most enjoyable. And yet, that was not all. At one o'clock the Press Club repaired to a perfect German Braiierei, where we spent an hour in Bavaria, drinking excellent Bavarian beer while chatting, telling stories, etc. I will omit to mention at what time we returned home, so as noi to tell tales about my kind host. In spite of the late hours we kept last night, break- fast was punctually served at eight this morning. First course, porridge. Thanks to the kind, thoroughly Scotch hospitality of Mr. John L. Mitchell and his ♦Very strange, that church with its stalls, galleries, and boxes — a perfect theater. From the platform it was interesting to watch the immense throng, packing the place from floor to ceiling, in front, on the sides, behind, everywhere. // Fk'KXCllMAX liV AMERICA. 239 cliarmiiifj family, tlianks to the many friends and sympatliizcrs I met here, I shall carry away a most pleasant recollection of this lar^e and bcautifid city. I shall leave Milwaukee with much regret. Indeed, the worst feature of a thick lecturing tour is to feci, almost every day, that you leave behind friends whom you may never see again. I lecture at the Central Music Hall, Chicago, this evening ; but Chicago is reached from here in two hours and a half, and I will go as late in the day as I can. No more beds for me now, until I reach Albany, in three days. The railway king in Wisconsin is a Scotchman. I was not surprised to hear it. The iron king in Penn- sylvania is a Scotchman, Mr. Andrew Carnegie. The oil king of Ohio is a Scotchman, Mr. Alexander Mac- donald. The silver king of California is a Scotchman, Mr. Mackay. The dry-goods-store king of New York — he is dead now — was a Scotchman, Mr. Stewart. It is just the same in Canada, just the same in Aus- tralia, and all over the English-speaking world. The Scotch are successful everywhere, and the new coun- tries offer them fields for their industry, their perse- verance, and their shrewdness. There you see them landowners, directors of companies, at the head of all the great enterprises. In the lower stations of life, thanks to their frugality and saving habits, you find them thriving everywhere. You go to the manufactory, you are told that the foremen are Scotch. I have, perhaps, a better illustration still. t"*! rf n 1 '. I ■ m tiM? 1} 1^ ill 240 yi FREh^ClIMAiV IN AMERICA. If you travel in Canada, either by the Grand Trunk or tile Canadian Pacific, you will meet in the last parlor car, near the stove, a man whose dut)'- consists in see- TALES OF OLD SCOTLAND. ing that, all along the line, the workmen are at their posts, digging, repairing, etc. These workmen are all day exposed to the Canadian temperature, and often have to work knee-deep in the snow. Well, you will A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 241 find that the man with small, keen eyes, who is able to do hib work in the railroad car, warming himself com- fortably by the stove, is invariably a Scotchman, There is only one berth with a stove in the whole business; it is he who has got it. Many times I have had a chat with that Scotchman on the subject of old Scot- land. Many times I have sat with him in the little smoking-room of the parlor car, listening to the his- tory of his life, or, maybe, a few good Scotch anec- dotes. I In the train from Chicago to Cleveland, February 26. I arrived in Chicago at five o'clock in the afternoon yesterday, dined, dressed, and lectured at the Music Hall under the auspices of the Drexel free Kinder- garten, There was a large audience, and all passed off very well. After the lecture, I went to the Grand Pacific Hotel, changed clothes, and went on board the sleeping car bound for Cleveland, O. VI The criticisms of my lecture in this morning's Chicago papers are lively. The Herald calls me: A Happen little Frenchman. Five feet eleven in height, and two hundred pounds in weight ! The Times says : That splendid trinity of the American peerage, the colonel, the judge, and the proffssor, turned out in full force at Central Music Hall last night. The lecturer is a magician who serves up your many little def<'ts, peculiar to the auditors' own country, on a I Inn' * mm !'■ pwr im i' ^1 . 11^9 K ' !ji ^ • ■^'' ■ ili&i '. [ji/^ii 11 , :,j If :i ; 1 * I- l!' ^ iS i li I I! A CELEBRATED EXECUTIONER. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA, 243 silver salver, so artistically garnished that one forgets the sarcasm in admiration of the sauce. The Tribune is quite as complimentary and quite as lively : His satire is as keen as the blade of the celebrated executioner who could cut a man's head off, and the unlucky person not know it until a pinch of snuff would cause a sneeze, and the decapitated head would, much to its surprise, find itself rolling over in the dust. And after a good breakfast at Toledo station, I en- joyed an hour poring over the Chicago papers. I lecture in Cleveland to-night, and am still in *' the neighborhood of Chicago." 1 j, i;: t» % If P 1 i. |i|5 i »■-; ? f -1' s ■it ■ i ill; :;.! . I' ill I: is i;) " if M CHAPTER XXVII. The Monotony of Traveling in the States- " Manon Lescaut" in America. lu the train from Cleveland to Albany^ February 27. AM getting tired and ill. I am not bed-ridden, r\. but am fairly well rid of a bed. I have lately spent as many nights in railway cars as in hotel beds. Am on my way to Albany, just outside " the neigh- borhood ' f Chicago." I lecture in that place to-night, and shall get to New York to-morrow. I am suffering from the monotony of life. My grcc;test objection to America (indeed I do not believe I have any other) is the sameness of everything. I understand the Americans who run away to Europe every year to see an old church, a wall covered with moss and ivy, some good old-fashioned peasantry not dressed like the rest of the world. What strikes a European most, in his rambles through America, is the absence of the picturesque. The country is monotonous, and eternally the same. Burned-up fields, stumps of trees, forests, wooden houses all built on the same pattern. All the stations you pass are alike. All the towns are alike. To say that an American town is ten times larger than another simply means that it has ten times more blocks of houses. 844 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 245 All the streets are alike, with the same telegraph poles, the same " Indian " as a sign for tobacconists, the same red, white, and blue pole as a sign for barbers. All the hotels are the same, all the menus are the same, all the plates and dishes the same — why, all the ink- stands are the same. All the people are dressed in the same way. When you meet an American with all his beard, you want to shake his hands and thank him for not shaving it, as ninety-nine out of every hundred Americans do. Of course I have not seen California, the Rocky Mountains, and many other parts of America where the scenery is very beautiful ; but I think my remarks can apply to those States most likely to be visited by a lecturer, that is, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and others, during the winter months, after the Indian summer, and before the re- newal of verdure in May. lUK SAME ' INDIAN.' \V 1 I; \ril '•i: VI V'' Hi 246 A FKF.Xl'/iAf.LV AV AMERICA. After breakfast, that indefatigable man of business, that intolerable bore, who incessantly bangs the doors and brings his stock-in-trade to the cars, came and whispered in my ears : •* New book — just out — a forbidden book ! " " A forbidden book ! What is that ? " I inquired. He showed it to me. It was " Manon Lescaut." Is it possible? That literary and artistic chef- (Tceuvre, which has been the original type of " Paul et Virginie" and "Atala"; that touching drama, which the prince of critics, Jules Janin, declared would be sufficient to save contemporary literature from complete oblivion, dragged in the mire, clothed in a dirty coarse English garb ! and ad- vertised as a forbidden book! Three generations of French people have wept over the pathetic story. Here it is now, stripped of its unique style and literary beauty, sold to the American public as an improper book — a libel by translation on a genius. British authors have complained for years that their books were stolen in America. They have suffered in pockets, it is true, but their reputation has spread through an immense continent. What is their complaint compared to that of the French au- NEW BOOK JUST OUT — A FOR- BIDDEN BOOK ! " A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 247 thors, who have the misfortune to see their works translated into American ? It is not only their pockets that suffer, but their reputation. The poor French author is at the mercy of incapable and malicious translators hired at starvation wages by the American pirate publisher. He is liable to a species of defama- tion ten times worse than robbery. And as I looked at that copy of " Manon Lescaut," I almost felt grateful that Prevost was dead. # CHAPTER XXVIII. For the First Time I See an American Paper Abuse Me— Albany to New York— A Lecture at Daly's Theater— Afternoon Audiences. ! Ncio York, February 23. THE American press has always been very good to me. P'airness one has a right to expect, but kind- ness is an extra that is not always thrown in, and therefore the uniform amiability of the American press toward me could not fail to strike me most agreeably. Up to yesterday I had not seen a single unkind notice or article, but in the Albany Express of yester- day morning I read : This evening the people of Albany are asked to listen to a lecture by Max O'Rell, who was in this country two years ago, and was treated with distinguished courtesy. When he went home he published a book tilled with deliberate misstatements and willful exaggerations of the traits of the American people. This paper " has reason," as the French say. My book contained one misstatement, at all events, and that was that "all Americans have a great sense of humor." You may say that the French are a witty people, but that does not mean that France contains no fools. It is rather painful to have to explain such 348 M'?" A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 249 things, but I do so for the benefit of that editor and with apologies to the general reader. In spite of this diverting little "par," I had an im- mense audience last night in Harmanus Bleecker Hall, a new and magnificent construction in Albany, RIP VAN WINKLE. excellent, no doubt, for music, but hardly adapted for lecturing in, on account of its long and narrow shape. I should have liked to stay longer in Albany, which struck me as being a remarkably beautiful place, but having to lecture in New York this afternoon, I took the vestibule train early this morning for New York. This journey is exceedingly picturesque along the W iiiil )! I' ^(i V M \\\ ^5° // I'REXCIIMA \ /y AMERICA. PJ H I'M' I !m r ' ') \ 'i\\ Hudson River, traveling as you do between two ranges of wooded hills, dotted over with beautiful habitations, and now and then passing a little town bathing its feet in the water. In the distance one gets good views of the Catskill Mountains, immortalized by Washington Irving in ** Rip Van Winkle." On boarding the train, the first thing I did was to read the news of yesterday. Imagine my amusement, on opening the Albany Express to read the following extract from the report of my lecture : He has an agreeable but not a strong voice. This was the only point that could be criticised in his lecture, which consisted of many clever sketches of the humorous side of the charact r of different Anglo-Saxon nations. His humor is keen, lie evidently is a great admirer of America and Americans, only bringing into ridicule some of their most conspicuously objectionable traits. . . . His lecture was entertaining, clever, witty and thoroughly enjoy- able. The most amur,ing part of all this is that the Ameri- can sketches which I introduced into my lecture last night, and which seemed to have struck the Albany Express so agreeably, were all extracts from the book •' filled with deliberate misstatements and willful ex- aggerations of the traits of the American people." Well, after all, there is humor, unconscious humor, in the Albany Express. ■ • • • • Arrived at the Grand Central Station in New York at noon, I gave up my check to a transfer man, but learned to my chagrin that the vestibule train from Albany had carried no baggage, and that my things would only arrive by the next train at about three J FREXCriMA' IX AMERICA. 