CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library DA 630.H65 1914 John Bull limited / 3 1924 028 008 757 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028008757 To "THE ONLY GIRL ON EARTH" My Daughter "RENCI" The eompanion of my travels and in every sense my fairest critic, this book is DEDICATED by her affectionate "DADDY" John Bull, Limited By GEORGE W. HILLS With Photographs by the Author PRICE, $1.25 REGENT PUBLISHING CO. 1703 CHESTNUT STREET PHILADELPHIA COPYRIGHT 1914 BY GEORGE W. HILLS PREFACE I have not endeavored to "write a book." Therefore this is neither an official guide to England or a brief historical review of that much buffeted kingdom. Many things of interest pertaining to John Bull and his island have been omitted, and only a comparatively few localities touched upon in passing. This little volume was written to please the "Only Girl," to whom it is also dedicated, and having performed its allotted task and thereby justified its con- tinued existence, may possibly find favor elsewhere. With all its faults I love it still, for it is the fragmentary record of a pleasant sojourn in Albion. The statements it contains are all founded on either fact or circumstance, and are made without personal bias or enmity. Like most other things, John Bull must be viewed as an all-round proposition and from many standpoints. He is a complex individual, full of moods and changes, cordial or crabbed as you happen to find him, and must be judged accordingly. But he lives in a Paradise six months of the year, and one can at any rate ramble over his domain with an appreciation of all that, is so beautiful and in some respects so different from what we are accustomed to at home. To travel is good for the- soul, and even if it has no other broadening effect there is compensation in the pride and mighty gladness that per- vades every fibre of an American as he returns once more to "God's Country," after having compared it with the effete and mouldering institutions of the Old World. in CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE An Ocean Voyage. Comparison of Trans-Atlantic Liners. English Weather 9 CHAPTER H The London Bus. Soft-Coal Smoke and Fog. An English Sunday. Waterloo, the Irish, and British Brag 25 CHAPTER HI Germany vs. England. A Ryny Dye. The Tower and a Fable. Scotch Thrift. Westminster Abbey. Story of the Donkey Shay 49 CHAPTER IV English Youth, Maid Servants, and "Clawsses." Woman's Place Abroad. The Cat's-Meat Man. Dog's Cemetery. A Queenstown Letter 66 CHAPTER V Waits and Carols. The Menace of Labor. Official Red Tape. Ducal Landlords. Titled American Brides. British "Aristocracy " 89 CHAPTER VI Tourist Hand-Book. English and German Beds. Weather, Landladies, and Bath-Tubs. Bachelor Life in a French Convent. The English "Fourth " 109 V vi CONTENTS CHAPTER VII PAGE The Mighty Thames. Ohio Gisls in London. "English As She Is Spoke." Queer Clippings from the London Newspapers 127 CHAPTER VIII Comparison of English and American Wages. Whitsun- tide. A Bit of Wales. York, Old Chester, and the Roman Wall. Midland Dialects 15° CHAPTER IX A Well-Spent Shilling. English Railways. The Goose Muriel. Ameiucan Village in Manchester. John Bull AND his Crematorium 171 CHAPTER X English Egotism. 'Some Characteristic Post-Cards. A Social Evening. A London Sabbath and Trip to Colo- rado. Metropolitan Rambles 191 CHAPTER XI Railway and River Excursions. Q-uaint Village Names. England a Paradise for Negroes. Sailing of the "May- flower." The New Forest 213 CHAPTER XII Americans as "Aliens." Tea and Scotch. Law of Private Domain. Monument to George Washington. Tale of A Shirt. "Bobs" 233 CHAPTER XIII Bubble and Squeak, Heavenly Hash, and Trifle. South Coast and Isle of Wight. A Bathing Episode. An Irish Princess. The Pig that Saw New York 254 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "The Only Girl on Earth." The Author. Mid-Atlantic. A Wayside Inn at Wargrave. Westminster Abbey and Parliament Tower. "Ready to Ride on the King's Business." Whitehall. A Bit of Cheshire. The London "Bobby." The Coster Donkey-Shay. Dogs' Cemetery, Hyde Park. Introduction of Two Distinguished Foreigners. River Villa at Twickenham. South-Down Chops. Along the River Thames. Above Kew Bridge. The Royal Guards. English Manor House at Chichester. Beaumaris Castle, Wales. A Whale in the Upper Thames. Entrance to Old Abbey at Chester. "Old Ship Inn," near Manchester. King Charles Tower on the Roman Wall, Chester. Two Americans in the Philippine Village. Regarded in Manchester as Genuine Americans. When King Edward Bowed. Old Richmond Bridge. Twickenham Ferry. Fare a. Penny. A Typical English Church- Yard. Crab Inn, Isle of Wight. One of England's War-Dogs, Portsmouth Dock- Yard. Bird's-Eye View at Isle of Wight. A Bit of Hampton Court Gardens. Hampton Court Palace. Monarch of All He Surveyed. The Dog Watch. Nelson's Flag-Ship "Victory," Portsmouth. Chain Ferry Boat. vii V^_5V\AA^ -AAA John Bull, Limited CHAPTER I An Ocean Voyage. Comparison of Trans-Atlantic Liners. English Weather. The following letter, written home during my first trip across the Atlantic years ago, always brings to me a little reminiscent thrill. It bears the Cunard crest of a Royal British Lion rampant, his face nearly hidden in magnificent Galway whiskers, rushing madly along on his hind legs, with raging tail erect and a large, hot plum pudding in his forepaws, — thus delicately conveying the idea of good food, prompt service and a quick trip. Cunard Royal Mail S. S. "Aurania." Neoring the Irish Coast. I am told that the Purser will take charge of letters written on board and post them at Queenstown for New York, so I improve the golden hour. It is not the easiest thing in the world to write a letter on this rolling, plunging ship. The ink-bottle is secured to the desk or it would soon be on the floor, and one slips, slides, or is swayed back and forth in the chair so constantly that writing is difficult. The trip thus far, with the exception of one turbulent day and night, has been an enjoyable one for those who have been well, including myself, but that day and night offset everything else. The ship had been rolling pretty constantly from the start, but on Monday we ran into rough water and nearly everyone except the crew went to bed. The great green rolling mountains were magnifi- 10 JOHN BULL, LIMITED cent, and came rushing up alongside as if determined to dash right on deck. But just at the critical moment the ship is lifted bodily up the long green slant to slide down the other side, where we are rolled over to meet the next upheaval, the lower deck shoveling up great masses of green and white water with every such dip. The sloping incline of the deck at such times is so steep that no one can walk without holding tightly to the guide-ropes that are lashed in place for such emergency. The steamer-chairs which ordinarily are ranged along the promenade deck, were tied fast to the iron rail extending under the cabin windows, to prevent sliding down- hill with their occupants, yet even with this precaution an unusual lurch of the ship will often send one flying like a toboggan into the scuppers. I had a bad fall myself in that way, while lying in my steamer-chair chatting with a seasick convalescent in the next one. The rope lashings got loose and as my chair suddenly started on a flying-trip down the slope, I seized the arm of his chair, thereby upsetting my own, which went off into space by itself. The wrench that my weight gave the adjoining seat broke off the wooden arm and also snapped the rope, and both the invalid and myself had just got fairly started downhill on our backs when the ship rolled the other way and tumbled us in a heap against the cabin. I caught a rope as he seized my leg in a death-grip, and we hung there until the return lurch came and enabled us to scramble into other chairs. I had a bruised arm as a memento, but the excitement entirely cured the invalid of his seasickness and made him very chipper. Aside from this interval of bad weather,' however, the trip has been de- lightful, with sunshine days and moonlight nights, and I have passed hours in watching the great white-capped billows and in viewing the endless arcs and diagrams marked upon the sky by our masts and two great smokestacks, as we are rolled over and back by every passing monster wave. At night it is equally enjoyable to lie at ease in one's steamer-chair and view the star-studded sky over- head, the constellations appearing much larger and brighter than when seen from the land, and vastly more numerous. Under such soothing surroundings, one forgives the table-steward's regular morning query of " 'Hoatmeal or 'ominy, sir ?" and wishes the voyage might continue indefinitely. Incidentally, my return trip to New York was a record one, being marked by rough weather from start to finish, and although I have since crossed the ocean many times. JOHN BULL, LIMITED ii both for pleasure and business, I have never passed through another such experience nor have I any wish to do so. Wind, weather and turbulent sea all combined to make that voyage one to be long remembered, and it is with yet another reminiscent thrill that I peruse once more the following portion of a letter written on board the battered and buffeted old-time Servia, just before we finally reached New York: Cunard Royal Mail S. S. "Servia," Off Newfoundland Banks, En route Homeward. Trouble began as soon as we had got fairly out into the Channel after leaving Liverpool. I may say right here that we have had an exceptionally hard voyage — that not for years, even in this wintry season, has such weather been known on the Atlantic, and that the Servia is a bruised and tumbled plaything of the waves, her red smokestacks encrusted to the topmost part with white salt from the flying spray, her deck-rail broken, furniture smashed, crew injured and every passenger a lame and tired wreck. We are already two days overdue, and for four days past it has not been safe to go on deck. I have not been ill a moment, but am so lame and sore from constant straining to keep a balance, and from being thrown across the music-room yesterday by a violent roll of the ship, that I am hardly myself. Here is a brief outline of what we have been through : The day we left Liverpool was rainy and most unpleasant. Toward evening we got into the Channel, or Irish Sea, and the big steamship began to roll. By midnight the passengers had aban- doned sleep and were holding tight to their berths to prevent being thrown out! I retired about eleven o'clock, and took the precaution of putting a folded-up blanket under the front of my mattress, thereby making a little valley in the rear of the berth. As a result I slept soundly until about four A. M., when a heavy Ulster coat that hung overhead on a hook and had been thrashing about all night, suddenly let go and fell down on my head. I turned on the light, and then holding tightly to my berth, looked with wonder at the sight before me. My steamer-trunk and large traveling-bag were •playing tag all over the floor of my cabin, now under the berth and 12 JOHN BULL, LIMITED now merrily racing down-hill and bringing up with a crash against the door. The water had slopped out of my big glass decanter all over the basin and carpet. I reached down and rescued my shoes as they slid past the berth. My clothes, suspended on hooks, were alternately stretching out straight in the air or being slapped