251 o'clock. Pleasant news for a man who was due to address an audience at three ! There was only one way out of the difficulty. Off I went post-haste to a ready-made tailor's, who sold me a complete fit-out from head to foot. I did not examine the cut and fit of each garment ver}- minutely, but went off satisfied that I was presentini^ a neat and respectable appearance. Before going on the stage, however, I discovered that the sleeves of the new coat, though perfectly smooth and well-behaved so long as the arms inside them were bent at the elbow, developed a remarkable cross-twist as soon as I let my arms hang straight down. By means of holding it firm with the middle finger, I managed to keep the recalcitrant sleeve in position, and the affair passed off very well. Only my friends remarked, after the lec- ture, that they thought I looked a little bit stiff, especially when making my bow to the audience. \ LiTiLE iJiT sruq-.' ri. My lecture at Daly's Theater this afternoon was given under the auspices of the Bethlehem Day Nur- sery, and I am thankful to think that this most inter- esting association is a little richer to day than it was yesterday. For an afternoon audience it was remark- ably warm and responsive. I:!: f f i ■ i • ;,;■ n^ A FREXCIIMAN IX AMERICA. I Ikivc many times Icctmcd to afternoon audiences, but have not, as a rule.enjoycci it. Afternoon " shows" are a mistake. Uo not ask me why ; but think of those you have ever been to, and see if you have • lively recollection of them. There is a time for every- thing. Fancy playing the guitar under your lady love's window by daylight, for instance ! Afternoon audiences are kid-gloved ones. There is but a sprinkling of men, and so the applause, when it comes, is a feeble affair, more chilling almost than silence. In some fashionable towns it is bad form to applaud at all in the afternoon. 1 have a vivid recol- lection of the effect produced one afternoon in Chelt- enham by the vigorous applause of a sympathizing friend of mine, sitting in the reserved seats. How all the other reserved seats craned their necks in credulous astonishment to get a view of this innovator, this outer barbarian ! He was new to the wondrous ways of the Cliillitonians. In the same audience was a lady, Irish and very charming, as I found out on later acquaint- ance, who showed her appreciation from time to time by clapping the tips of her fingers together noiselessly, while her glance said : " I should very much like to applauJ, but you know I can't do it ; we are in Chelt- enham, aii'l such a thing is bad form, especially in the afternoon." Afternoon audiences in the southern health resorts of England are probably the least inspiriting and in- spiring of all. There are the sick, the lame, the halt. Some of them are very interesting people, but a large proportion appear to be suffering more from the bore- dom of life than any other complaint, and look as if A J-A'/:XC//.]/.lX /.V A ME A' /C A. 253 it would do them j^ood to follow out the well-known advice, " Live on rjixpcnce a day, and earn it." It is hard work entertaining people who have done every- thing, seen everything, tasted everj'thing, been every- THE GOUTY MAN. where — people whose sole aim is to kill time. A fair sprinkling are gouty. They spend most of their wak- ing hours in a bath-chair. As a listener, the gouty man is sometimes decidedly funny. lie gives signs of :k :llH 254 A FRENCIIMA.V IN AMERICA. I til v* life from time to time by a vigorous slap on his thigh and a vicious looking kick. Before I began to know him, I used to wonder whether it was my discourse producing some effect upon him. I am not afraid of meeting these people in America. Few people are bored here, all are happy to live, and all work and are busy. American men die of brain fever, but seldom of the gout. If an American saw that he must spend his life wheeled in a bath-chair, he would reflect that rivers are numerous in America, and he would go and take a plunge into one of them. :; !ii CHAPTER XXIX. Wanderings through New York— Lecture at THE Harmonie Club — Visit to the Century Club, j\\'Zi' ]'(>;-/', MarcJi I. THE more I see New York, the more I like it. After lunch I had a drive through Central Park and Riverside Park, along the Hudson, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I returned to the Everett House through Fifth Avenue. I have never seen Central Park in summer, but I can realize how beautiful it must be when the trees are clothed. To have such a park in the heart of the city is perfectly marvelous. It is true that, with the exception of the superb Catholic Cathedral, Fifth Avenue ha«; no monument worth mentioning, but the succession of stately mansions is a pleasant picture to the eye. What a pity this cathedral cannot stand in a square in front of some long thoroughfare, it would have a splendid effect. I know this was out of the question. Built as New York is, the cr^thedral could only take the place of a block. It simply represents so many numbers be- tween Fiftieth aino Fifty-first streets on Fifth Avenue. In the Prtrk I saw statues of Shakespeare, Walter Scott, and Robert Burns. I should have liked to see 839 I' I % k n I: i i lli t' I'll • i ; m 17 ■ I ( ! :■ u A •1-: 256 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. those of Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and many other celebrities of the land. Washington, Franklin, and Lincoln are practically the only Americans whose statues you see all over the country. They play here the part that Wellington and Nelson play in England. After all, the " bosses" and the local politicians who ' run the towns probably never heard of Longfellow, Bryant, Poe, etc. • • • • • At four o'clock, Mr. Thomas Nast, the celebrated caricaturist, called. I was delighted to make his acquaintance, and found him a most charming man. I dined with General Horace Porter and a few other friends at the Union League Club. The witty general was in his best vein. At eight o'clock I lectured at the Harmonie Club, and had a large and most appreciative audience, com- posed of the pick of the Israelite community in New York. After the lecture I attended one of the ** Saturdays" at the Century Club, and met Mr. Kendal, who, with his talented wife, is having a triumphant progress through the United States. There is no gathering in the world where you can see so many beautiful, intelligent faces as at the Cen- tury Club. There you see gathered together the cleverest men of a nation whose chief characteristic is cleverness. CHAPTER XXX. Visit to the Brooklyn Academy of Music- Rev. Dr. Talmage. Neiv York, March 2. WENT to hear Dr. T. de Witt Talmage this morn- ing at the Academy of Music, Brooklyn. What an actor America has lost by Dr. Talmage choosing the pulpit in preference to the stage ! The Academy of Music was crowded. Standing- room only. For an old-fashioned European, to see a theater, with its boxes, stalls, galleries, open for divine service was a strange sight; but we had not gone very far into the service before it became plain to me that there was nothing divine about it. The crowd had come there, not to worship God, but to hear Mr. Tal- mage. At the door the programme was distributed. It con- sisted of six hymns to be interluded with prayers by the doctor. Between the fifth and sixth, he delivered the lecture, or the sermon, if you insist on the name, and during the sixth there was the collection, that hinge on which the whole service turns in Protestant places of worship. I took a seat and awaited with the rest the entrance of Dr. Talmage. There was subdued conversation go- as? < 1 ■ ■- t 1 ' ' ! :i- i i 1^ i : t '< \ if i: ij-'. , ,-■51 ' 1 ■ It ]'i' -'5« ./ FA7:.vc/nrLV lv a .^r erica. ing on all 'around, just as there would be at a theater or concert : in fact, throughout the whole of the pro- ceedings, there was no sign of a silent lifting up of the spirit in worship. Not a person in that strange congregation, went on his or her knees to pray. Most of them put one hand in front of the face, and this was as near as they got that morn- ing to an attitude of devotion. Except for this, and the fact that they did not applaud, there was absolutely no difference between them and any other theater audience I K ever saw. The monotonous hymns were accom- panied by a cornet-a- piston, which lent a certain amount of life to them, but very little religious harmony. That cornet was the key-note of the whole performance. The hymns, composed, I believe, for Dr. Talmage's flock, are not of high literary value. " General " Booth would probably hesitate to include such in the repertoire of the Salvation Army. Judge of them for your- THE LEADER OF THE CHOIR. .'/ FREXCHAfA.V I.V AMERICA. 259 self. Here are three illustrations culled from the programme : Sing, O sing, ye Iieirs of glory I Shout your triumphs as you go : Zion's gates will open for you, You shall find an entrance through. 'Tis the promise of God, full salvation to give Unto him who on Jesus, his Son, will believe. Though the pathway be lonely, and dangerous too, {sic) Surely Jesus is able to carry me thro*. This is poetry such as you find inside Christmas crackers. Another hymn began : One more day's work for Jesus, One less of life for me ! I could not help thinking that there would be good employment for a prophet of God, with a stout whip, in the congregations of the so-called faithful of to-day. I have heard them by hundreds shouting al the top of their voices : Paradise, O Paradise! 'Tis weary waiting here ; 1 long to be where Jesus is. To feel, to see him near. O Paradise, O Paradise ! I greatly long to see The special place my dearest Lord, In love, prepare? for me ! Knowing something of those people outside the church doors, I have often thought what an edifying sight it would be if the Lord deigned to listen and ;-! 1! * TT T i ' 'fr I ■ 1 7 • ' ■ 1 'I ffflR 1 i ■ I i:-r ; Mi-!' 260 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. -r'» take a few of them at their wu/tl. If the fearless Christ were here on earth again, what crowds of cheats and humbugs he would drive out of the Temple ! And foremost, I fancy, would go the people who, instead of thanking their Maker who allows the blessed sun to shine, the birds to sing, and the flowers to grow for them here, howl and whine lies about longing for the joy of moving on to the better world, to the " special place " that is prepared for them. If there be a better world, it will be too good for hypocrites. After hymn the fifth, Dr. Talmage takes the floor. The audience settled in their seats in evident anticipa- tion of a good time, and it was soon clear to me that the discourse was not to be dull at any rate. But I waited in vain for a great thought, a lofty idea, or re- fined language. There came none. Nothing but com- monplaces given out v/itii tricks of voice and the ges- tures of a consummate actor. The modulations of the voice have been studied with care, no single platform trick was missing. The doctor cornes on the stage, which is about forty feet wide. He begins slowly. The flow of language is great, and he is never at a loss for a word. Motion- less, in his lowest tones, he puts a question to us. Nobody replies, of course. Thereupon he paces wildly up and down the whole length of the stage. Then, bringing up in full view of his auditors, he stares at them, crosses his arms, gives a double and tremendous stamp on the boards, and in a terrific voice he repeats the question, and answers it. The desired effect is produced : he never misses fire. Being an old stager of several years' standing my- ./ FRKXCf/MAX IX AMERICA. 261 self, I admire him profcssioiirilly. Nobody is edified, nobody is regenerated, nobody is improved, but all are entertained. It is not a divine service, but it is a clever performance, and the Americans never fail to patronize a clever performance. All styles go down with them. They will give a hearing to everybody THE DESIRED EFFECT. but the bore, especially on Sundays, when other forms of entertainment are out of the running. It is not only the Brooklyn public that are treated to the discourses of Dr. Talmage, but the whole of America. He syndicates his sermons, and they are published in Monday's newspapers in all quarters of America, I have also seen them reproduced in the Australian papers. The delivery of these orations by Dr. Talmage is so superior to the matter they are made of, that to read them is slow indeed compared to hearing them. % it fit 962 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA, At the back of the programme was a flaring adver- tisement of Dr. Talmage's paper, called : CHRISTIAN HERALD AND SIGNS OF OUR TIMES. A live, undenominational, illustrated Christian paper, with a weekly circulation of fifty thousand copies, and rapidly increasing. Every State of the Union, every Province of Canada, and every country in the world is represented on its enormous subscription list. Address your subscription to Mr. N., treasurer, etc. " Signs of our times," indeed ! I; III i^M J ill CHAPTER XXXI. Virginia— The Hotels— The South— I will Kill A Railway Conductor before I leave America —Philadelphia— Impressions of the Old City. Petersburg, Va., March 3. T LFT New York last night and arrived here at noon. No cliange in the ----scenery. The same burnt-up fields, the sanne placards all over the land. The roofs of houses, the trees in the for- ests, the fences in the fields, all announce to the world the magic properties of castor oil, aperients, and liver pills. A little village inn in the bot- tom of old Brittany is a palace of comfort compared to the best hotel of a Virginia town. I feel wretched. My bedroom is so dirty that I shall not dare to undress to-night. I have just had lunch : a piece of tough dried-up beef, custard pie, and a glass of ^63 MV SUPPER. i i ■ ; 'I- I i 'ii i' , 1 i ■ ?■ ii 1 !; If* ■ 1 [!"'* ^1I: 564 ./ Fh'l:\CI/MAjV IN AMERICA. filthy water, the whole served by an old negro on an old, ragged, dirty table-cloth. Petersburg, which awakes so many souvenirs of the War of Secession, is a pretty town scattered with beautiful villas. It strikes one as a provincial town. To me, coming from the busy North, it looks asleep. The South has not yet recovered from its disasters of thirty years ago. That is what struck me most, when, two years ago, I went through Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia. Now and then American eccentricity reveals itself. I have just seen a church built on the model of a Greek temple, and surmounted with a pointed spire lately added. Juct imagine to yourself Julius Caesar with his toga and buskin on, and having a chimney-top hat on his head. The streets seemed deserted, dead. To my surprise, the Opera House was crowded to- night. The audience was fashionable and appreciative, but very cool, almost as cool as in Connecticut and Maine. Heaven be praised ! a gentleman invited me to have supper at a club after the lecture. • « • • • a March 4. I am sore all over. I spent the night on the bed, outside, in my day clothes, and am bruised all over. I have pains in my gums too. Oh, that piece of beef yesterday! I am off to Philadelphia. My bill at the hotel amounts to $1.50. Never did I pay so much through the nose for what I had through the mouth. A FRE.VL7/MAX JX AMEh'/CA. .65 Philadelphia, March 4. Befon? I return to Europe I will kill a railway con- ductor. From Petersburg to Riclimond I was the only occu- pant of the parlor car. It was bitterly cold. The f» IMAGINE JULIUS CESAR WITH A BIG HAT. conductor of the train came in the smoke-room, and took a seat. I suppose it was his right, although I doubt it, for he was not the conductor attached to the 1; .- WWCMOEaMMI %* # ^< IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) /A m & i/. (A ^ iP ill 1.0 I.I 1.25 M. 11=6 =d Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 :1>^ iV iV \\ ^^. ^%^ t/. rf> o^ ^ i \: Vi) I- 266 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. parlor car. He opened the window. The cold, icy air fell on my legs, or (to use a more proper expression, as I am writing in Philadelphia) on my lower limbs. I said nothing, but rose and closed the window. The fellow frowned, rose, and opened the window again. " Excuse me," I said ; *' I thought that perhaps you had come here to look after my comfort. If you have not I will look after it myself/' And I rose and closed the window. '' I want the window open," said the conductor, and he prepared to re-open it, giving me a mute, impudent scowl. I was fairly roused. Nature has gifted me with a biceps and a grip of remarkable power. I seized the man by the collar of his coat. "As true as I am alive," I exclaimed, "if you open this window, I will pitch you out of it." And I pre- pared for war. The cur sneaked away r.nd made an exit compared to which a whipped hourd's would be majestic. • I am at the Bellevue, a delightful hotel. My friend Wilson Barrett is here, and I have come to spend the day with him. He is playing every night to crowded houses, and after each performance he has to make a speech. This is kis third visit to Philadelphia. Dur- ing the first visit, he tells me that the audience wanted a speech after each act. It is always interesting to compare notes with a friend who has been over the same ground as yourself. So I was eager to hear Mr. Wilson Barrett's impres- sions of his long tour in the States. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 267 Several points we both agreed perfectly upon at once; the charming geniality and good-fellowship of the best Americans, the brilliancy and naturalness of the ladies, the wonderful intelligence and activity of the people, and the wearing monotony of life on the road. After the scene in the train, I was interested, too, to find that the train conductors— those mute, magnificent THE WHIPPED CONDUCTOR. •monarchs of the railroad— had awakened in Mr. Barrett much the same feeling as in myself. We Europeans are used to a form of obedience or, at least, deference from our paid servants, and the arrogant attitude of the American wage-earner first amazes, and then en- rages us— when we have not enough humor, or good- humor, to get some amusement out it. It is so novel w \: 268 A FREXCHMAN IN AMERICA. il.i !■ m: ■ to be tyrannized over by people whom you pay to attend to your comfort ! The American keeps his temper under the process, for he is the best-humored fellow in the world. Besides, a small squabble is no more in his line than a small anything else. It is not A BOSS. worth his while. The Westerner may pull out a pistol and shoot you if you annoy him, but neither he nor the Eastern man will wrangle for mastery. If such was not the case, do you believe for a mo- ment that the Americans would submit to the rule of the " Rings," the " Leaders," and the " Bosses"? • • • • • I like Piiiladelphia, with its magnificent park, its A FREXCIIMAX IX AMERICA. 269 beautiful houses that look like homes. It is not brand new, like the rest of America. My friend, Mr. J. M. Stoddart, editor of Lippin- cotfs Magazine, has kindly chaperoned me all the day. I visited in detail the State House, Independence Square. These words evoke sentiments of patriotism in the hearts of the Americans. Here was the bell that " proclaimed liberty throughout the Colonies " so loudly that it split. It was on the 8th of July, 177C, that the bell was rung, as the public reading of the Declaration of Independence took place in the State House on that day, and there were great rejoicings. John Adams, writing to Samuel Chase on the 9th of July, said : " The bell rang all day, and almost all night." It is recorded by one writer that, on the 4th of July, when the motion to adopt the declaration passed the majority of the Assembly, al- though not signed by all the delegates, the old bell-ringer awaited anxious, ly, with trembling hope, the signing. He kept saying : •' They'll never do it, they'll never do it ! " but his eyes expanded, and his grasp grew firm when the voice THE OUJ LIBERTY BELL. 270 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. H: ;l ■ of a blue-eyed youth reached his ears in shouts of tri- umph as he flew up the stairs of the tower, shouting: ** Ring, grandpa, ring ; they've signed ! " What a day this old " Liberty Bell " reminds you of! There, in the Independence Hall, the delegates were gathered. Benjamin Harrison, the ancestor of the present occupier of the White House, seized John Hancock, upon whose head a price was set, in his arms, and placing him in the presidential chair, said : " We will show Mother Britain how little we care for her, by making our president a Massachusetts man, whom she has excluded from pardon by public proclamation," and, says Mr. Chauncey M. Depew in one of his beauti- ful oration.i, when they were signing the Declaration, and the slender Elbridge Gerry uttered the grim pleas- antry, '* We must hang together, or surely we will hang separately," the portly Harrison responded with more daring humor, " It will be all over vvith me in a mo- ment, but you will be kicking in the air half an hour after I am gone." The National Mu- ^r:^ seum is the auxiliary ^Y chamber to Independ- ence Hall, and there you find many most interesting relics of Co- lonial and Revolution- ary days : the silver inkstand used in signing the famous Declaration ; Hancock's chair ; the little table THE INKSTAND. A FREML7/MAX /X AME/s!/C.l. 271 upon which the document was signed, and hundreds of souvenirs piously preserved by generations of grateful Americans. It is said that Philadelphia lias produced only two successful men, Mr. Wanamaker, the great dry-goods- store man, now a member of President Benjamin Har- rison's Cabinet, and Mr. George W. Childs, proprietor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, one of the most im- portant and successful newspapers in the United States. I went to Mr. Wanamaker's dry-goods-store, an es- tablishment strongly reminding you of the Paris Jh>>i March/, or Mr. Whiteley's warehouses in London. By far the most interesting visit was that which I paid to Mr. George W. Childs in his study at the Public Ledger s o^cQ?,. It would require a whole volume to describe in detail all the treasures that Mr. Childs has accumulated : curios of all kinds, rare books, manu- scripts and autQgraphs, portraits, china, relics from the celebrities of the world, etc. Mr. Childs. like the Prussians during their unwelcome visit to France in 1870, has a strong penchant for clocks. Indeed his col- lection is the most remarkable in existence. His study is a beautiful sanctiun sanctorum ; it is also a museum that not only the richest lover of art would be proud to possess, but that any nation would be too glad to ac- quire, if it could be acquired ; but Mr. Childs is a very wealthy man, and he means to keep it, and, I under- stand, to hand it over to his successor in the owner- ship of the Public Ledger. Mr. George W. Childs is a man of about fifty years of age, short and plump, with a most kind and nmiable r 1 ■;',' 1 , "; i il^ 'I i t 'i ■ li^-ri! 1;! 'IH 27 2 /^ FA'E.VC//,V.LV AV AMEA'ICA. face. His munificence and philanthropy are well known and, as I understand his char;^ctci, I believe he would not think much of my gratitude to him for the kindness he sliowed me if I dwelt on them in these pages. * ff • • • Thanks to my kind friends, every minute has been occupied visiting some interesting place, or meeting some interesting people. I shall lecture here next WHEN IRELAND IS FREE, month, and shall look forward to the pleasure of being in Philadelphia again. At the Union League Club I met Mr. Rufus E. Shapley, who kindly gave me a copy of his clever and witty political satire, "Solid for Mulhooly,' illustrated ./ FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 273 well /e he r the :hese been iting fiext E. id by Mr. Thomas Nast. I should advise any one who would understand how Jonathan is ruled municipally, to peruse this little book. It gives the history of Pat's rise from the Irish cabin in Connaught to the City Hall of the large American cities. " When one man," says Mr. Shapley, " owns and dom- inates four wards or counties, he becomes a leader. Half a dozen such leaders combined constitute what is called a Ring. When one leader is powerful enough to bring three or four such leaders under his yoke, he becomes a Boss ; and a Boss wields a power almost as absolute, while it lasts, as that of the Czar of Rus- sia or the King of Zululand." Extracts from this book would not do it justice. It should be read in its entirety. I read it with all the more pleasure that, in "Jonathan and His Continent," I ventured to say : " The English are always wonder, ing why Americans all seem to be in favor of Home Rule, and ready to back up the cause with their dollars. Why ? I will tell you. Because they are in hopes that, when the Irish recover the possession of Ireland, they will all go home." A foreigner who criticises a nation is happy to see his opinions shared by the natives. 'Hi: 'i CHAPTER XXXII. My Ideas of the State of Texas— Why I ^VILL NOT Go THERE— The Story of a Frontier Man. ht'. Neiv York, March 5. HAVE had cold audiences in Maine and Connecti- cut ; and indifferent ones in several cities, while I have been warmly received in many others. It seems that, if I went to Texas, I might get it hot. I have received to-day a Texas paper containing a short editorial marked at the four corners in blue pen- cil. Impossible not to see it. The editorial abuses me from the first line to the last. When there appears in a paper an article, or even only a short paragraph, abusing you, you never run the risk of not seeing it. There always is, somewhere, a kind friend who will post it to you. He thinks you may be getting a little conceited, and he forwards the article to you, that you may use it as wholesome physic. It does him good, and does you no harm. The article in question begins by charging me with having turned America and the Americans into ridicule, goes on wondering that the Americans can receive me so well everywhere, and, after pitching into me right and left, winds up by warning me that, if I should go 274 , X ./ FA'/iXC/n/.LV /.V AMEh'/C.l. -/5 to Texas, I might for a change meet with a hot re- ccption. A shot, perhaps. A shot in Texas ! No, no, no. I won't go to Texas. I should strongly object to bemg shot anywhere, but especially in Texas, "A SHOT IN TEXAS." where the event would attract so little public attention. ■^ Yet, I should have liked to go to Texas, for was it not from that State that, after the publication of "Jonathan and His Continent," I received the two following letters, which I have kept among my treas- ures ? ' i a h i M' il iMi llliii '."jf) I /A'/:.V(//.]