for- cibly back against the wall, as the ship rolled and plunged and reared in a cross-sea that was simply awful. After a considerable time spent in trying to dress while grabbing the berth to prevent falling, I went on deck — but not to remain long. The spray and driving sleet made the place unendurable, while to walk in a straight line was simply impossible. It was just a matter of holding on for dear life, and gazing out over a frothing, seething waste of heaving and tossing billows, whipped by wind and rain, and furiously charging down upon our tossed and burdened ship. I finally went below for breakfast. Only half a dozen passengers appeared — the rest were in bed, groaning and seasick wrecks, careless alike of food or life itself. The forenoon was a repetition of the night's experiences — it was necessary to hold tightly to your chair if reading a book, or to brace yourself in a berth if lying down. About noon we entered Queenstown harbor, anchored in smooth water, and everyone breathed a breath of relief. We were to remain there for two hours, waiting for the late mails to come aboard, and gradually the passengers began to recover health, appear on deck, and lament their future, for there was a heavy gale outside and we were to proceed at once. Several hundred emigrants arrived with the mail-bags, and finally the little tender blew a parting whistle alongside and puffed away shoreward — the last link that connected us with solid land! Then we started out into the open sea, with three thousand miles of howling gale and heaving foam ahead, while the majority of passen- gers, including all the emigrants, promptly retired below deck to prepare for trouble. A Guion liner had preceded us out of the harbor, and when I ob- served her bow rising up and punching holes in the sky, three miles ahead of us, I closed my marine-glass, had my trunk and valise lashed to the cabin wall, and made up my mind to get one more meal anyhow and then trust to luck. We overtook the other boat about four o'clock. The spray was flying over her in a perfect deluge, and she plunged as if she would go under every time. Our own ship was pitching and rolling heavily also, and with a parting look over the storm-lashed mountains of water ahead, I went down to dinner. I JOHN BULL, LIMITED 13.^ found the dining-tables partitioned by "racks" into small enclosed spaces, to prevent plates and other things from sliding off — and such a dinner! When the ship rolled your way everything on the table came rushing toward you as far as the rack permitted and brought up with a clatter. With the next roll of the ship everything rushed at the passenger opposite. Water splashed out of the heavy glass tumblers, while plates, food, and all things movable did the Virginia Reel. Such a rattle and clatter of dishes ! You drank your coffee from the cup held over your head, or dove into it as the next roll pitched you forward in your seat. The table-stewards skidded about on a floor slanted like a house-roof, doing a "short- leg and long-leg" act, and it was certainly remarkable how they maintained an equilibrium with both hands filled with dishes. It was an interesting diversion also to observe a passenger entering the saloon, slipping and sliding and grasping madly at chair-backs, until he finally reached his place and either fell upon somebody's head or lay abruptly down on the table! Nobody took soup — it was no time for soup. Also the dinner was a brief one, for nobody felt over-confident of his stomach, although we all smiled cheer- fully and endeavored to appear nonchalant. Two stewards escorted me solicitously to the door when I had finished dinner, and I skated and slid and then literally waltzed up the main staircase as the ship did an extra roll, seemingly for my benefit. The fresh salt air was delicious, and through the breaking clouds the moon was struggling into view. The storm was evidently clearing away — but alas, this was too good to be true. The moon had only come out to say good-bye — we haven't seen it since. That night I shared the common lot and didn't sleep. It required constant exertion and unceasing vigilance to even stay in one place. In other cabins I could hear the groans of the invalids and the frequent tinkle, tinkle of electric bells summoning weary stewards. The noise and din on deck was something fearful, and as a pleasant variety the ship's stern occasionally lifted clear from the waves and the liberated propellers whirled round in the air and shook the vessel from end to end. I lay in my berth, holding on tightly, and with both knees braced firmly against the front. After a while I got up, climbed on the sofa underneath the round port-hole and looked out through the thick wet glass. It was not a cheerful spectacle. When the ship rolled to starboard, my port-hole went about ten feet under water and the black seas rushed past with an angry surge that made me feel grateful that I was on the dry side of the glass. 14 JOHN BULL, LIMITED The following day was simply "more of the same." The gale in- creased and the sailors had the decks to themselves. During the forenoon a heavy sea broke over the forward deck and flung three sailors against the rail, breaking a rib for one and badly bruising the others. All three went under the surgeon's care. During the afternoon a table-steward was thrown bodily across the saloon and went to bed with a broken arm. One of the cooks was badly scalded in the kitchen by a sudden lurch of the ship, and the surgeon reported increasing business. I found it impossible to keep within doors — the great waves possessed a fascination that was simply ir- resistible, and eventually another passenger and myself induced an oiBcer to take us outside on the wind-swept deck, where we could behold the war of the elements from a front orchestra seat. We were rushed along the slippery deck to the foot of a mast, and securely lashed thereto by a sailor who was nearly blown off his feet in the struggle. Standing there, drenched instantly by blinding sheets of spray and in a wind which made speech impossible, we beheld a scene of wild and terrible grandeur. Enormous waves like mountains of green water, each huge enough to engulf our entire ship, swung us upward like a toy, and from the crest we could see a blinding waste of other monster waves, tumbling, rolling and heav- ing like Titans at play. Then followed the thrilling, rolling descent to the valley between and another breathless upheaval to the sum- mit of another giant. As the ship rolled, we could look straight down the almost perpendicular deck at our feet upon the waters raging almost directly under us — the next moment the mast swung us over backward until we could look straight up the same deck and see nothing but drifts of scudding cloud. Instinctively we gripped the mast-rail with clinging fingers, fearing lest the lash- ings break and plunge us helpless into the yawning gulf beneath. We were not allowed to remain there long, however, and were heartily glad to get back to shelter and safety again. Along in the afternoon, while we were playing whist in the smoking-room with more or less difficulty, a large whale rose about a hundred feet from the ship and afforded a fine spectacle. The whale was a big fellow and appeared not to mind the ship at all, rising and falling on the great waves and spouting water in fine style. He disappeared shortly, probably going down into the more quiet depths for a change of scene. Later in the day a big sea struck the port bow and broke completely over it, flooding the deck and creating a panic in the steerage. Both officers and crew had JOHN BULL, LIMITED 15 a strenuous quarter-hour in forcibly preventing the frenzied emi- grants from rushing on deck to almost certain death. That night was another nightmare like the one preceding, but I managed to get some sleep. At breakfast next morning we ran into a young hurricane, which included thunder, lightning, and a pelting storm of hailstones. They rattled on the decks and against the glass ports like volleys of musketry, and the sorely beset Servia heeled over under the force of the wind until it was impossible to move about on foot. The sailors crawled along the deck, holding to life-lines, and for half an hour it was a wild and crowded experience. Afterwards one of them brought me a great ball of hailstones, scooped up from the deck and resembling a huge white "pop-corn ball." Like magic the hail- storm passed away, leaving us to contend with only wind and sea. During the day another sailor was disabled by being thrown against an iron ventilator, and several emigrants were reported bruised by similar accidents in the steerage. So the days wore on, each like its predecessor, with no abatement of the rough sea or gale. Life became very monotonous, for every outlet was closed and barred, no passenger allowed on deck, and the barometer apparently knocked out and unable to rise, but still scowl- ing blackly at all enquirers. Great seas were constantly coming over the bow as the ship pitched deeply into them, lifting tons of water as she rose, which raced back along the decks to flood the scuppers and drench everything with flying spray. Thursday we had a snowstorm and some smarty added "Hot Snowballs" to the dinner menu. In the afternoon a great leisurely Goliath of a wave came on board, smashing in the smoking-room skylight, flooding the room and drenching half a dozen passengers to the skin. The impact of the wave sounded like a cannon or an explosion, and started another incipient panic in the steerage. The bridge was damaged, canvas torn away, and two men narrowly escaped being carried overboard. The ship's run was only 265 miles that day, and it proved the banner day of the storm. That night several of the female passengers slept on the floor of the main saloon, it being almost impossible to avoid being thrown from a berth. Friday was a day of special interest, caused by two men in the steerage who developed delirium tremens and were finally overpowered after a free fight, during which several sailors were called in to restore order. The steerage passengers have been in a very nervous and excited state during all these turbulent days and nights, being con- 1 6 JOHN BULL, LIMITED fined below deck and constantly expecting the worst to happen, and aje a steady source of trouble to officers and crew. Next day the gale cleared a little and at night the wind diminished materially, but the heavy sea remained and the rolling and pitching were something to try the patience of Job himself. Everything not nailed down was tumbled around and broken, the dining-saloon was practically deserted, and existence was a trial to everyone on board from the Captain down. The rolling of the ship was not an even motion, but very tricky — it was difficult to locate in advance. Another steward was slammed against the saloon doorway, and yet another sailor reported injured. The ship's pet cat, asleep on a chiair with all her twenty claws gripped into the cushion for safety, was flung like a stone from a sling and went slap into a bunch of glassware on the sideboard, smashing about half of it and seriously annoying both the Chief Steward and the cat. The delay and storm and general discomfort of the trip are attributed by the crew solely to the presence on board of five clergy- men, which according to one sailor is sufficient to sink any ship afloat, even one clergyman on board being a direct tempting of Providence. This was the day of all days that I selected for what is usually my daily morning bath, and finding the bathroom a trifle hot and steamy, I unscrewed the brass port-hole in order to get fresh air, and then entered the tub. I had hardly seated myself therein when an extra long roll of the ship sent the open port under water, and what I thought was the whole icy-cold Atlantic came through the port-hole and down into the tub! The deluge nearly washed me out of the room itself, and what with the sudden shock and the heroic efforts I made to get the thing shut, I forgot my bath. I mean my warm bath — I didn't forget the other one and never shall. The bath-steward will remember it also. He came a-running, gave one horrified glance into the room and rushed for a bucket! This morning the sea has gone down very materially, several passengers have limped out on deck, the sun is apparently prepar- ing to shine once more, and the Captain says the storm is over. We are hustling along toward New York at a 400-mile clip, and if the good weather continues and we can keep those five clergymen out of sight, we expect to arrive on Tuesday, about three days late!" That was in the old days — ^back in '92. You can go to Europe in a very different style now. The following speci- JOHN BULL, LIMITED 17 men day's diary will show how the voyager may spend his time on one of the modern English liners: 6 A. M., RISE. — The earliness of the hour is quite optional, but it gives time before breakfast for a SHAVE at the ship's barber-shop, and a MILE WALK round the ship's various decks. BREAKFAST. — Again the hour rests entirely with the passen- ger. Below is a specimen menu : Apples Oranges Bananas Quaker Oats Rice Hominy Fried Fresh Fish Finnan Haddock Grilled Beefsteak and Tomatoes Grilled Lambs Kidney Minced Veal with Poached Eggs Cerealine Fritters Broiled York Ham and Wiltshire Bacon Goa Curry and Rice Pork Chops to Order Potatoes: Plain, Mashed and French Fried Omelettes: Plain and Au Lard Eggs to Order, any Style COLD Roast Beef York Ham Wheat Cakes, Sally Lunns, Corn Bread Vienna and Graham Rolls Preserves Honey Marmalade Following breakfast the passenger may, after a short rest and stroll, turn into the Gymnasium. — Here, on quaint ostrich-like contrivances, he can find an excellent substitute for his ride in the Park, or even an up- to-date trot on a camel, or gripping the oars of the rowing-machine may have his morning's pull. Perhaps after this exertion he would like a Turkish or an electric bath. Both of these are to be found on the ship. A turn into the reading and writing-room, and he can read the latest news from the i8 JOHN BULL, LIMITED Marconi machine. Now he enters the "lift" and is conveyed to the dining-saloon for lunch. The following menu, compared with that of the dinner below, affords a striking contrast between the Ameri- can and the English styles. LUNCHEON MENU Sardines. Potted Shrimps Clam Chowder Beef Tea Fried Oysters Broiled Squab on Toast Corned Round of Beef and Vegetables Baked and Sweet Potatoes Chops and Steaks COLD Sirloin of Beef Roast Lamb and Mint Sauce Benoist Beef 'Smoked Tongue Boiled Ham. Lunch Sausages Brawn Beetroot Mixed Salad Rice Pudding Stewed Figs Ice Cream Assorted Cakes Cheddar or Gorgonzola Cheese Fruit. Coffee After such a repast one naturally turns with a book to the deck- chair, or smoke-room, or after a short nap, can join the ladies in the lounge, where passengers will doubtless indulge in a little music. The amateur photographer, however, will be on deck using up his supply of plates or films. After five o'clock tea in the lounge he will seek the open air again, either for another spell with his book, a walk on the shady part of the deck, or to send replies per Marconi to the friends whose messages he received in the morning. Then dress for dinner — a la Europe this time. DINNER MENU Olives Bloater Toast Celery Consomme Duchesse Potage Polonaise Bluefish, Maitre d'Hotel Saute of Wild Rabbits Filet de Boeuf, Chateaubriand JOHN BULL, LIMITED 19 Ribs of Beef, Yorkshire Pudding Haunch of Mutton, Red Currant Jelly Chicken, Bread Sauce Minced Cabbage Oyster Plant Plain, Mashed or Roast Potatoes Cold York Ham Salad Lemon Pudding Compote of Apricots Ice Cream French Pastry Cheese Straws Fruit Coffee The band has been playing merrily at the morning concert on deck, and during lunch and dinner. Now the passenger strolls out on deck and watches the white wake of the steamship and takes his final evening walk. He has his game of bridge with his little coterie, "and so," as Pepys hath it, "to bed." This liner may well be called a floating city, for in addi- tion to her crew of four hundred she can accommodate in the most up-to-date fashion over three thousand first, sec- ond and third class passengers. She is nearly half as long again as St. Paul's Cathedral, or about the extent of the river-front of the Houses of Parliament. If placed on end she would overtop every skyscraper in New York, and her upper end would be four times the height of Bunker Hill Monument. Yet even larger and finer Atlantic liners are being constructed, and the floating city costing between $9,000,000 and $10,000,000 is coming with its acres of deck- age, miles of distances, electrically-lighted streets, prom- enades of waving palms, its tropic gardens, electric lifts, reception rooms, dining-saloons, deck cafes and verandas, athletic fields, cricket and baseball grounds, tennis courts and golf links, wireless telegraph offices, theatres and grand opera, flower shops, swimming-pools and Turkish baths, deck trolley-cars and department stores. So much of this has already been realized that the remainder is easily con- 20 JOHN BULL, LIMITED ceivable. These gigantic ships will not be greyhounds, however, but seven-day hotels, and are becoming a neces- sity because the public demands larger and more comfort- able sleeping-rooms on an ocean trip, more necessaries and more luxuries. It is only a question of deeper channels, longer piers and basins and general water-front improve- ment at terminals. Yet contrasted with the modern palace hotel, these ocean leviathans, although considered by many people the highest type of construction achievement, afford but a slight com- parison. A looo-foot liner would displace about 70,000 tons of water, as against 150,000 tons of rock displaced in New York to make way for the basement, cellars and foundations of the Hotel McAlpin. Its twenty-eight floors comprise an acreage of twenty-one acres, and more than two thousand servants are employed. In the matter of state-rooms there is no comparison whatever, since in the hotel are sixteen hundred and fifty rooms. Yet even this amazing capacity is far surpassed by statistics of some of the New York "skyscrapers," or modern office buildings, the highest of which rear their fifty floors upward for nearly a thousand feet, or as high into the clouds as the Eiffel Tower ! Here is yet another object-lesson in modern trans-Atlantic transport. Read this slowly, son, and let the statistics sink in : The Hamburg- American liner "Imperator" carried on her maiden trip this year the largest number of passengers ever carried on any single steamship in any part of the world, said passenger-list being 3,649. Combining this number with her crew of officers and men, numbering 1,332, gives a total of 4,981 souls. Usually the crew of the liner numbers only 1,180, but JOHN BULL, LIMITED 21 owing to the large passenger-list she carried 220 extra hands in the steward's department. There were 859 first, 647 second, 648 third, and 1,495 steerage passengers aboard. Arrangements were made at the Custom House in New York to have the entire force of Acting Deputy Collectors, Acting Deputy Surveyors and Inspectors, 250 in all, at Hoboken when the "Imperator" docked, and there were also 40 Appraisers on duty. At a conservative estimate, passengers in the first and second cabins averaged three trunks each, which gives a total of 4,518, besides 3,000 pieces of small baggage. The enclosed square in front of the Hamburg-American Line pier was filled with over 400 automobiles and taxi-cabs, while outside the roadway was a long line of cabs and hansoms to carry away the passengers and their baggage. Figures given by the agents of the line show that the "Imperator" carried on her voyage for the tables on the ship 50,000 pounds of fresh meat, 9,000 pounds of venison and poultry, 9,000 pounds of fresh fish, 6,000 pounds of bread, 1,000 pounds of yeast, 48,000 eggs, 28,000 pounds of fresh vegetables, 13,000 pounds of fresh fruits, 150 cases of lemons and oranges, and 1,500 boxes of ice cream, all for this trip to New York only. In addition, she carried these stores for the out and home voyage — that is, from Ham- burg to New York and return : 10,000 pounds of potatoes, 4,400 pounds of onions, 350 barrels of flour of 200 pounds each, 330 gallons of vinegar, 60 barrels of salt, 550 pounds of mustard, 165 pounds of pepper, 1,500 bottles of fruit, 350 pounds of spices, 27,000 pounds of salt meat, 9,000 pounds of ham and sausages, corned tongues and bacon, 25 barrels of herrings, 2,000 tons and 100 barrels of preserved fish, 800 pounds of smoked fish, 6,000 pounds of cheese, 1,400 gallons of sterilized milk and cream, 5,200 tins of con- densed milk, 5,500 pounds of butter, 6,000 pounds of mar- 22 JOHN BULL, LIMITED garine, 6,000 tins of vegetables, 800 tins of mushrooms, 2,600 pounds of cucumbers, beetroot, pickles, etc., 1,300 pounds of dried vegetables, 5,500 pounds of sauerkraut and salt haricots, 600 pounds of tinned fruit, 2,200 pounds of orange and plum marmalade, 250 pounds of fruit juices, 11,000 pounds of sugar, syrup and honey, 5,600 pounds of coffee, 380 pounds of tea, 440 pounds of chocolate and cocoa, 4,400 pounds of rice, sage, vermicelli, macaroni, oat- meal, etc., for cabin use, 20,000 pounds of rice, dried peas and beans, etc., for ship's crew and steerage passengers, 1,600 pounds of biscuit, waffles, etc. The cellars were stocked with 700 bottles of dessert wines, 5,000 bottles hocks and Moselles, 4,500 bottles Bur- gundy and claret, 3,000 bottles French champagne, 2,100 bottles German sparkling wines, 2,200 bottles brandy, whisky and other liquors, besides 6,000 gallons and 3,000 bottles of beer, 15,000 bottles of mineral water and 660 gallons of crew wines and spirits. Gee! In comparison with the historic first trip of the "Mayflower," and the caravels of Columbus, it is not only evident that "Tempora mutantur," but also that we are going some. Thus we progress in this age of achievement, and already an Inter-Continental Air Line is proposed for the aerial transportation of passengers between New York and Lon- don, via Pekin. Zeppelin airships, averaging forty miles an hour, with accommodations de luxe, are scheduled to stop at the following stations en route: New York, Chi- cago, Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle, Ft. Williams, Behring, Sakholm, Tokio, Pekin, Irkutsk, Omsk, Orenburg, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Riga, Berlin, Cologne, Paris and London! There's a charming six-weeks' trip — and who shall say it isn't entirely feas- ible? JOHN BULL, LIMITED 23 I shall never forget my impressions as I stood early one morning on the balcony of my hotel room at Assmans- hausen, on the Rhine, and saw the great Zeppelin come over the crest of a mountain toward me, like a wingless yellow monster of the air. As it passed overhead on its way to Cologne, the propellers