/.i.v /.v .i.u/:a/<'.i. Dkar Sir : I have rr.ad your book on Atiu'rica and greatly enjoyed if. I'lease to send me your auto^^raph. I ciu lose a ten-cent piece. The postage will cost you live cents. Don't trouble about the change. My Dear Sir : I have an album containing the photographs of many well- known people from Europe as well ;is from .America. I should much like to add yours to the number. If you will send it to me, I will send you mine and that of my wife in return. • • • . • And I also imagine that there must be in Texas a delightful primitiveness of manners and good-fellow- ship. A friend once related to me the following remi- niscence : I arrived one evening in a little Texas town, and asked for a bedroom at UiZ hotel. There was no bedroom to be had, but only a bed in a double- bedded room. " Will that suit you ? " said the clerk. "Well, I don't know," I said hesitatingly. "Who is the other?" " Oh, that's all right," said the clerk, " you may set your mind at rest on that subject." " Very well," I replied, " I will take that bed." At about ten o'clock, as I was nreparing to go to bed, my bed- room companion entered. It was a frontier man in full uniform: Buffalo Bill hat, leather leggings, a belt accommodating a couple of revolvers — no baggage of any kind. I did not like it. " Hallo, stranger," said the man, " how are you ? " " I'm pretty well," I replied, without meaning a word of it. The frontier man undressed, that is to say. took off his boots, placed the two revolvers under his pillows and lay down. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 277 I liked it less and less. Hy and by. we both went to sleep. In the morning we woke up at the same time, f k rose, dressed-that is to say. put on his boots, and wished me good-morning. MY ROOM MATE. The hall porter came with letters for mv companion, but none for me. I thought I should like to let that man know I had no money with me. So I said to him : ?: ■■ t 3; ■( I I 278 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. " I am very much disappointed. I expected some money from New York, and it has not come." " I hope it will come," he replied. I did not like that hope. In the evening, we met again, He undressed — you know, went to sleep, rose early in the morning, dressed — you know. The porter came ag-ain with letters for him and none for me. " Well, your money has not come," he said. " I see it has not. I'm afraid I'm going to be in a fix what to do." " I'm going away this morning." " Are you ? " I said. " I'm sorry to part with you." The frontier man took a little piece of paper and wrote some- thing on it. " Take this, my friend," he said ; " it may be useful to you." It was a check for a hundred dollars. I could have gone down on my knees, as I refused the check and asked that man's pardon. I lectured in Brooklyn to-night, and am off to the West to-morrow morning. ' i' ;:ni si I 1; . ,»iA i mBj^^Bk' ' - 1 : 4HS^B 1 H mI ■^ ''1 I 1 s : ■ 5 ^ ^^B 1 1 { m i \ w CHAPTER XXXIir. ^M^l^^'r"""^"^ Town-The Suburbs-A Ger MAN City-'. Over the Rhine "-What is ." Good Patriot ?_An Impressive Funeral X Hor,T 'f ~"°^^ '" ^"^'^^■'^'^ to Me! a'^d M Cincinnati, March 7. Y arnval in Cincinnati this morning was any. thing but triumphal. ^ On leaving the car, I gave my check to a cab-driver froJ^ ■; 1 '' '"""'" °"'=' ''"'' °" being thrown from he baggage-van on the platform, it burst open and all my things were scattered about In England or m France, half a dozen porters would have im mediately come to the rescue, but here the porter ■s practically unknown. Three or four men b longing to the company gathered round, but, neither ou! ttem off h"'" "" '■" '"^ "^"P^ °' g-'n"d a .y : them offer h,s services. They looked on, laughed and to whether I should succeed in putting my thincrs together or not. Th.nks to a leather stfap I had fn 7.wh ""T^^^ '° "■"' "'^ portmanteau and have .t placed on the cab that drove to the Burnet House « II 379 I' I I 280 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. M \ Immediately after registering my name, I went to buy an American trunk, that is to say, an iron-bound trunk, to place my things in safety. I have been told that trunk makers give a commission to the railway and transfer baggagemen who, having broken trunks, recommend their owners to go to such and such a (' MY BROKEN VALISE. place to buy new ones. This goes a long way toward explaining the way in which baggage is treated in America. On arriving in tliCdining-room, I was surprised to see the glasses of all the guests filled with lemonade. '* Why," thought I, " here is actually an hotel which is not like all the other hotels." The lemonade turned out to be water from the Ohio River. I could not help A I'RENCintAii AV AMEIilCA. 281 feeling grateful for a change; any change, even that a Zfl f ''-'"; ^">"'°"^ "■'- •>- '-vele^ ren,rri' '" '""''" "'" '^PP'-^^^t. the Cincinnati is built at the bottom of a funnel from wh.ch r,se hundreds of chimneys vomiting fire and i.ke a huge furnace, and so it is, a furnace of industry and activity. It reminded me of Glasgow. ^ If the cty itself is anything but attractive, the resi- dent-al parts are perfectly lovely. I have seei, nothing the bordenng heights of the town, .scattered with beautiful villas, and itself a mixture of a wilderness and a ovely park. A hind friend drove me for t Iree hours through the entire neighborhood, giving me in American fashion, the history of the ^wner of elch residence we passed. Here was the house of Mr A or rather Mr. A. B. C, every American having tiit' out a dolla.. Five years later he had five millions He speculated and lost all, went to Chicago and made several millions, and so on. This is common enough in America By and by, we passed the most beautifd of ah the villas of Burnet Wood-the house of the Oi King Mr. Alexander Macdonald, one of those won bi:^ Vtr"';", ""•■ ^^'^^ "^ ^^"-^ ■-"--- Doast all the world over. AinenVa liic k^ fi^M r .Li ,. -f^incrica Jias been a great fieM for the display of Scotch intelligence anl i„! After visiting the pretty museum at Eden Park, a .3;,' 282 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ( ; W<\> ^ - described their n?h./'^'°''""^"P"'^= women disheveled in e ■ es i'^ I "■""' '•"""'■"S >"'d' -d throwing LZ I e i"' 1"""°' ""-T '"^^^"^ P-tection,^ar,d a^I shr ek.ng and panic-stricken. Such a scene of con fusion and terror ,ou can hardly imagine. Vonr ! ; CHAPTER XXXIV. A Journey if you Like — Terrible Encounter WITH AN American Interviewer. im :l In the train to Brushville, March 1 1 . LEFT Cincinnati this morning at ten o'clock and ■^ shall not arrive at Brushville before seven o'clock to-night. I am beginning to learn how to speak American. As I asked for my ticket this morning at the railroad ofifice, the clerk said to me : " C. H. D. or C. C. C. St. L. and St. P. ? " " C. H. D.," I replied, with perfect assurance. I happened to hit on the right line for Brushville. By this time I know pretty well all those combina- tions of the alphabet by which the different railroad lines of America are designated. No hope of comfort or of a dinner to-day. I shall have to change trains three times, but none of them, I am grieved to hear, have parlor cars or dining cars. There is si mething democratic about uniform cars for all alike. I am a democrat myself, yet I have a weak- ness for the parlor cars — and the dining cars. At noon we stopped five minutes at a place which, two years ago, counted six wooden huts. To-day it has more than 5000 inhabitants, the electric light in the streets, a public library, two hotels, four churches, 296 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 297 two banks, a public school, a high school, cuspidores toothp.cks, and all the signs of American dvilization 1 ^hanged trains at one o'clock at Castle Gree-i Junction No hotel in the place. I inquired where food could be obtained. A little wooden hut, on the Lunch Room, was pointed out to me. Lunch in America has not the meaning that it has in England as I often experienced to my despair. The English are sohd people In England lunck means something In America, ,t does not. However, as there was no Be^vare written outside, I entered the place. Several people were eat- -^^vcrai ing pies, fruit pies, pies with crust under, and crust over: sealed mys- teries. "I want some- thing to eat," I said to a man behind the counter, who was in posses- PEACH POY AND APPLE POY.' What d ye lo.ke?" replied he, winking with the eye that was not there. " Well, what have you got ? " "Peach poy, apricot poy, apple poy, and mince poy. *' Is that all ? " 5 I . : If n 298 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. " And, shure, what more do you want ? " I have always suspected something mysterious about mince pies. At home, I eat mince pies. I also trust my friends' cooks. Outside, I pass. I think that mince pies and sausages should be made at home. " I like a little variety," I said to the Irishman, " give me a small slice of apple pie, one of apricot pie, and another of peach pie." The Irishman stared at me. "What's the matter with the mince poy?" he seemed to say. I could see from his eye that he resented the insult offered to his mince pies. I ate my pies and returned on the platform. I was told that the train was two hours behind time, and I should be too late to catch the last Brushville train at the next change. I walked and smoked. The three pies began to get acquainted with each other. ! i5 T 18 'f M Brushville, March 12. Oh, those pies ! At the last change yesterday, I arrived too late. The last Brushville train was gone. The pies were there, A fortune I would have given for a dinner and a bed, which now seemed more problematic than ever. I went to the station-master. " Can I have a special train to take me to Brushville to-night ?" "A hundred dollars." ^ FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 299 " How much for a locomotive alone ? " "Sixty dollars." ;; Have you a freight train going to Brushville ? " What will you do with it?" " Board it." "Board it! I can't stop the train." " I'll take my chance." " Your life is insured ? " " Yes ; for a great deal more than it is worth." dollaTs.'^ "'"'" """ "^'' " ''^ ''' y- ^° '' ^- five And he looked as if he was going to enjoy the fun. The freight train arrived, slackened speed, and I boarded, with my port- manteau and my um- brella, a car loaded with timber. I placed my handbag on the timber -- you know, the one I had when traveling in "the neighborhood of Chi- cago "~ s a t on it, opened my umbrella, and waved a '♦ tata " to the station-master. It was raining fast, and I had a journey of some thirty miles to make at the rate of about twelve miles an hour to fi\!^-r^ ^^'' I ^^'^^ "°^ ^^^^^^ ^^ have resolved to fight It out. Sacrebleu! De bleu! de bleu f A few miles from Brushville I had to get out or ON THE ROAD TO BRUSHVILLE. ,;:i faam M 300 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. i. r rather, get down, and take a ticket for Brushville on board a local train. Benumbed with cold, wet through, and famished, I arrived here at ten o'clock last night. The peach pie, the apple pie, and the apricot pie had settled their dif- ferences and become on friendly and accommodating terms. I was able, on arriving at the hotel, to enjoy some light refreshments, which I only obtained, at that time of night, thanks to the manager, whom I had the pleas- ure of knowing personally. At eleven o'clock I went to bed, or, to use a more proper expression for my Philadelphia readers, I retired. I had been ** retiring " for about half an hour, when I heard a knock at the door. ** Who's there ? " I grumbled fiom under the bed- clothes. "A representative of the Brushville Express." " Oh," said I, " 1 ai.i very sorry — but I'm asleep." " Please let me in ; I won't detain you very long." " I guess you won't. Now, please do not insist. I am tired, upset, ill, and I want rest. Come to-morrow morning." " No, I can't do that," answered the voice behind the door ; ** my paper appears in the morning, and I want to put in something about you." " Now, do go away," I pleaded, " there's a good fellow." " I must see you," insisted the voice. " You go ! " I cried- "you go " without men- tioning any place. ■■I FKF.NCmiA.V IN A.VI-K/C.l. 301 For a couple of minutes there was silence, and I w°eet ', 'V""-'"?^" »■- g-'o. The illusion wa sweet but short. There was another knock, followed by a I really must see you to-night." Se.-ing that there would be no peace until I had let the reporter THE INTERVIEWER. in, I unbolted the door, and jumped back into my- you know. ' It was pitch dark. ^ The door opened, and I heard the interviewer's steps in the room. By and by, the sound of a pocket bein^ searclied was distinct. It was his own. A match was pulled out and struck; the premises examined and reconnoitered. A chandelier with three lights hung in the middle of he room. The reporter, speechless and solemn, lighted one burner, then two, then three, chose the im 302 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA, 'A !• If ' ' f; \- u !';'J li \ ff ''■ ■ %{ . \ ' ■ 1; T 1' i f ' f '1 : iji, \ IL L' ■ ' ' most comfortable seat, and Installed himself in it, looking at me with an air of triumph. I was sitting up, wild and desheveled, in my " retir- ing " clothes. " Qnc vonlcz-vousf I wanted to yell, my state of drowsiness allowing me to think only in French. Instead of translating this query by "What do you v/ant?" as I should have done, if I had been in the complete enjoyment of my intellectual faculties, I shouted to him : "What will you have?" "Oh, thanks, I'm not particular," he calmly replied. "I'll have a little whisky and soda — rye whisky, please." My face must have been a study as I rang for whisky and soda. The mixture was brought — for two. "I suppose you have no objection to my smoking?" coolly said the man in the room. " Not at all," I remarked ; " this is perfectly lovely ; I enjoy it all." He pulled out his pocket-book and his pencil, crossed his legs, and having drawn a long whiff from his cigar, he said : " I see that you have no lecture to deliver in Brush- ville ; may I ask you what you have come here for?" " Now," said I, " what the deuce is that to you ? If this is the kind of questions you have to ask me, you >» go He pocketed the rebuff, and went on undisturbed : " How are you struck with Brushville ? " " I am struck," said I, " with the cheek of some of ;ii ^ PKHNCHM.