making a low humming like that of some gigantic insect, the rising sun illuminated with sudden splendor the saffron silken body, as if to glorify the creative genius of Man, therein exemplified. What Man has done, Man can do, and even now is doing — enlarging, strengthening and ever improving the Zeppelin type, designed for either peace or war — for carrying either passengers or explosives with equal speed and safety. It was while these and similar thoughts were crowding my mind as I watched the fast disappearing miracle, that I became suddenly aware of the early morning chill, my ab- breviated night apparel and the feverish interest taken in my balcony by some absurd persons on the opposite side- walk. Five seconds later both the Zeppelin and myself had vanished. English people are a constant well-spring of joy and de- light. They shout "Murder" if the thermometer registers below forty during their winter of conglomerate fog, rain and mud, and then shriek for help if the mercury rises above seventy-five in the summer. With them it is either "Arctic weather — most extr'ordinary, y'know," a time for stuffing cotton in ears and noses, wearing a tea-strainer muzzle for filtering pneumonia germs, and shutting the windows tight in every shop and omnibus — or else it is "Tropical 'eat — 'Orrid!" and a 'arf-crown trip to the sea- shore. I should like to "personally conduct" a few Lon- doners to New York in August and see them melt away like a penny ice, or take them there in January into plenty of snow and a genuine winter temperature. English people 24 JOHN BULL, LIMITED do not know what real weather is. The English winter climate is a mixture of fog, drizzle and raw wind — the cold dampness penetrates clear to your marrow, but does not nip your ears like our clear frosty atmosphere. There is a graveyard chill about it that is itself "quite English, y'know," and very productive of coughs and colds. But it isn't "Arctic weather," nor is the summer ever "tropical." There is no lovlier spot on earth than England from April to October, with its cool air, its wealth of field, hedges and delightful woodland, its English "may" and chestnut trees in full bloom — a land where every house has its dainty flower-garden and no window so poor as to be without its plants or blossoms. But during the balance of the year England and perdition are about equally desirable for resi- dential purposes. Mid-Atlantic A Wayside Inn at Wargrave CHAPTER II The London 'Bus. Soft-Coal Smoke and Fog. An English Sunday. Waterloo, the Irish, and British Brag. The London 'bus, with its red-faced, loquacious Jehu, chronic of thirst and repartee, ever ready for a chat with the occupant of the seat beside him — the 'bus of Dickens and Trollope, famous in song and story — is gradually dis- appearing before the increasing number of motor-omni- buses, that more rapid but utterly detested vehicle which leaves a mephitic and sickening trail of gasoline behind it. Vanishing into the historic past is the lumbering ark re- splendent with cocoa and beef-tea advertisements and red, green or yellow of body — guided by an autocrat strapped high on his throne aloft, and officered by the meekest and lowliest of mankind officiating as conductor. The progress of the 'bus-driver through the throng of traffic is triumphal. He raises his whip in Royal salutation to brother Jehus passing his chariot and discharges his amazing vocabulary at inoffensive pedestrians who impede his imperial march. Have you ever occupied a front seat atop a London 'bus, tipped the driver a tuppence or possibly a "tanner," and listened to his amiable dissertations en route? If not, you have missed a treat. From no other vantage-point can the city be studied as well, or with so much attendant pleasure. Information, both guide-book and otherwise, and the raciest of passing comment, will be showered upon you in proportion to your silver introduction to his graces, and many a witty quip and jest be shot at his passing brethren for your edification. " 'Urry up, Guy Fowkes," was the objurgation shouted by my driver one day to a gorgeously red-coated and gold-laced coachman on a Royal equipage 26 JOHN BULL, LIMITED that temporarily blocked the traffic, causing that pampered menial to fairly turn purple with helpless rage, to the de- lighted enjoyment of other drivers within earshot. "I sye, Guv'nor," said another 'bus-driver, as we jogged along down the Strand one afternoon, "d'ye see that chap driving the yellow 'bus? Watch 'im go dotty now." To all appearances the approaching driver had not a care in the world as he guided his horses toward us, composedly puffing his pipe and trailing his long whip-lash — then just a moment before he passed, my driver lifted the round official badge hanging on his breast and dangled it up and down like a jumping-jack before the amazed and shocked eyes of the other. Instantly that living picture of peaceful content became a raging demon! He shook his fist as his vehicle bowled past us, and shouted, "Wyte till I 'ave you in the barn, Jow — I'll blooming well 'ammer your blawsted heyes hout." "Holy smoke," said I. "Is he crazy?" "Werry loikely, Guv'nor," chuckled "Jow." "You see 'is father 'ad a bit of trouble with the 'ang-man!" An American friend 'and myself one day mounted the roof of a Bayswater 'bus, and pretending to be unac- quainted with each other, took the front seats, John on the driver's left, I on his right. The fat, red-faced driver greeted me with a propitiatory grin and a "Mornin', Guv'nor," whereupon I passed him a "tanner" (English as she is spoke for sixpence) and enquired, "What is that big building over there?" "Thankee, Guv'nor — yessirf — ^that 'ere is the 'orspital, sir — yessir — werry fine building, sir." At this moment, John, on his other side, touched his arm and handed him a "bob" (the English for shilling), remark- ing confidentially, "Here, old chappy, never mind him — what's this Park over here?" JOHN BULL, LIMITED 27 "Thanks, me Lord — that's not a Park — that's privut grounds, me Lord — ^belongs to the Juke of ." "I say," I interrupted, "is this a Club House, driver," pointing to a building on my right. "No, Guv'nor; that's a privut 'ouse, sir — ^belongs to Lydy ." "Here, what's this place over here," interrupted John, and the bewildered driver, trying to serve two masters, turned to reply, but jerked the reins vigorously instead and shouted, "Wo — Wo, there!" having nearly run down another 'bus while his attention was distracted from his horses, which was exactly what John and I were antici- pating. Then after his fiery steeds had risen from their haunches and the proper amount of profane repartee had been exchanged between the two drivers and freely echoed by both conductors, we drove on with our enjoyment bot- tled for the next opportunity. This pleasing diversion can be safely repeated two or three times with the same driver. The English comprehension takes a lot of comprehending, and that brief ride added considerably to the gayety of at least one nation. The 'bus conductor is the direct antithesis of his lordly confrere on the box — ^meek and humble as befits his lowly station, literally a servant of the people, and in a country where society is divided into "clawsses," whereof each class kicks and snubs the class below, all the inferior classes alike lord it over the poor 'bus conductor, whose polite deference and absolute servility is unfailing. He thanks you for your fare, thanks you again as he passes along back to his sta- tion on the rear footboard, touches his hat if you ask a question and thanks you along with his reply — courtesies which are accepted by the general public as homage rightly due to superior beings. There being more square-inch civ- ility to the average 'bus conductor than to any average four 28 JOHN BULL, LIMITED Englishmen on the sidewalk, we were sometimes moved to impress a moral lesson on the haughty British public. John, two American friends of ours, and myself took a 'bus to Piccadilly one Sunday, each of us arrayed not like Solomon in all his glory, but like the Englishman in all of his — "top 'at," long, black frock-coat, light trousers, gray gloves and the inevitable rolled umbrella — the regulation civic uniform of the English gentleman, familiarly called "toff." Thus appareled, and each with difficulty managing a plain- glass monocle, we rose majestically from our seats on the 'bus roof and descended in dignified single file the narrow winding stairway to the rear platform. The conductor politely stepped off to the curbstone to allow us to pass and as we filed slowly by, John shook hands with him cordially, said "Had a charming ride, old man; thanks, very much; good-bye," and then each of us in turn grasped his hand and wished him a hearty farewell, the last man leaving in his paralyzed palm a bright silver shilling. The amazing spectacle of four dignified "toffs" parting thus from an humble and despised conductor was always sufficient to at- tract excited heads from the 'bus windows and roof, appall passers-by on the sidewalk, and create a temporary ob- struction to traffiic. We walked on with a lordly uncon- sciousness of the presence of others on the same earth, leaving a dumfounded conductor staring in a trance at a shilling in his hand, while an irate and impatient driver slapped his whiplash along the wheels and vociferated, "I sye. Bill, wot are we stying 'ere for? Garn!" The place to enjoy a 'bus-ride is on the roof, as pre- viously stated (the roof of the 'bus, of course), but the nar- row winding stairway leading thereto is certainly a trial to fat people, or those untrained as acrobats. A climbing, swaying, pushing line of people mounting the stairway of a 'bus in motion may not be a thing of beauty, but it is a Westminster Abbey and Parliament Tower 'Ready to Ride on the King's Business." Whitehall JOHN BULL, LIMITED 29 joy forever to remember. It is a case of hanging on, bump- ing and being bumped, but ever progressing upward. Once in your seat you are all right until you have to descend again. Most people descend as one descends an ordinary stairway, face to the front and holding on by the railings at each side, but occasionally the street throng is edified by the spectacle of some timid female descending back- wards, very slowly and carefully, to the tremendous in- dignation of the waiting passengers and the privately ex- pressed disapproval of the poor conductor. But there are ways and means of avoiding this discom- fort in mounting and dismounting while the 'bus sways and plunges along its course like a ship at sea. Witness this extract from a letter before me, written by a somewhat stout American sojourning in London: "I am really en- joying my 'bus riding now, for I am no longer obliged to fall all over the roof and down the step-ladder, if I wish to get oS while the 'bus is in motion. I just say to the driver, 'Charlie, pull up at the next corner for me; I've an artificial leg, and it's a bit awkward on a 'bus, y'know,' and you'd drop dead to see the 'bus come to a halt and wait for me to corkscrew my way down to the sidewalk, and ob- serve the tender solicitude and hungry interest the driver takes in looking back at my artificial outfit as I walk off rather automatically, being a bit stiff in the joints, maybe, from sitting so long in one place. Upon my word, it is sometimes embarrassing to me, the way drivers and con- ductors let business slide and passengers howl in vain, while they watch my legs. I couldn't feel more complimented if I wore pink tights. I'm going to buy a little alarm-clock, mufHe the bell a bit, and some day let it go off on top a 'bus, and groan, 'My God, driver, my leg has run down! How will I ever get off this 'bus !' And if five or six able-bodied Britons like to carry me down to the sidewalk, I shall feel 30 JOHN BULL, LIMITED quite repaid by their remarks when they see me skipping blithely up the stairs of a 'bus going back." Yes, as I said before, there are ways and means, but that American is going to get into trouble sooner or later, when some worm of a conductor sees a great light and abruptly turns. But as to weather, England has a practical monopoly of fogs. No other fogs are like English fogs, and no other English fog is like a London fog. Whether this is due to the soft-coal smoke which pours out of so many thousands of London chimney-pots, or whether the angels in the celestial Weather Bureau like to blot this modern Babylon off the map occasionally and look down on something pleasant, even a fog, perhaps, the fact remains that a Lon- don fog will take the blue ribbon every time for density, ugliness and smell. It mixes with the soft-coal smoke, forcing tears from the stranger's eyes and crimson lan- guage from his protesting mouth — it shrouds the houses, people, traffic and thoroughfares in a dirty-yellow, impene- trable blanket of damp and soot-impregnated atmosphere which soils your linen, hides your path, ruins your temper and changes the color of your lungs. The interior finish of the ordinary human lung is normally a delicate salmon- pink in color, according to medical authorities who have enjoyed opportunities for such observation, and the color- scheme of lungs belonging to residents of the countryside conforms to this healthy and attractive hue. The interior decoration of the London lung is said to be very different. Owing to the dirt and soot breathed by the London resi- dent, his lungs sooner or later assume a dark-brown color, which contrasts unfavorably with the general harmonious tint of his inner anatomy. London fog is further charged with resembling pea-soup, both in fragrance and appear- ance, which is not only unkind to that particular variety of JOHN BULL, LIMITED 31 soup, but does not convey the proper description. There are worse soups than pea-soup, but there are no worse fogs than a London fog. It surrounds you with a dense wall that seemingly retreats as you walk along, but is always about six inches beyond your nose. You cannot see your hand before your face in the day-time, or the street-light shining brightly above your head at night. You know the pavement is under your feet, because you are walking on it, but you cannot distinguish the presence of other pedestrians, or of vehicles, until you collide. Under such circumstances, all sorts of things occur. Railway trains run very slowly and are hours late on arrival. Om- nibuses, other vehicles and trams (street-cars) crawl along in a happy-go-lucky way, drivers trusting to their horses or to frequent shouts of warning to avoid collisions, while innumerable "bobbies" (policemen) acquire premature gray hair in endeavors to straighten out the traffic and preserve their lives at the same time. Pedestrians desiring to cross a street lose their bearings and grope vainly with canes and umbrellas for a curbstone, frequently arriving back at the starting-point and then proceeding calmly on their way under the happy delusion that they got across ! I was told of a man who had resided for years in a certain Lon- don street, who went out one foggy morning to purchase something in a shop directly opposite his house. He stood on the curb, carefully took his bearings, and started across in a straight line with both hands extended before him to ward off any fog-blind horse, or prevent butting into some other unfortunate wayfarer. He stumbled up against some obstruction, dimly perceiving a lighted window, and through the glass the back of somebody's head. While he was grop- ing for a door, the whole mirage suddenly moved along and he felt a pain in his foot. He had been looking into the window of a street-car, which had calmly proceeded on 32 JOHN BULL, LIMITED its way, after cutting off three of his toes ! This seems very remarkable, but the man who told the incident to me was an entire stranger and apparently sincere, yet I can- not but fear that he was flirting with the truth. After a two-days' encounter with a typical London fog, I wrote the following legal opinion of it, and as I have forgotten where it was originally published, I will present it here in order to make certain sure next time. The fact that some of the statements therein have been openly doubted by people who know nothing about fogs, is of no consequence whatever. There are some people who wouldn't believe what they saw in a mirror, even if the ears on it were covered with pillow-cases. This is it: IN TENEBRIS. A London Reminiscence. It is two P. M. exactly, but it seems like twelve at night, A thick and yellow London fog has shut out all the light ; The lamp-posts stand enshrouded like a lot of martial ghosts. But the lamps are good for nothing, they don't even light the posts. The cabs and 'busses at a walk go creeping, groping by, And the language of the drivers makes the angels shriek on high. The sidewalks are invisible, the street a blank abyss. No matter how or where you turn you're sure to make a miss. The "bobby," like a spectre dim, with lantern at his belt, Goes fumbling like the rest of us, in fog that can be felt! You can hear him shouting orders, now near and now afar. But like Moses when the light was out, " 'E don't know where 'e are." The only man who knows his way is he who drives a tram. He's sure he can't get off the rails, and doesn't care a — penny! Hark! Here's a cabby calling to a neighbor out of sight. What's that he says ? An accident ? Why, this is shocking, quite : "D'jer 'ear 'bout Bill, of Camberwell, wot runs a 'bus for Semmes? 'E missed the blooming Bridge and all, and druv into the Terns ! The four hinsides wos drownded and both 'is 'osses lost. And a soldier on the houtside swum hall the wye across !' JOHN BULL, LIMITED 33 Bill got ashore a 'arf mile down, afloatin' on 'is 'bus — 'Oh, Lor', 'e says, when landed, 'Wot a bloomin' blasted muss !' " Which serves to point a moral that may very useful be And however thick the fog is, it's a moral you can see. When London drivers lose the way, there's no more to be said. The safest place for strangers then is right upstairs in bed. Which I admit is going some, but is nevertheless en- tirely true. Such things have really happened and the moral is an excellent one. Nobody in bed ever got lost in a Lon- don fog, or if so, it was never reported at any police sta- tion. I have made careful enquiries among London police- men and the answers were always in the negative, and very emphatic. There is a good old maxim, "When you are in Rome, do as Romans do." This applies to the whole Continent of Europe, including the bunch known as England, Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man — otherwise. Great Britain. But it is not possible for the average American to get within a mile of following it — they'll "do" him no matter what he does. And they'll do him good, though he will have much difficulty in locating the good. The entire European population is out to plunder and loot the American visitor, promptly recognized by his speech and courteous ways, and universally regarded as a plutocrat roaming loose and loaded with wealth belonging rightfully to anyone able to separate him from it. He pays an extra high price where- ever he goes — in many London and Continental shops the regular prices rise automatically as he enters the door, and are readjusted after his departure — he is beset and besought by shop attendants, overwhelmed with adulation and fer- vent proifers of service, shown what he wants and what he doesn't want, and "done" in nine cases out of ten to a crisp, tender brown, and to the Queen's taste as well as the shopkeepers. There are exceptions to the rule, of 34 JOHN BULL, LIMITED course, but the American seldom finds them. From his hotel bill to his smallest outside purchases, he will acquire more or less of a roast. On the Continent especially, even the street-car conductor expects a one-half cent tip from the New World visitor, who of a certainty is a millionaire at least. And as nine out of ten visiting Americans do not understand or speak the language of any other country, it follows that nine out of ten Americans consequently lose the satisfaction of adequately impressing an unfavorable opinion on the foreigner when occasion demands. If he can speak the language of the country, however, he is in a far better position in every way and less likely to be im- posed on. But he will be "done" nevertheless, nor will he be able to do as Romans do in return, for like Arvernus, there is no return, or in other words, no "getting back." He may possibly find consolation in the reflection that it is more blessed to give than to receive. When a prominent Pariji journal recently announced the arrest on the Continent of a notorious hotel robber, a New York paper which repub- lished the item enquired solicitously of what hotel the ar- rested man was proprietor — an enquiry that won respon- sive and appreciative applause up and down the length and breadth of a long-sufifering Republic. All of which brings us by easy, natural and successive stages to the consideration of an English Sunday — ^the dreariest of all days in the English calendar, even as Eng- land is on that day the dreariest, saddest and most lone- some place on all the earth. An English Sabbath is some- thing well worth avoiding, whether in town or country — a relic of Cromwellian days, religious intolerance, bigotry and oppression. The majority of English people regard Sun- day as a day of enforced idleness and penance, without pleasure or recreation, and with no place of entertainment but church or " 'pub." The great majority of museums, JOHN BULL, LIMITED 35 libraries, art galleries, and other educational resorts, are religiously closed on Sunday, contrary to the generous Con- tinental custom which on that day of leisure opens wide all such places to the public free of charge, and in most in- stances provides free band concerts and other out-of-door attractions also. In England you have on Sunday a choice of practically only two local resorts — you can go to church, or you can go to the 'pub, or drinking-saloon. And in order that these two rival Sabbath attractions may not conflict, the working hours are divided between them. The 'pub closes up when church service begins and remains closed until one o'clock P. M., at which time the bar-doors are thrown open to a waiting and thirsty throng of saints and sinners, church- goers and Weary Willies alike, many of them accompanied by the family tin pail for carrying beer away. The 'pubs close again during afternoon and evening church service, but are wide open between times, and figuratively speaking, the lid is then off till midnight. These drinking places are thronged with men and women, principally from the work- ing class, and many of them intoxicated, and are a prom- inent and disgraceful ulcer on the body politic of every English city and town. It is, however, quite possible to obtain liquid sustenance even during the above brief and dry hours of Sunday