-tN 1.V AMERICA. 303 the inhabitants. I have driven to this hotel from :f;orc;;;..:'"°^^''""'='^--^''---noth-;^ The man wrote down something. ''I lecture to-morrow night," I continued, - before tlie students of the State University and T \L liere for rest." «^"«versity, and I have come He took tliis down, night." ""'• """■ """' ''^^^'y ""interesting; so, good. And I disappeared. Tlie interviewer rose and came to my side. Really, now that I am here, you may as well let me have a chat with you." " You wretch ! " I exclaimed. " Don't you see that I am dy,ng for sleep? Is there nothing sacred o you.? Have you lost all sense of charity? Have you no mother ? Don't you believe in futuri punishment" Are you a man or a demon > " ' cel'omeToar-' ""iT""' '"""^ °' ^""^ ^^""•"iscen- ces of the road, said the man, with a sardonic grin I made no reply. The imperturbable reporter 're sumed his seat and smoked '^ bla'ntts.'" '°"''" ' "^''"'' f™- -d" the The answer came in the following words • _^^a_understand, sir, that when you we;e a young ^■'When I was WHAT?" I shouted, sitting up once " I understand, sir, that when you were ouit, , young man," repeated the interviewer, with tCsen! liJ '!' it 'I' ''J I- v.^^ mi^: I ;^1f M '•iff 304 // FRESXIIMAiW IN AMERICA. tcnce improved, "you were an officer in the French army." '• I was," I murmured, in the same position. •' I also understand you fought during tiie Franco. Prussian war." "I did," I said, resuming a horizontal position. *' May 1 ask you to give me some reminiscences of the Franco-Prussian war — just enough to fill about a column?" I rose and again sat up. " Free citizen of the great American Republic, said I, " beware, beware ! There will be blood shed in this room to-night." And I seized my pillow. " You are not meaty," exclaimed the reporter. " May I inquire what the meaning of this strange expression is?" I said, frowning; "I don't speak American fluently." " It means," he replied, '* that there is very little to be got out of you." "Are you going?" I said, smiling. " Well, I guess I am." "■ Good-night." " Good-night." I bolted the door, turned out the gas, and " re- retired." " Poor fellow," I thought ; " perhaps he relied on me to supply him with material for a column. I might have chatted with him. After all, these reporters have invariably been kind to me. I might as well have obliged him. What is he going to do?" And I dreamed that he was dismissed. W /■■RKXa/.U.IX IX .IMEKICA. 305 I ought to have known better. This morning I opened the Hr'ushville Exprcs, an.l to my stupefaction, saw a coliimn about me. Mv .mpress,ons of Bru.shville, that I had no opportunity of lookmg at, were there. Nay, more. I would blush to record here the exploits I performed during the Fra,.c>, Prussian war, as related by my interviewer especaly those which took place at the battle o^ Gravelot e, where, unfortunately, I was not present The whole thmg was well written. The reference to my military services began thus: " Last night a hero o tlbl'""? 7-;;^"-'''-"-'-' -- ^'ept under the hos- pitable roof of Morrison Hotel, in this city." " Slept ! •• This was adding insult to injury. What do you think of Brushville?" thev said • and, seeing that I would not answer the questio„,the; loud on the subject. I have no doubt that the after- noon papers will publish my impressions of Brushville. (( re- 'iu' II ;!. ^- 1 ! .'. :'^' CHAPTER XXXV. The University of Indiana — Lndianapolis— The Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic on the SPRr-E— a Marvelous Equilibrist. Bloomington, Ind., March 13. LECTURED yesterday before the students of the -^ University of Indiana, and visited the different buildings this morning. The university is situated on a hill in the midst of a wcod, about half a mile from the little town of Bloomin^^ton. In a few days I shall be at Ann Arbor, the Univer- sity of Michigan, the largest in America, I am told. I will wait till then to jot down my impressions of uni- versity life in this country. • • • • • I read in the papers : " Prince Saunders, colored, was hanged here (Plaquemine, Fla.) yesterday. He declared he had made his peace with God, and his sins had been forgiven. Saunders murdered Rhody Walker, his sweetheart, last December, a few hours after he had witnessed the execution of Carter Wil- kinson." If Saunders has made his peace with God, I hope his executioners have made theirs with God and man. What an indictment against man ! What an argument ao6 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 307 against capital punishment ! Here is a man commit- ting a murder on returning from witnessing an execu- tion. And there are men still to be found who declare that capital punishment deters men from committing murder! niver- d. I uni- lored, He id his Lhody hours Wil- hope man. iment Indianapolis, March 14. Arrived here yesterday afternoon. Met James Whit- comb Riley, the Hoosier poet. Mr. Riley is a man of about thirty, a genuine poet, full of pathos and humor, VETERANS. and a great reciter. No one, I imagine, could give his poetry as he does himself. He is a born actor, who holds you in su'^pense, and makes you cry or laugh just as he pleases. I remember, when two years ago Mr. Augustin Daly gave a farewell supper to Mr. Henry \\ ni 308 A FREXCIIMAM IN AMERICA. Irvitifj and Miss Ellen Terry at Dclmonico's, Mr. Riley recited one of his poems at table. He gave most of us a big lump in our throats, and Miss Terry had tears rolling down her checks. \.\ ' m i^«f :!i«lj 'li $ •|S Its '1 J.- '^ ■" ill M 1 The veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic are having a great field day in Indianapolis. They A GKKAT BALANCING KKA]. have come here to attend meetings and ask for pen- sions, so as to reduce that unmanageable surplus. Ii - dianapolis is full, and the management of Denisou House does not know which way to turn. All these veterans have large, broad-brimmed soft hats and are covered all over with badges and ribbons. Their wives and daughters, members of some patriotic association, have come with them. It is a huge picnic. The en- trance hall is crowded all day. The spittoons have j 47, the Opera House, last night. Clara Morris "IN EUROPE S,VAGGERma L.TTLE BOVS SMOKE." -uths out of twenty were chLng-rLntbro" n ili 3IO // FRENCH MAN IN AMERICA. \: I the women gum impregnated with peppermint. All the jaws were going like those of so many ruminants grazing in a field. From the box I occupied the sight was most amusing. On returning to Denison House from the theater, I went to have a smoke in a quiet corner of the hall, far from the crowd. By and by two men, most smartly dressed, with diamond pins in their cravats, and flowers embroidered on their waistcoats, came and sat opposite me. I thought they had chosen the place to have a quiet chat^together. Not so. One pushed a cuspidore with his foot and brought it between the two chairs. There, for half an hour, without saying one word to each other, they chewed, hawked, and spat — and had a good time before going to bed. Trewey is nowhere as an equilibrist, compared to a gallant veteran who breakfasted at my table this morn- ing. Among the different courses brought to him were two boiled eggs, almost raw, poured into a tum- bler according to the American fashion. Without spilling a drop, he managed to eat those eggs with the end of his knife. It was marvelous. I have never seen the like of it, even in Germany, where the knife trick is practiced from the tenderest age. In Europe, swaggering little boys smoke; here they chew and spit, and look at you, as if to say: "See what a big man I am ! " All CHAPTER XXXVI. Chicago (Second Vism—VAQCTTr v CiTv-l Sit on the Tribunal ^^^ ARPTVirr* u C^^i(:^go, March It Centra. Music H^inadvenfser ^a """''''' ^' '"^ local manager inform, me thA '''""'''■''■• "^ quired at ^the box-officTwha The"'' ^""^'^ "^^"^ '"■ French word is As h? 7 meaning of that could not enlighten them h"?.""!.*^""'^ '""''^'f' ^e Will draw a gofd'Lowd To^ht' '""'^ '"^ ^"^-''^ P.a« ruf aTei^agl"' fj ""'^ ''r ^"' "'^■•^'> '^^ before an afterno ^'audi nc^ il^r'; 7 ^^T^""" of Eastbourne Not 2T2^ ! fashionable town serious and prosy dtorsf fn •"T'^ "" '"''' °' ^ can the ente'rtaiLent "";« '^r- rl "'''"'"'' '° full and the affair oasseH off I^ ™°"' *='s lady, who was a vv.nt ^'^ *^"- 2"' ^n old tainmentl^M norl r^n':'™""^ °' ^"^^ ^"'- -.Had,.„'r:ifnr^rK::.urmti 3" HHH 312 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. % ' I) IT f :■ ; ;' Ilk n f f M ■•m n §1 'ill was afraid it might be something not quite fit for me to hear." Dear soul ! • • • • • March 16. My manager's predictions were realized last night. I had a large audience, one of the keenest and the most responsive and appreciative I have ever had. I was introduced by Judge Elliott Anthony, of the Superior Court, in a short, witty, and graceful little speech. He spoke of Lafayette and of the debt of gratitude America owes to France for the help she received at her hands during the War of Independence. Before taking leave of me. Judge Anthony kindly invited me to pay a visit to the Superior Court next Wednesday. • • • . . March 17. Dined yesterday with Mr. James W. Scott, pro- prietor of the Chicago Herald, one of the most flourish- ing newspapers in the United States, and in the evening went to see Richard Mansfield in " Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." The play is a repulsive one, but the double impersonation gives the great actor a magnificent opportunity for the display of his histrionic powers. The house was crowded, though it was Sunday. The pick of Chicago society was not there, of course. Some years ago, I was told, a Sunday audience was mainly composed of men. To-day the women go as freely as the men. The " horrible " always has a great fascina- tion for the masses, and Mansfield held his popular audience in a state of breathless suspense. There was a great deal of disappointment written on the faces when the light was turned down on the. appearance of \ oiiclxr "4-1,^ • 1 ^i't-ic, lie said, quite sen- ously, the music has reached such a state of perfection m : M „,= i ! 32^' A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA, ; i !'• that, in the garden scene, you can smell the violets and the roses." '-' Well," I interrupted, " I heard ' Parsifal ' in Bay- reuth, and I must confess that it is, perhaps, the only work of Wagner's that I cannot understand." " I have heard it thirty-four times," he said, " and enjoyed it more the thirty-fourth time than I did the thirty-third." " Then," I remarked, " perhaps it has to be heard fifty times before it can be thoroughly appreciated. In which case, you must own that life is too short to enable one to see an opera fifty times in order to enjoy it as it should reall)/- be enjoyed. I don't care what science there is aijout music, or what labors a musician should have to go through. As one of the public, I say that music is a recreation, and should be understood at once. Auber, for example, with his delightful airs, that three generations of men have sung on their way home from the opera house, has been a greater bene- factor of the human race than Wagner. I prefer music written for the heart to music written for the mind." On hearing me mention Auber's name in one breath with Wagner's, the Wagnerite threw a glance of con- tempt at me that I shall never forget. " Well," said I, to regain his good graces, " I may improve yet — I will try again." As a rule, the Wagnerite is a man utterly destitute of humor. 1^ > ' 'I \\ \ March 20. Yesterday morning I called on Judge Elliott An- iV A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 321 thony, at the Superior Tonrf ti, t j . to sit by his side on tL fK 7 •^"''^" '"^'^"^ "^^ I; if II r CHAPTER XXXVII. Ann Arbor — The University of Michigan — De- troit Again — The French Out of France — Oberlin College, Ohio — Black and White — Are All American Citizens Equal? r,; ;J : I I Detroit, March 22. ONE of the most interesting and brilliant audiences that I have yet addressed was the large one which gathered in the lecture hall of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, last night. Two thousand young, bright faces to gaze at from the platform is a sight not to be easily forgotten. I succeeded in pleas- ing them, and they simply delighted me. The University of Michigan is, I think, the largest in the United States. Picture to yourself one thousand young men and one thousand young women, in their early twenties, staying together in the same boarding-houses, studying literature, science, and the fine arts in the sanne class- rooms, living happily and in perfect harmony. They are not married. No restraint of any sort. Even in the boarding- houses they are allowed to meet in the sitting-rooms ; I believe that the only restriction is that, at eight o'clock in the evening, or at nine (I forget which), the young ladies have to retire to their private apartments. 