clos- ing, provided the thirsty applicant be a "traveler," which means that he is at least three miles from home! London "travelers" simply take a 'bus or tram three miles or so out into the suburbs and there discover in every country 'pub a life-saving station, while suburban residents dying from thirst are given first aid to the injured at the city hostelries. Thus the Sunday liquor-traffic law is rigidly and properly enforced locally, but not so severely as to greatly discom- fort the mass of English population. I shall never forget 36 JOHN BULL, LIMITED an especially dry and hot Sunday two days after my first arrival on English shores. We had been riding in a barouche from the Langham Hotel to Hampton Court, about ten miles distant from London, and along about four o'clock in the afternoon there occurred to somebody the im- mortal language of the Governor of North Carolina to the Governor of South Carolina. The driver of the barouche proved to be an intelligent animal and guided his Arabs to the nearest life-saving station, which was closed up tight! The driver said, " 'It on the door, Guv'nor — 'it 'ard." I accordingly banged on the door, which at once opened a crack and a red-faced John Bull enquired, "Wot's wanted ?" I said, "We wish to go inside." "Are you a traveler?" he enquired. "We are travelers, certainly," I replied. "Wot plyce are you from ?" was the next question in the ritual. "New York," I said proudly, as a good American should. "Well, you've come a blooming wyse to get a drink!" he gasped, as the door swung wide open, " 'Urry right hinside, sir!" I learned afterward that my answer should have been "London," which was quite sufficiently distant under the three-mile rule to cover all objections. Thus we live and learn. There was once a time, nay there have been times more than once, when England's teeth and claws were prom- inently in evidence against the budding young Republic flying the Stars and Stripes. But the England of to-day sends us bouquets instead of bullets and extends to this country a maternal solicitude which is certainly pleasing to the eye, whatever underlying jealousy it may conceal. The British Lion has made serious mistakes in his time, but never one more serious to both his prestige and pocket than JOHN BULL, LIMITED 37 the attempted levy of an unjust taxation on our grand- daddies. He has since endeavored in many ways to retrieve this error of royal judgment — some of which were ill- advised and expensive, notably in the case of the Confed- erate "Alabama" and "Shenandoah," which owed their existence to English aid and English gold — other ways less openly hostile, but quite as treacherous — and others still, signalized by olive branches of all sizes, and golden words of more or less value in the assay. The consensus of pub- lic opinion in England to-day is that the attempted oppres- sion and consequent loss of the American Colonies was an especially grievous blunder by George the Third, a catas- trophe which in view of certain political dangers in Europe and the increasing strength of her German rival, England cannot too speedily induce Americans to forgive and forget. It has been difficult to accomplish this very effectually dur- ing the past two or three generations, probably because Americans have excellent memories and good reasons for distrusting either Greeks or Britons bearing gifts. But it is essential, even vital perhaps, to the continued peace and safety of the British Empire. Therefore the British Lion purrs his affectionate wooing of the American Eagle, his conversation relating largely to blood-relationship and the thin quality of water in comparison, the great desirability of the English-speaking race "standing together," and to other subjects intimately associated with a prospective lov- ing cup. The United States, barred by its constitution from entangling foreign alliances, rests contentedly in its position of acknowledged strength and supremacy over other na- tions, England included, and emulates the diplomg.tic ex- ample of Brer Rabbit in "layin' low an' sayin' nothin'." England has ever been a schoolyard bully over smaller na- tions, warring and plundering without let or hindrance, ap- propriating the marbles and sixpences of the weaker boys 38 JOHN BULL, LIMITED with regard to neither decency or propriety, and her victims have much to remember when Time shall bring around the psychic moment of opportunity and reprisal. With the United States as her ally, England could defy the world — but comparatively, alone and with Germany steadily arming, England does not sleep well o' nights. Hence the olive branches and the entire tree annexed, hence the loud-spoken words of friendship, nay of real affection, and hence the belated discovery of blood-density and other things too nu- merous to mention. The English people, rank and file, fully comprehend these things to-day, and American visitors cannot fail to be more or less impressed by the welcome generally accorded them in England and the frequent ref- erences there, both in public speeches and private conver- sation, to the beauty and duty of a closer relationship. But underneath this smooth veneer lies the wood and fibre of the secret jealousy which has prompted in the past both open war and treacherous injury to our fair Republic, re- vealed by a scratch perhaps where least expected. The Alaska boundary, The Venezuela question, occasional dis- putation of the Monroe Doctrine, the adding and strength- ening of fortifications on the Canadian frontier — all have served as little straws to show the wind-direction, and it is no metaphorical figure of speech to say that the American Eagle, viewing past and present events with a contempla- tive and judicially-appreciative eye, will hardly lose her little fluttering heart, or even skip a beat of that useful organ on account of the suspicious and imperfectly- disguised blandishments of a Lion which has already more than once suffered a disfigured hide and knotted tail at the hands of the present object of its alleged adoration. A prominent Englishman in Liverpool, speaking not only for himself, but for several other representative business men present, said to an American: "Your national Ameri- JOHN BULL, LIMITED 39 can blood, once pure, has become thinned and adulterated by the tide of Old World emigration. You are already too cosmopolitan, and by and by you will not be the true American nation, a nation produced from Americans born, but a composite conglomeration of all races — German, Irish, Swedish, Italian, even negro blood perhaps. On the con- trary, we of England remain English, purely and simply English, representing the best blood and brawn the world has ever known, either in peace or war. Your nation is most corrupt politically, while our politics are pure — ^your standard of commercial honor is very low, your flag is the emblem of graft of every kind, from your highest to your most insignificant representatives — your nation is fair to outside view, but rotten within. It cannot always be thus. All the greatest and most powerful nations of history have fallen successively through internal rottenness or too much luxury — excepting England. We still and ever shall stand supreme." The American replied in substance thus: "Accepting for the sake of argument all you say as true, and setting aside the great tendency of your countrymen to pat themselves on the back, the fact remains that the English people are a Pharasiacal people, thanking God that they are not as other people are, or even as we poor Republicans, so to speak. You see only one side of the shield, and you see that through British spectacles. Your free trade principles have brought England to her knees in the commercial struggle and filled your cities with an army of starving and helpless unemployed. Your political standards have fallen into the hands of demagogues whose ambition is confined to per- sonal and selfish ends, and great world-questions of the highest moment to England are neglected while your public men play with Home Rule and female suffrage. England is the dumping-ground for the human filth of every Con- 40 JOHN BULL, LIMITED tinental country — the Jew, the criminal, the insane and the pauper. Only recently has any effort been made to even regulate this torrent of inflowing scum through restrictions which amount to nothing and are easily evaded by these undesirables and those who assist their landing. Your Customs and Quarantine regulations are few and poorly enforced. In America paupers, criminals and physically diseased immigrants are barred from entrance and promptly returned to their own countries — we accept only that hu- man material which makes for the healthy growth of a country. Only those are welcome in the United States who will prove desirable as citizens, and these sooner or later are assimilated into our American ways and customs, be- coming a part of one grand whole in a Republic where all have an equal chance under equitable laws, and where op- pression is an unknown quantity. We do not claim to be immaculate politically or commercially, but all nations are more or less infected by political or commercial evils, nor parenthetically speaking, is England any exception to this rule. 'Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.' As to blood and brawn in war, England has never in single combat whipped any antagonist of her size. She has always had the aid of allies when up against anything more formidable than Zulus. It required one hundred and eighty thousand trained English soldiers to overcome thirty thousand Boer farmers, and but for the assistance ren- dered by her foreign colonies the sturdy Boers who fought British aggression, even as we Americans fought it in '76, would have won out hands down against your 'blood and brawn' and added some more fancy knots to your Lion's caudal appendage. Even though conquered by a ratio of six Englishmen to one Boer, the Boers taught the English a lesson that every child learns when it picks up a hot poker, and although no other nation interfered, none approved * 1 1 ^^^Hg^ r-^^g^ H I ^^^r ?Bg«: •^s iuHp 1 IPI ffi|MJg~* -^ 1 bK-T;,' «. -.