333 ■A ■ , A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA, Z^~l -DE- CE— TE— ences - one ity of usand is a ipleas- irgest and [nties, (dying 1 class- rding- )oms ; J eight (), the lents. *' But," some European will exclaim, " do the young ladies' parents trust all these young men?" They do much better than that, my dear friend — they trust their daughters. During eighteen years, I was told, three accidents happened, but three marriages happily resulted. The educational system of America engenders the high morality which undoubtedly exists throughout the whole of the United States, by accustoming women to the companionship of men from their infancy, first in the public schools, then in the high schools, and finally in the universities. It explains the social life of the country. It accounts for the delightful manner in which men treat women. It explains the influence of women. Receiving exactly the same education as the men, the women are enabled to enjoy all the intellec- tual pleasures of life. They are not inferior beings intended for mere housekeepers, but women destined to play an important part in all the stations of life. No praise can be too high for a system of education that places knowledge of the highest order at the dis- posal of every child born in America. The public schools are free, the high schools are free, and the universities,* through the aid that they receive from the United States and from the State in which they are, can offer their privileges, without charge for tui- tion, to all persons of either sex who are qualified by knowledge for admission. The University of Michigan comprises the Depart- rnent of Literature, Science, and the Arts, the Depart- * A fee of ten dollars entitles a student to the privileges of per- manent membership in the University. 324 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ment of Medicine and Surgery, the Department of Law, the School of Pharmacy, the HomcEopathic Medical College, and the College of Dental Surgery. Each department has its special Faculty of Instruc- tion. I count ii8 professors on the staff of the different faculties. The library contains 70,041 volumes, 14,626 unbound brochures, and 514 maps and charts. The University also possesses beautiful laboratories, museums, an astronomical observatory, collections, workshops of all sorts, a lecture hall capable of accom- modating over two thousand people, art studios, etc., etc. Almost every school has a building of its own, so that the University is like a little busy town. No visit that I have ever paid to a public institution interested me so much as the short one paid to the University of Michigan yesterday. Mil Dined this evening with Mr. W. H. Brearley, editor of the Detroit JotirnaL Mr. Brearley thinks that the Americans, who received from France such a beautiful present as the statue of ** Liberty Enlightening the World," ought to present the mother country of General Lafayette with a token of her gratitude and affection, and he has started a national subscription to carry out his idea. He has already received support, moral aiid substantial. I can assure him that nothing would touch the hearts of the French people more than such a tribute of gratitude and friendship from the other great republic. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ation. """S ""^"^ Christian Associ- resti^; -rDltLT' ' "" "" '"'^^"'--"S F.enchn,an D^Ln. rri?':;:::;:: ^''•^'•;^. -^ «- -^^- - people living here," I sTid to'lX °'*""' ^""^'' '■ bufc:rnt^:\TeT"/r' ' ''^"■^^^'" >- -'"-'). ciiiiiy we are about twenty tliousand " He smiled. 'his city, so as to e tabl sirf ,?"•' '"""^'' ^'"^s in ou. compatriots, bt^t ^iS ^rS"- ^^"^ How ,s that?" I asked. ^eiit^t ^tiS:nts^'' T?" ^^^"'^^ - *"= P--- tl.emselves." ^ ^"''^"''- They quarreled among sai;^t::;^i":;txrr".^'^^'^-^----"i secretary, and the^^^ h /" 'sI^^'^P^'^^''''^"'^' °"e sixth cannot obtain a nffl '•''"■''"^- ^^ "'^ and .o about ab^^^f^ r^' •'• "' "^ ^^"' -^'•- ihats just What happened." li 326 J FREXCIIMAN IN AMERICA. suspicious person, who spends his hfe in thinking that everybody wants to tread on his corns. " When two Frenchmen meet in a foreign land," goes an old ^aying, " there is one too many." In Chicago there are two Frenchmen engaged in teaching the natives of the city "how to speak and THE TWO FRENCHMEN. H- ]r N write the French language correctly." The people of Chicago maintain that the streets are too narrow to let these two Frenchmen pass, when they walk in op- posite directions. And it appears that one of them has lately started a little French paper — to abuse the other in. I think that all the faults and weaknesses of the French can be accounted for by the presence of a that defect, jealousy; and the absence of humor. aoscnce of a quality, Have to-night given a lee. ' ' '"'"'"' '*■ Oberiin Colleg'e. aTe gious s^ut!: '1"^ ''f'"'^ "' '-;e Rev. Charles Finn^ he f .'or °Vr"t' '^ ""= .-- voice, they s.y,:,e„hr;e:2::t:;:r au£cTSju°rt;::3::r^'^ -'"'-'-■ '>-■•"- ably discovered by I fs timfn ?!' '"' '"^ "^^ P-^- Ober-h College any 1 " h ''t '^ ""' ^^"'-^"^ i" of an American theater '" "'" °*'^''"'^^ ^'alls "antfa^e^i^/qulrrtr" --'^'•"^^ '^^ America (m.ich less ,til 1' ?'''""' ■"<=' * man in or who acted upon It """""^ ^''° ''^■''^^ed this peo'jre.^rixrsror^^^^^^^^^^ t '- -■-- -as told yesterday that a r ' ettle .'''"■°"' ' mulatto resident, who had '"^ "*"'''= ^"^^ wealthy Of the leading -sttrtt'o^^.r/rlT" r"' action against the pronrietor h ?!> ' """"S^'^' «" was no dispute of The fac r'th ' '°"^'' ''"''' cided against the pla Hff t, '""^ ""animously de. lepla t'ff, who was moreover mulcted 328 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. v \ wS in costs to a heavy amount, hut all this is nothing: the Young Men's Ciiristian Association, one of the most representative and influential corporations in the f< THE NEGRO. United States, refuses to admit colored youths to membership. It is just possible that in a few years colored stu- dents will have ceased to study at Oberlin College. I can perfectly well understand that Jonathan should not care to associate too closely with the col- ored people, for, although they do not inspire me with repulsion, still I cannot imagine — well, I cannot under- stand for one thing how the mulatto can exist. \ But since the American has to live alongside the negro, would it not be wmH, k.v 1 -i politely and hones ly ,Wve J L" ' '° ""'■"'"''" i. • 1 . v,.T.ii^, ^ivc jiim ills cue as an rnml ;f not m l„s eyes, at any rate in the eyes o ,1 ' hw Won d ;t „„, be ,„ l,,, wl,i,e to reLmber tha L darky cannot be gradually disposed of like le Indian, for Sambo adapts liimiplf f„ i • It might be well to remember too thif Jl fl #»cf ki^^ !• 1. . "iji-i, luu, mat all the irrcat- est, bloodiest revolut ons the worlrl Inc ^ skins went to bind the hnnrlr^.io f P"''^se, their .oc.k. .„otber..Uncle'r^fcal^>v I. • L^rown ff« CM.. . n ^^^y havn)cr out- EVENING AT WILLARD's. hire trre tr:;" ■'•::' "r ^•^^^' -" «->- --d had been contemplating eniarg^ h/S/ d atj I I i IF If' 'IT '1 '^'^l 1 « w l:j i ■ i '' i ' 334 y^ FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. was going to inquire what they would take for part of their hotel ! \h ■■ ! It i How beautiful this city of WashingtDn is, with its wide avenues, its parks, anr! its buildings! That Cap- itol, in white marble, standing on elevated ground, against abrignt blue sky, is a poem — an epic poem. I am never tired of looking at the expanse of cloud- less blue that is almost constantly stretched overhead. The sunsets are glorious. The poorest existence would seem bearable under such skies. I am told they are better still further West. I fancy I should enjoy to spend some time on a farm^ deep in the country, far from the noisy, crowded streets, but I fear I am con- demned to see none but the busy haunts of Jonathan. ;:l 1 If." it ■ • '. it' i' 8 II i. hf t :i I In the evening I went to what is called a colored church. The place was packed with negroes of all shades and ages ; the women, some of them very smartly dressed, and waving scarlet fans. In a pew sat a trio truly gorgeous. Mother, in black shiny satin, light-brown velvet mantle covered with irides- cent beads, bonnet to match. Daughter of fifteen ; costume* of sky-blue satin, plush mantle, scarlet red, chinchilla fur trimmings, white hat with feathers. Second girl, or daughter, light-blue velvet, from top to toe, with large hat, apple-green and gold. Every one was intently listening to the preacher, a colored man, who gave them, in graphic language and stentorian voice, the scory of the capture of the Jews by Cyrus, their slavery and their delivery. A low ac- companiment of " Yes ! " " Hear, hear ! " " Allelujah ! " Dart of ith its It Cap- Tound, )em. cloud- erhead. I would hey are njoy to try, far m con- ithan. colored of all very a pew shiny irides- fteen ; let red, athers. m top Icher, a Ige and le Jews low ac- ijah ! " A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 335 " Glory ! " from the hearers, showed their approbation of the discourse. From time to time, there would be a general chuckle or laughter, and exclamations of de- light from the happy grin-lit mouths, as, for instance, when the preacher described the supper of Belshazzar, and the appearance of the writing on the wall, in his own droll fashion. "'Let's have a fine supper,' said Belshazzar. ' Dere's ole Cyrus out dere, but we'll Jiave a good time and enjoy ourselves, and nevci' mind VJ^ A GORGEOUS TRIO. him.' So he went for de cups dat had come from de Temple of Jerusalem, and began carousin' ! Dere is Cyrus, all de while, marchin' his men up de bed ob de river. I see him comin' ! I see him ! " Then he pic- tured the state all that wicked party got in at the sight of the writing nobody could read, and by this time the excitement of the congregation was tremen- dous. The preacher thought this a good opportunity to point a moral. So he proceeded : " Now, drink is a poor thing : dere's too much of it in dis here city." Here followed a picture of certain darkies, who cut a '!'i )* hi 336 y^ FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. dash with shiny hats and canes, and frequented bars and saloons. " When folks take tc drinkin*, somefin's sure to go wrong." Grins and grunts of approbation culminated in perfect shouts of glee, as the preacher said : " Ole Belshazzar and de rest of 'em forgot to shut de city gate, and in came Cyrus and his men." They went nearly wild with pleasure over the story of the liberation of the Jews, and incidental remarks THE PREACHER. on their own freeing. " Oh, let dem go," said their masters, when they found the game was up, "dey'll soon perish and die out ! " Here the preacher laughed loudly, and then shouted : " But we don't die out so easy ' " [Grins and chuckling.] On€ old negro was very funny to watch. When something met with his approval, he gave off a little " tchsu, tchsu ! " and writhed forward and back on his A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 337 their deyll ighed )ut so little )R his seat for a moment, apparently in intense enjoyment ; then jumped off his seat, turning round once or twice ; then he would listen W^- THE OLD NKCRO. intently again, as if afraid to lose a word. *' I see dis, I see dat," said the preacher con- tinually. His listeners s seemed to see it too. » • • • At ten minutes to twelve yesterday morn- ing, I called at the White House. The President had left the library, but he was kind enough to return, and at twelve I had the honor to spend a few minutes in the company of General Benjamin Harrison. Two years ago I was received by Mr. Grover Cleveland with the same courtesy and the same total absence of red tape. The President of the United States is a man about fifty-five years old ; short, exceedingly neat, and even / iherchtf in his appearance. The hair and beard are white, the eyes small and very keen. The face is severe, but lights up with a most gentle and kind smile. General Harrison is a popular president ; but the souvenir of Mrs. Cleveland is still haunting the minds of the Washingtonians. They will never forget the mo-" beautiful lady who ever did the honors of the il 1 t ^ f K ' 1 1 '' ■J 1 fc«iii ■(" hn .1. J If ^ fpil P V, -1 :] i ; p ' ii 'i- " ■ 1 '4 ;■ ! ■ ffi \\ 1 l! 1 * 1^. 338 ^ FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. White House, and most of them look forward to the possibility of her returning to Washington in March, 1893. • • • t • Washington society moves in circles and sets. The wife of the President and the wives and daughters of the Cabinet Ministers form the first set — Olympus, as it were. The second set is composed of the ladies belonging to the families of the Judges of the Supreme Court ! The Senators come next. The Army circle comes fourth. The House of Representatives supplies the last set. Each circle, a Washington friend tells me, is controlled by rigid laws of etiquette. Senators' wives consider themselves much superior to the wives of Congressmen, and the Judges' wives consider them- selves much above those of the Senators. But, as a rule, the great lion of Washington society is the British Minister, especially when he happens to be a real live English lord. All look up to him ; and if a young titled English attacJid wishes to marry the richest heiress of the capital, all he has to do is to throw the handkerchief, the young and the richest natives do not stand the ghost of a chance. • • • • Lectured last night, in the Congregational Church, to a large and most fashionable audience. Senator Hoar took the chair, and introduced me in a short, neat, gracefully worded little speech. In to-day's Washington Star, I find the following remark: The lecturer was handsomely introduced by Senator Hoar, who coml)ines the dignity of an Englishman, tlie sturdiness of a Scotch- man, the savoir /aire of a frenchman, and the culture of a Bos- tonian. The A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. ^^^^ What a strange mixture ! I am trying to find where the comphment comes in, surely not in '' the .t > fatre of a P rencliman ! " Fidrrcmed^h-'"' '"''""' ■■"'-<^"«-n to Mi.ss Kate r eld, 1 called this morning at the office of this i-.,lv who ,s characterized by a prominent journllijt '•' fe' very brainiest woman in the United States " Un fortunately she was out of town ance of this brilliant, witty woman, who speaks I nm told as she writes, in clear, caustic, fearle s style My intention was to interview her a bit. A le 'fam was sent to her in New York from her secfe.at'lnd her answer was wired immediately: " Interview;^" So, instead of interviewing Miss Kate Fi d I w h> SioTrna;-;'^^^''^''-'''-^^-"^^"'^-^^;^-; Tu Baltimore, April A. I have spent the day here with some friends. proving" '' "/ °'" " ^ ''"'•"' '°"-^- — vhat fngcitv Th ■ " '" '■"""=""y n,iddle-class look- ing city. There is no great wealth in it, no great act v.ty; but, on the other hand, there is ittle^poverty ^.s a well o do city ^.. excellence. The famous Joln^ i"rn ;;;:»;',:"■"'" '■ ■""• '•"^ ^ ^^ -» surprised : A beautiful forest, a mixture of cultivated park and ng the bef 'f .' '° T '■""^'^i'-"' '•" — er and dur! ■ng the beautiful months of September and October. ': » 34° A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. \X\ ^!' I was told several times that Baltimore was famous all over the States for its pretty women. They were not out to-day. And as I have not been invited to lecture in Baltimore, I must be content with hoping to be more lucky next time. • • • • Philadilphia, April 5. After my lecture in Association Hall to-ni(;ht, I will return to New York to spend Easter Sunday |(^ with my friends. Next Monday off again to the West, to Cincinnati again, to Chicago again, and as far as Madison, the State city of Wisconsin. By the time this tour is finished — in about three weeks — I shall have traveled something like thirty thousand miles. The more I think of it, the more I feel the truth of this statement, which I made in " Jonathan and His Continent " : To form an exact idea of what a lecture tour is in America, just imagine that you lecture to- night in London, to-morrow in Paris, then in Berlin, then in Vienna, then in Constantinople, then in Tehe- ran, then in Bombay, and so forth. With this difference, that if you had to undertake the work in Europe, at the end of a week you would be more dead than alive. A BALTIMORE WOMAN. famous lot been cture in must be hoping lucky April t^. lecture )n Hall 1 return ) r k to Sunday ends, day off : West, ; far as it three thirty ruth of nd His lecture Lire to- Berlin, \ Tehe- erence, , at the ive. ^ f'JiEArcmfA.V fjv AMERICA. 34, ger, and if the good . tenti. '','"'^' "° ''^' ^^ ^>^'"" good, attentive, pohte railway conduc THE GOOD, ATTENTIVE. POLITE CONDUCTOR OF V\'r.i A Mr. » ^ivjK. OF ENGLAND the ..re ^l^ 'ol ra:l7 """ '° " """"'"' '°' 1 11 * ;!;l :l i'lf !'/;:. ir CHAPTER XL. Easter Sunday in New York. New York, April 6 {Easter Sttnday.) THIS morning I went to Dr. Newton's church in Forty-eighth Street. He has the reputation of being one of the best preachers in New York, and the choir enjoys an equally great reputation. The church was literally packed until the ser- mon began, and then some of the strollers who had come to hear the anthems moved on. Dr. Newton's voice and delivery were not at all to my taste, so I did not sit out his sermon either. He has a big, unctuous voice, with the intonations and in- flections of a showman at the fair. He has not the flow of ideas that struck me so forcibly when I heard the late Henry Ward Beecher in London ; he has not the 342 A BELLOWING SOPRANO. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. \^^ histrionic powers of Dr. Talmage, either Th. more show than hp.nf,, nk . , '^"^'^- ^^ere was lowing, shriel<^" ^ '^"'^ ^^^ '^"^'^' '--' A bel- fa »"rieKing boprano overpowered ill fi,„ .1. ycces m the choir, i„cludi„„ t,, ,( ''f, ' '^ "'."l^^ tenor that deserved to be heard ^ ''""'"' Ev'^r/wl^t t:""' "'1' "'^ ™^^ °" Eas;er Day. show^t ' "'" ''°""^' ■-'"'' *alks abroad to '^1%. . y ^OME EASTER BONNETS. is the aristocrat in" 2 'td' The^S' Td' '' not always come wiMi fi,« ^'^aagear. It does -.erourtrunnr: ; ;:;"r::ti'"c °" °' "^^ a proud, though ephemeralTr T '°.~"1"er, and on the daint^,ea1oT:t y"o':'be,i'r^%P^'-^'''^^ earned by a frocK fro.n FehVs !r RedtV"' "'''"^- It.s a umque sight. Fifth Avenue on Easter Sunday ill i 344 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. I i n :■ i I ^1 ■ i, ■ f:' when all the up-town churches have emptied them- selves of their gayly garbed worshipers. The "four hundred" have been keeping Lent in polite, if not rigorous, fashion. Who shall say what it KEEPING LENT. has cost them in self-sacrifice to limit themselves to the sober, modest violet for tabic and bonnet decoration during six whole weeks? These things cannot be lightly judged by the profane. 1 have even heard of sweet, devout New York girls who limited themselves to one pound of niarroiis glact^s a week during Lent. Such feminine heroism deserves mention. And have they not been sc^wing flannel for the poor, once a week, instead of directing the manipulation of W FRENCHMAX J\ AMERICA, 345 them- ;nt in hat it to the aration not be aid of nselves Lent. silk and gauze for their own fair forms, all the week long? Who shall gauge the self-cotitrol necessary for fasting such as this? But now Dorcas meetings are over, and dances begin again to-morrow. The Easter anthem has been sung, and the imported bonnet takes poor, :ion o f A CLUK WINDOW. a turn on Fifth Avenue to salute and to hob-nob with Broadway imitations during the hour between church and lunch. To New Yorkers this Easter Church parade is as much of an institution in its way as those of Hyde Park during the season are to the Londoners. mm ■ ^^ Is 1 lip Hi ' 346 A J'KhXCJ/MAX AV AMERICA. It was plain tliattbc people sauDtcriiig leisurely on the broad sidewalk's, the feminine portion at least, had not come out solely for religious exercise in chu ,li, but had every intention to see and to be seen, especially the latter. On niy way down, I saw some folks who had not been to church, and only wanted to see, so stood with faces glued to the windows of the big clubs, looking out at the kaleidoscopic procession : old bachelors, I daresay, who hold the opinion that spring bonnets, whether imported or home-grown, ought to be labeled " dangerous." At all events they were gazing as one might gaze at some coveted but out-of-rcach fruit, and looking as if they dared not face their fasci- nating young townswomen in all the splendor of their new war paint. A few, perhaps, were married men, and this was their quiet protest against fifty-dollar hats and five-hundred-dollar gowns. The sight was beautiful and one not to be for- gotten. In the evening I dined with Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll and the members of his family. I noticed something which struck me as novel, but as perfectly charming. Each man was placed at table by the side of his wife, including the host and hostess. This custom in the colonel's family circle (I was the only guest not belonging to it) is another proof that his theories are put into practice in his house. Dinner and time vanished with rapidity in that house, where everything breathes love and happiness. CHAPTER XLI. I Mount thk Pulpit, and Preach on the Sabhath, IN THE State of Wisconsin— The Audience is LaROE and Al'l'RECIATINE ; BUT I I'ROBABLY FaIE TO Please One of the Congregation. for- Mihvaukee, April 21. 'T'O a certain extent I am a believer in climatic in- 1. fluencc, and am inclined to think that Sabbath reformers reckon without the British climate when they hope to ever see a Britain full of cheerful Chris- tians. M. Taine, in his "History of English Litera- ture/' ascribes the unlovable morality of Puritanism to the influence of the British climate. " Pleasure being out of question," he says, "under such a sky, the Briton gave himself up to this forbidding virtuousness." In other words, being unable to be cheerful, he became moral. This is not altogether true. Many Britons are cheerful who don't look it, many Britons are not moral who look it. But how would M. Taine explain the existence of this same puritanic "morality" which can be found under the lovely, clear, bright sky of America.? All over New England, and indeed in most parts of Am- erica, the same Kill-joy, the same gloomy, frowning Sabbath-keeper is flourishing, doing his utmost to blot the sunshine out of every recurring seventh day. 347 i! !;l! 348 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. •f s. I il: I Yet Sabbath-keeping is a Jewish institution that has nothing to do with Protestantism ; but there have always been Protestants more Protestant than Martin Luther, and Christians more Christian than Christ. Luther taught that the Sabbath was to be kept, not because Moses commanded it, but because Nature teaches us the necessity of the seventh day's rest. He says " If anywhere the day is made holy for the mere day's sake, then I command you to work on it, ride on it, dance on it, do anything that will reprove this en- croachment on Christian spirit and liberty." The old Scotch woman, who "did nae think the bet^erer on " the Lord for that Sab- bath-day walk through the cornfield, is not a solitary type of Anglo- Saxon Christian. BuL it is when these Puritans judge other nations that they are truly great. Puritan lack of charity and dread of cheerfulness often lead Anglo-Saxon visitors to France to misjudge the French mode of spending Sunday. Americans, as well as English, err in this matter, as I had occasion to find out during my second visit to America. I had been lecturing last Saturday evening in the PURMAN LACK OF CHEERFULNESS. A FREArCllMX /A' AMERICA. 34, pretty little town of Whitewater, i„ Wisconsin, and rece.ved an invitation from a minister to addrer' largest churcl, of the place to discuss the question, How Sunday should be spent." I at first declined on the ground that it might not be exactly in good taste for a foreigner to advise his hosts how to spend :5unday. However, when it was suggested that I -ght simply go and tell them how Sunday as „ m France, I accepted the task. The proceedings opened with prayer and an anthem ; and a hymn n, praise of the Jewish Sabbath having been chosen by the moderator, I thought the cas! oo^ced bad for us French people, and tnal I was go.ng to cut a poor figure. ^ ^ The first speaker unwittingly came to my rescue by mak ng an onslaught upon the French mode of spend ■ng the seventh day. ■" With all due respect to the nat.ve country of our visitor," said he, " I am bound to s..y that on the one Sunday which I spent in Paris I saw a great deal of low immorality, and I could n'o help comn,g to the conclusion that this was due to the fact of the French not being a Sabbath-keeping peo- ple. He wound up with a strong appeal to his ownsmen to beware of any temptation to relax in by MLeT""" °' "" '°""" — ••"''--t as given I was ca'led upon to speak next. I rose in my pew but was requested to go into the rostrum. ' W,th alacrity I stepped forward, a little staggered perhaps at finding myself for the first time in apulpit' but quite ready for the fray. ^ ' I HI W I III .! n m i ii III 350 ^ FRBhWCIIMAN IN AMERICA. " I am sorry," said I, ** to hear the remarks made by the speaker who has just sat down. I cannot, how- ever, help thinking that if our friend had spent that Sunday in Paris in respectable places, he would have been spared the sight of any low immorality. No doubt Paris, like every large city in the world, has its black spots, and you can easily discover them, if you make proper inquiries as to where they jjre, and if you are properly directed. Now, let me ask, where did he go? I should very much like to know. Being an old Parisian, I have still in my mind's eye the numerous museums that are open free to the people on Sundays. One of the most edifying sights in the city is that of our peasants and workmen in their clean Sunday blouses enjoying themselves with their families, and elevating their tastes among our art treasures. Did our friend go there ? I know there are places where for little money the symphonies of Beethoven and other great masters may be and are enjoyed by thou- sands every Sunday. Did our friend go there? Within easy reach of the people are such places as the Bois de Boulogne, the Garden of Acclimation, where for fifty centimes a delightful day may be spent among the lawns and flower-bed'=: of that Parisian "Zoo." Its goat cars, ostrich cars, its camel and ele- phant drives make it a paradise for children, and one might see whole families there on Sunday afternoons in the summer, the parents refreshing their