^ A Bit of Cheshire JOHN BULL, LIMITED 41 your meddling politics in South Africa. Waterloo was won by Prussians, not by English ; and Blucher, not Wellington, was the real hero of Napoleon's overthrow. England grabs everything within her reach, whether gold or glory, and always from weaker hands. The Irish are England's true heroes — your best fighters to-day are Irishmen. Lord Roberts, who saved England in the Boer war, is an Irish- man ; Lord Kitchener, your greatest soldier and tactitian, is an Irishman, and so is Admiral Beresford, and so are Baden-Powell, McDonald, Killy-Kenny, Butler and scores of other famous fighters and leaders who have brought honor and glory to the British arms — all Irishmen. Your Irish soldiers are in the front rank of England's army to-day, and are graciously permitted by Royalty to wear the green shamrock on St. Patrick's Day, which within the recollection of the present generation was once a hanging oflFence ! My friend, much may be said to the credit of both America and England, and on the contrary many things may be said to their discredit also, but in any parallel be- tween the nations on the latter score, America has little to fear and England much. England is jealous of America's growth, wealth, prosperity and progress, likewise her prox- imity to Canada and the Canadian approval of all things American — and as when you scratch a Russian you find a Tartar, so when you scratch the feverish English aflfection for America, as to-day manifested, you will find the yel- low jealousy underneath. These are not questions of opinion, but of fact, and the facts speak for themselves. There will come a day of reckoning for England, and there will be few mourners at the funeral of her factitious hopes and glories. For when that day shall come England for once will have to fight a man of her size !" One of the most popular and widely-sung of England's patriotic songs is entitled, "Soldiers of the Queen." The 42 JOHN BULL, LIMITED entire theme is self-laudatory and openly boastful of Britain and its army, but there is one line in particular that never fails to bring a smile to those conversant with England's war history. The line reads, "And when they say we've always won," the reason for this alleged success being given in the line following, "We're soldiers of the Queen." Ask an Englishman what is meant by this "always won" and where it occurred. Certainly it was not in America, for not even against her small American colonies was England's might successful, nor did she stand up in fair combat, but bought the aid of Hessian mercenaries and even allied her- self with Indian savages, to whom were paid English boun- ties for scalps of American men and women ! But England did not win — on the contrary she was turned out of the country for good and all, and later on when England again opposed the United States in the war of 1812 and again with Indians as allies, once more she was defeated. These trifling incidents are apparently forgotten or overlooked when English throats so lustily proclaim that boastful "always won." With the memory of England's past hostility toward America, exhibited both treacherously and openly — of her jealous hatred shown both at home and abroad^the infamy of her hired Iroquois butchers and of murdered and scalped Massachusetts settlers — with such memories still fresh in American hearts, it is difficult to understand why England pats herself so publicly on the back and gives voice to such braggart and easily disproved sentiments. Even her boast of sea-supremacy was badly punctured by the Dutch Admiral Van Tromp, who is said to have fired round, Dutch cheeses at the English fleet when his cannon- balls had given out. At all events the English fleet was de- feated, and the doughty Van Tromp paraded up and down the English Channel with a broom at his masthead in token JOHN BULL, LIMITED 43 of his victorious sweeping of England's sea. There is no enormous painting in the National Gallery at London to commemorate this fact, but the Royal Palace at Amsterdam has a particularly fine collection of English battle-flags that have been captured from John Bull at odd times, present- ing a valuable obiject lesson to anyone interested in Dutch buzz-saws. "Everybody claims to have won Waterloo," wrote Blucher to his King after the fight was over, which showed how little conceit was in the man who has been so libelled in the British press of a century ago. Innumerable authors, the Duke of Wellington among them, agree that it was Blucher and his Prussian Grenadiers who, arriving in the nick of time, made the deciding charge. The heavy rain of the preceding day and night, and its continuance all that morn- ing, made the roads almost impassable for artillery and heavy cavalry, while the Grenadiers had to wade in thick, black, adhesive mud ankle-deep in forced marches in order to get to the battle-ground. Any pioneer or soldier knows what that means to wornout regiments and animals. Hence Blucher's belated arrival, which prompted the Iron Duke to repeatedly pull out his watch in nervous anxiety, and to ex- claim when at last he saw the begrimed men, some of them actually helping the horses to drag the cannon up the hills — men who despite such hardship and suffering at once got into line and gave battle, "Thank God, here is Blucher ; we are saved at last." There was glory enough on the field of Waterloo for all, so why begrudge the praise due to the man to whose lot it fell, unsought, to decide the day. Blucher it was who won the battle of Waterloo, although he did not fight all through the day as Napoleon did against the combined armies of England and her allies. 44 JOHN BULL, LIMITED These statements are not made in a spirit of unfriendli- ness to England, but simply as references to facts — facts that are sufficiently plentiful and speak for themselves every- where except in English text-books. Here is an extract from a story entitled "Thicker Than Blood," published in Adventure, under date of March, 191 1, which is certainly to the point: "Sooner or later," he said, "when an Englishman talks of war, he will speak of Waterloo. Why, I never can understand. Other nations, when they boast of victories, speak of battles that they have won — if not against odds, at least single-handed. A German can boast of Sedan, a Frenchman of Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena or Montmirail, where the odds were six to one against them. Small nations — there is not one among them that cannot tell of some heroic struggle against a stronger oppressor. But you English can only speak of Waterloo, where the allies were two and a half to one against the French, and even in Wellington's army three-fifths of the troops were Dutch, Belgians and Hanoverians. Your own allies outnumbered you five to one, yet you English take all the credit and boast forever of Waterloo! Why? Why? Shall I tell you? It is because that in the history of modern times you have never fought alone or against odds! It is the same story — in Spain, at Waterloo, in the Crimea. You seek to exalt your own glory by throwing mud upon the friends who fought by your side ! Why do you not speak of battles that you have won, if not against stronger numbers, at least alone? Because you have none to boast of! I pity you. England, great and powerful as she is, cannot tell of a single battle that she has won against an equal enemy alone and single-handed. You may be great upon the sea, but you are su- premely pitiful on land." The British officers had listened at first with contempt and then with growing rage. The Captain of the Ennistymons would have interrupted him, but the Boer continued with a passionate bitterness : "You are right in what you say of South Africa. The war is over here, or will be soon. Even now Kruger may have gone to Europe, and the Boers will not stand up and fight. I have seen places evacuated with scarcely a shot fired, that were wellnigh im- pregnable. They feared to be flanked. It is easy to flank a foe when you are ten to his one. But do not boast of it! If there is JOHN BULL, LIMITED 45 glory here in South Africa, it is not for you, who are the victors. And do not boast of Waterloo or slander the Dutch who were your allies there — you have never won a battle alone or won one against odds " Raflferty's Captain interrupted him. "You are an American?" he asked with bitter scorn. The bearded man raised his head proudly. "I am !" he answered. "Well, what great battles has your country ever fought? Where have you ever fought a battle such as Waterloo?" The eyes of the bearded man shot flame and he waved his clenched fist in a gesture of pride. "Forty-seven years ago to-day," he said, "we fought a battle where the casualties were practically the same as at Waterloo. There were no allies. It was American against American, and the weaker in numbers was beaten. But the battle was not decisive. No ! There were a half-dozen before it and a half-dozen more that followed, that were only a trifle less bloody, and the war was not decided until the weaker side was completely exhausted. There was a war — a war is which every able-bodied man was a soldier — a war that cost over a million lives and took four years to finish ! No nation in the world save the French can tell of one like it. There you would have found men who would stand up and fight!" It is a generally accepted fact that the English force un- der General Buller was practically beaten and rapidly be- coming demoralized vsrhen the fortune of war suddenly turned in favor of the English under a new commander, Lord Roberts. But it is not so generally known that the German Emperor, despite his famous telegram to President Kruger expressing cordial sympathy with the Boers in their desperate struggle, is said to have furnished to England a plan of campaign prepared by German military experts, which plan being duly followed by Lord Roberts, secured victory for England. This remarkable extension of the olive branch, coupled with such enormously valuable assist- ance to England in her extremity, not only aroused a whirl- wind of wrath in Germany, but has been requited by the English people with a jealousy and cordial suspicion sur- 46 JOHN BULL, LIMITED prisingly in contrast with the expected grateful appreciation. A war between Germany and England would embroil nearly all the rest of Europe, and whatever the outcome would inevitably plunge both these countries into financial ruin. England is even now staggering under a weight of taxation which with the added and ever-increasing cost of naval defence must result either in national liquidation or an internal revolt. There are only two classes in England, the very rich and the very poor. Each class is becoming restive under the heavy burden. Germany has not yet reached this limit of her financial resources, but is steadily nearing it. Her fleet is rapidly approaching the prescribed war-standard, however, and then — perhaps an Armageddon, but in any event the almost certain overthrow of England. That is the prophecy to-day of some of the wisest heads in Europe, and looking still further afield, in view of the steady equipment and military standardizing of China and Japan, yet another and even more foreboding prophecy might be made as to probable changes on the world-map of the twen- tieth century. Japan has already shown her mettle. China is awakening from the sleep of centuries and slowly becom- ing conscious of a gigantic strength that in mere overwhelm- ing numbers would render her practically invincible, and the white race may yet be forced to meet the yellow in a life and death grapple for supremacy. As a "tail-piece" illustrating this prevailing English habit of vainglorious horn-blowing, and in view of the unmerci- ful walloping that a delighted and appreciative world may some day see administered to an obstreperous English school-bully by a healthy and growing German fellow-pupil, I submit the following tin-trumpet boast clipped from an English publication called Vanity Fair. And the really amusing part of it is that the English people believe it ! JOHN BULL, LIMITED 47 The result of a war between Germany and England would be the destruction of the German Navy within a fortnight if it dared to put to sea, which we very much doubt. The consequence of the destruction or blockade of the German Navy would be that we should annex about three hundred millions sterling of German sea- borne commerce, and a,dd most of it permanently to our own assets. Isn't it delicious ? And this is the nation that was in such a frenzy of apprehension and alarm only a few months ago over a mysterious object which occasionally passed overhead after dark, and was denounced by the English newspapers as a German airship spying upon England ! Half the