bodies with this contact with nature and their hearts with the sight of the children's glee. Did our friend go there ? We even have churches in Paris, churches that are A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 351 crammed from six o'clock in the morning till one in the afternoon with worshipers who go on their knees to God. Now, did our friend go to church on that Sunday? Well, where did he go? I am quitting Whitewater to-morrow, and I leave it to his townspeo- ple to investigate the matter. When I first visited New York, stories were told me of strange things to be seen thei:e even on a Sunday. Who doubts, I repeat, that every great city has its black spots? I had no desire to see those of New York, there was so much that was better worth my time and attention. If our friend, our observing friend, would only have done in Paris as I did in New York, he would have seen very little low immorality." The little encounter at Whitewater was only one more illustration of the strange fact that the Anglo- Saxon, who is so good in his own country, so constant in his attendance at church, is seldom to be seen in a sacred edifice abroad, unless, indeed, he has been led there by Baedeker. And last night, at Whitewater, I went to bed pleased with myself, like a man who has fought for his country. When I am in France, I often bore my friends with advice, and find, as usual, that advice is a luxurious gift thoroughly enjoyed by the one who gives it. " You don't know how to do these things," I say to them ; " in England or in America, they are much more intelligent; they do like this and like that." And my friends generally advise me to return to Eng- I's in, 1. fi III ill Hi R J 1 jlti II 352 A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. land or America, where things are so beautifully man- aged. But, when I am out of France, the old Frenchman is all there, and if you pitch into my mother country, I stand up ready to fight at a minute's notice. ir'ii' li ! M CHAPTER XLII. The Origin of American Humor and Its Char ACTERISTICS-THE SacREO AND THE PROFANE- The Germans and American Humor -My oZoN.'^'''''^ "''""'''" ^^ ""^ IMPRESARIOS H Madison, Wis., April 22. AVE been lecturing during the past fortnight in about twelve places, few of which possessed any interest whatever. One of them, however-Cincinnat^ —I was glad to see again. ThUtown of Madison is the only one that has really struck me as being beautiful. From the hills the scenery IS perfectly lovely, with its wooded slopes and lakes Through the kindness of Governor Hoard. I have had a comprehensive survey of the neighborhood ; for he has driven me in his carriage to all the prettiest spots delighting me all the while with his conversation. He .s one of those Americans whom you may often meet if !Ih 'm ^ ^' ^"^ personification of unaffected good-fellowship. The conversation turned on htimor I have always wondered what the origin of American humorcan be: where is or was the fountain-head. You certainly find humor in England among the cultured 353 (I 354 A FRENCHMAIV IN AMERICA. classes, but the class of E. ;Hsh people who emigrate cannot have imported much humor into America. Surely Germany and Scandinavia cannot have contrib- uted to the fund, either. The Scotch have dry, quiet, pawky, unconscious humor; but their influence can hardly have been great enough to implant their quaint native "wut " in American soil. Again, the Irish bull is droll, but scarcely humorous. The Italians, the Hun- garians, have never yet, that I am aware of, been sus- pected of even latent humor. What then, can be the origin of American humor, as we know it, with its naive philosophy, its mixture of the sacred and the profane, its exaggeration and that preposterousness which so completely staggers the foreigner, the French and the German especially ? The mixing of sacred with profane matter, no doubt, originated with the Puritans themselves, and is only an outcome of the cheek-by-jowl, next-door-neighbor fashion of addressing the Higher Powers, which is so common in the Scotch. Many of us have heard of the Scotch minister, whom his zeal for the welfare of mis- sionaries moved to address Heaven in the following manner: " We commend to thy care those missionaries whose lives are in danger in the Fiji Islands .... which, Thou knowest, are situated in the Pacific Ocean." And he is not far removed in our minds from the New England pastor, who preached on the well-known text of St. Paul, and having read : "All things are possible to me," took a five-dollar bill out of his pocket, and placing it on the edge of the pulpit, said : " No, Paul, that is going too far. I bet you five dollars that you can't " But continuing the reading of the text : A I'RENCHMAN L\ AMERICA. 355 N ew text sible ind aul yo lext u ** Through Christ who strengtheneth me," exclaimed, " Ah, that's a very different matter ! " and put back the five-dollar bill in his pocket. This kind of amalgamation of the sacred and pro- 'ILi iSr^A 1. IHE MISSIONARY AND THE FIJIS. fane is constantly confronting one in American soil, and has a firm foothold in American humor. Colonel Elliott F. Shepard, proprietor of the New York Mail and Express, every morning sends to the editor a fresh text from the Bibje for publication at the top of the editorials. One day that text was received^ but somehow got lost, and by noon was still unfound. t i I I l!^ I ■\:j rfH ;,/i, 356 // FRENCIIMAIV IN AMEKICA I was told that " you should have heard the composi- tors' room ring with : * Where can that d d text be?'" Finally the text was wired and duly inserted. These men, however, did not intend any religious dis- respect. Such a thing was probably as far from their minds as it was from the minds of the Puritan preachers of old. There are men who swear, as others pray, without meaning anything. One is a bad habit, the other a good one. • • • • • All that naive philosophy, with which America abounds, must, I fancy, be the outcome of hardship en- dured by the pioneers of former days, and by the Westerner of our own times. The element of exaggeration, which is so character- istic of American humor, may be explained by the rapid success of the Americans and the immcnsit}/ of the continent which they inhabit. Everything is on a grand scale, or suggests hugeness. Then negro humor is mainly exaggeration, and has no doubt added its quota to the compound which, as I said just now, completely staggers certain foreigners. Governor Hoard was telling me to-day that a Ger- man was inclined to be offended with him for saying that the Germans, as a rule, were unable to see through an American joke, and he invited Governor Hoard to try the effect of one upon him. The governor, there- upon told him the story of the tree, *' out West," which was so high that it took two men to see to the top. One of them saw as far as he could, then the second started from the place where the first stopped see- ing, and went on. The recital did not raise the X M THAl's A TAMNT LIE ! " IM 358 .^ FA'EXCI/MAX IN AMERICA, /(!• wu ghost of a smile, and Governor Hoard then said to the German: "Well, you see, the joke is lost upon you ; you can't see American humor." " Oh, but," said the German, " that is not humor, that's a tamnt lie !" And he is still convinced that he can see through an American joke. • • • • • Grand Rapids, April 24. Have had to-day a lovely, sublime example of that preposterousness which so often characterizes Ameri- can humor. Arrived here this morning from Chicago. At noon, the Grand Rapidite who was " bossing the show" called upon me at the Morton House, and kindly in- quired whether there was anything he could do for me. Before leaving, he said: "While I am here, I may as well give you the check for to-night's lecture." "Just as you please," I said; "but don't you call that risky ? " " What do you mean ? " " Well, I may die before the evening." " Oh, that's all right," he interrupted. " I'll exhibit your corpse ; I guess there will be just as much money m it! ill 1 ! : ; f 1 '!: . 1 i ■ .- ■ Grand Rapids is noted for its furniture manufactor- ies. A draughtsman, who is employed to design ar- tistic things for the largest of these manufactories, kindly showed me over the premises of his employers. I was not very surprised to hear that when the vari- ous retail houses come to make their yearly selec- MY EXHIBITOR. .%. "%: s^^S%^. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) k ^ /- u.. i 1.0 I.I B^ 1112.8 ISO m Hii 2.5 2.2 |5> 1^ IL25 i 1.4 1.6 — 6" 05 Hiotographic Sciences Corpomtion 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14590 (716) 872-4503 # z J Steamer is out of sight. A great many among the dense crowd are friendly faces familiar to me. The huge construction is set in motion, and gently and smoothly glides from the docks to the Hudson Kiver. The sun is shining, the weather glorious. lie faces on land get less and less distinct. For the last time I wave my hat. Hallo, what is the matter with me ? Upon my word, I believe I am sad. I go to the library, and, THE "TEUTONIC." like a child, seize a dozen sheets of note paper on which I write : " Good-by." I will send them to New York from Sandy Hook. The Tetaonu- is behaving beautifully. We pass Sandy Hook. The sea is perfectly calm. Then I think of my dear ones at home, and the happiest thoughts take the place of my feelings of regret at leaving my friends. My impresario, Major J. B. Pond, shares a beautiful, I 1'' h>;j h ' It r: I .ll^riir 364 /f FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. well-lighted, airy cabin with me. He is coming to England to engage Mr. Henry M. Stanley for a lecture tour in America next season. The company on board is large and choice. In the • A FEW niSAPI'OINTED STATESMEN. steerage a few disappointed American statesmen re- turn to Europe. Oh ! that Teutonic ! can any one imagine anything more grand, more luxurious? She is going at the rate of 450 miles a day. In about five days we shall be at Queenstown. A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA. 365 Liverpool, May 4. My most humble apologies are due to the Atlantic for libeling that ocean at the beginning of this book. For the last six days the sea has been perfectly calm, and the trip has been one of pleasure the whole time' Here is another crowd on the landing-stage at Liver- pool. And now, dear reader, excuse me if I leave you Yopwere present at the friendly farewell handshakings on the New York side; but, on this Liverpool quay I see a face that I have not looked upon for five months and having a great deal to say to the owner of it, I will politely bow you out first. Max O'Rell's Impressions of America and the Amerlcaaa, !il!il JONATHAN AND HTs CONTINENT BY MA.X C'RELIL. And jack ALLYN TRANSLATED BY MADAME PAUL BLOUMT, In One Elegant i2mo Volume. Extra Cloth, Gilt Top, - - Price, $1.50. Paper Binding, - - - - * 30 cts. WHAT THE PRESS SAYS: ** We have laughed with him at our neighbors, and now If we are clever we wiQ laugh with him at ourselves." — Daily Graphic, N. V, " One reads the book with a perpetual smile on one's face, punctuated every now and then by a loud laugh, as one follows the brilliant Frenchman through his six months' tour of America. ♦ * * He has glanced at things with the eye of a trained observer, and commented upon them with originality and humor. * * ♦ One lays down the book with a wish that one might know its author."— CitVa^ News. " The sensation of the spring. * * * It will tickle the American in spots and make him mad in spots, but it will be read, talked of, and enjoyed." — Hotmt /ournal, Boston, " Undoubtedly the most interesting and sprightly book of the season, * * * II is rich in information." — Inter-Ocean, Chicago, CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 104 & 106 Fourth Avenue, N. Y. 1':. ij •• Rarely has one sprung into so immediate a fame in two continents." —Boston Home Journal. A NEW VOLUME BY MAX O'RELL, AUTHOR OF JOJVATHAAT AND Ills CONTINENT. JACQUES BONHOMME, JOHN BULL ON THE CONTINENT, and FROM MY LETTER BOX. By MAX O'RELL, Author of ^^ Jonathan and His Continent;^ <^John Bull Jr. ^^ etc., etc. I vol., i2mo. Paper, 50 cents. Extra Cloth, 75 cents. fe«n. whether .h^ joke hiS hi « "'"^ f"*" ^'""°'' »PP«™«y indif- '. i„ •. . .""' J""' ""' hiraself or somebody else."— r.s« Tny Budnl NEiW YORK CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY 104 «Sr 106 Fourth Avenue JOHN BULL, Jr, OR French as She is Traducea. By max O'RELL, author of JONATHAN AND HIS CONTINENT. With a Preface by George C. Eggleston. ■'\ H Boards, flexible ; price, 50 cents. Cloth, gilt top, unique, |i.oo. " There is not a page in this delightful little volume that does not sparkle." — Phila. Press, " One expects Max O'Rell to be distinctively funny. He is regarded as a French Mark Twain." — 7'he Beacon. " The whole theory of education is to be exiraited from these humorous sketches." — Baltimore American. "A volume which is bubbling over with briylitness, and is pervaded with wholesome common sense." — A\ Y. Com. Advertiser. " May be placed among those favored volumes whose interest is not exhausted by one perusal, but which may be *.aken up again with a renewal of the entertainment afforded by the first reading." — Boston Gazette. ^ CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY 104 & 106 Fourth Avenue, New York