entire population went about by day with one eye cocked aloft in anticipation of a Limburger attack, and scanning the heavens by night in dread of aerial bombs and other ex- plosives, "made in Germany." One day the scare was ended by the discovery that the mysterious airship was only an advertising dodge, a balloon sent up by an enterprising busi- ness concern in order to call attention to its marmalade or cheap false teeth, or something equally important to the British public, and the roar of laughter that followed was almost world-wide, the episode being immensely enjoyed by everybody except John Bull. The English did not laugh, and a great many nervous people there are not yet entirely convinced and still scan the starry heavens for German bogie-men. Apropos of the advertising balloon and as further evi- dencing the British apprehension of Zeppelin invaders, still more recently appeared the following in the New York Times of February 25, 1913 : AIRSHIP ONLY VENUS? One Theory in Regard to Apparition that is Frightening England. (Special Cable to the New York Times.) London, Feb. 25. — Further reports of a mysterious airship seen at night come from Hull. The suggestion is now made that a cer- 48 JOHN BULL, LIMITED tain light in the western sky, seen nightly and taken for an air- ship's searchlight, is none other than the planet Venus, which for the past few nights has been shining brilliantly. And oh, Lud, as if all this were not sufficient to rattle Christian nerves, yet another rude national jar was occa- sioned by the landing one morning of a German regiment of infantry at the mouth of the river Trent — a jocose experi- ment for the purpose of ascertaining what kind of a coast defence England possessed, and at the same time give the soldiers an innocent picnic. This German regiment, as stated in the London papers, landed early in the morning, enjoyed their little outing, and sailed back to the Continent without having attracted the attention of a single coast- guard or anyone else, save a few indifferent farmers. The picnic party was unarmed and the landing was a joke, but it was regarded as a very shocking sort of joke by the English people when it finally dawned upon them, and some serious questions were asked in Parliament which later re- sulted in considerable annoyance to the near-sighted guard- ians of that particular portion of the British coastline. CHAPTER III Germany vs. England. A Ryny Dye. The Tower and A Fable. Scotch Thrift. Westminster Abbey. Story of the Donkey Shay. Apropos of Germany's dream of vast empire — its bold- ness, Bismarckian scope, and the forces and facts against it, it is well known that expansion is becoming more and more necessary to the Kaiser Land, while England is a looming obstacle with visions of German Channel control and of a German highway across Europe. There is the potential intervention of America to be considered, and also internal weaknesses of the Fatherland due to inter- German hatred. Witness the testimony of "Pan-German- ism," an important addition to literature by Prof. G. Usher, of Washington University, St. Louis. "For some years," writes Prof. Usher, "those at all familiar with international affairs have known that it was the custom in the German Navy to drink a toast 'To the day.' " Many people have hugged to themselves with glee the "secret" information that the officers were drinking to the day when war should be declared against England, but few indeed seem to have realized the splendor of the vision now before German eyes, or the international situation which makes victory seem so near as to send German blood coursing swiftly in the anticipation of triumph. The Ger- mans aim at nothing else than the domination of Europe and of the world by the Germanic race. One of the fun- damental errors of which idealists and advocates of peace have been often guilty is to treat this vast project as an unreality. In fact it is already half accomplished. It is literally true that Germany has become Bismarckian. His heavy spirit has settled upon it. It wears his scowl. It so JOHN BULL, LIMITED has adopted his brutality as it has his greatness. It has taken his criterion of truth, which is Germanic; his indif- ference to justice, which is savage; his conception of a state, which is sublime. "This nation has forgotten God in its exaltation of the German race." Bombastic as these phrases are, they yet convey some notion of the militant spirit which has been aroused. When Li Hung Chang first learned from Bismarck these plans, he was skeptical. But before his brief stay in Ger- many was over he wrote in his diary, "From all that I have seen I am more than ever convinced that the Kaiser and Prince Bismarck meant what they said when they averred that the German Empire was destined to become a dominant factor in Europe." Nor is it ambition alone that urges Germany to expan- sion. The population has increased so rapidly that it is already difficult for efficient, well-trained men to secure any employment. Not only is the superficial area of the coun- try exhausted, but intensive scientific agriculture is speedily limiting the possibilities of the employment of more hands on the same acres or the further increase of the produce. Industry has grown at an enormous rate and the output from German factories is enormously in excess of the needs of even the growing population. Her exports per capita are $24 per year, as against England's $40 and France's $25, and she has not their exclusive colonial markets. Un- less some outlet can be found for the surplus population and a new and extensive market discovered for this enor- mous surplus production, prosperity will inevitably be suc- ceeded by bankruptcy. There will be more hands than there is work for, more mouths than there is food. Already the boundaries of Germany in Europe have been pushed to their furthest extent. More territory can be added only at the expense of other nations, either of her JOHN BULL, LIMITED 51 powerful rivals, France and Russia, or of her weaker neighbors, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Sweden. Nor would the accession of such territory solve the difficulty. Europe is crowded. Germany must find some territory suitable for development by her own people which is not already choked with men and women. She is seeking the counterpart of the fertile plains of western Canada, of the rich valleys of northern Africa, where her people may build a new Germany whose exist- ence will strengthen her and not her rivals. But such a promised land, tenanted by native races only, is not to be found. Every really available spot is held by England, France or Russia. Germany can therefore obtain colonies suitable for her purposes only at the expense of these last. This is what is meant by the oft-reiterated statements that England, France and Russia are by their very existence inimical to Germany's welfare, and that if she is to escape ruin she must fight them. Among the facts marking England as the greatest ob- stacle in the path of Germany's legitimate growth is this: The English Channel is the only available safe passage- way for her merchants fleet. The voyage round the British Isles is long, and during the winter months positively dan- gerous even for steamships. Natural conditions therefore, by compelling Germany to use the Channel, force her to expose her commerce to assaults by the British fleets, so long as the latter control the Channel. Even if she should acquire colonies and a great market, she cannot really pos- sess them until she acquires a highroad to them safe from the attacks of her enemies. To this end the Germans con- sider perfectly feasible the construction of a great con- federation of states, including Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Balkan States and Turkey, which would control a great band of territory stretching southeast from the North Sea 52 JOHN BULL, LIMITED to the Persian Gulf. A railway from Constantinople to Bagdad would effectually tie the great trunk lines leading from the Rhine and Danube valleys to Constantinople and the Persian Gulf, and so establish a shorter route to India than that via Suez. Egypt, Syria, Arabia, Persia, India herself, would fall into German hands and be held safe from conquest by this magnificent overland route to the East. As to the nations between the Fatherland and the Dream — Germany hates, disdains and despises England. For France and Russia she possesses a wholesome respect, mingled with fear but not with love. France she considers a strong man who has run his race and is now beginning to reach senility; Russia she looks upon as an uncouth stripling not yet conscious of his strength. The Germans do not regard England as really great. They think her naval power the result of accident, not of genius, and that it has rested chiefly upon the accident of geography and geology. England has been strong by reason of others' weakness, by the use of others' resources, by the spoils of conquest. The British Empire never has possessed cohe- sion; never has had a common, vital, economic or geo- graphical interest; has always been a sham and glittering generality whose unreality has remained concealed only by reason of the inability of other nations to perceive it. To the German, England's economic strength has been changed into fatal economic weakness. She no longer produces suf- ficient food to supply her population for a month ; her supply of coal and wood is diminishing ; the raw material to build or maintain a fleet she cannot produce, neither raw material needed to supply her looms and factories. Suppose now, that the German fleet should secure control of the Channel for a brief time only, would not England be starved into submission? Would not her looms soon stop from lack of material to feed them? Would not her whole JOHN BULL, LIMITED 53 artisan class be thrown out of work? Would she not be bankrupted as a nation by the simple loss of the control of the sea? The German emphasizes the further point that although the boasted millions of population, the countless acres of territory, the stupendous wealth of the British Empire, are real — they are not England's. The English, it is reasoned, never conquered India. The Hindoos con- quered themselves, with English assistance, through their own dividing jealousies and antipathies. Now with the democratic impulse spreading from Europe into the East, the Egyptian, Persian and Hindoo are dreaming of a new land from which foreigners shall be excluded, of a splendid nation composed solely of natives, administering their own country in their own interests, independent of all. To attain its ends, Germany does not want literally to fight. She wants the results without the disadvantages of war- To German thinking the war is already in progress, and will continue to be fought with weapons infinitely more deadly than cannon and small arms — economic crises. They propose to destroy England and France, not in the field, but in the counting-house and in the factory, annihilating the bases upon which in the long run, armies must depend for maintenance. Nevertheless a great navy is essential, and so is an army, large enough to prevent Russia and France, by reason of its existence, from thinking of war. The army is the only barrier between Germany and her enemies. It takes the place of the English Channel, of the Alps, of the Pyrenees. And it must be large enough to enable Germany, in case of war, to invade England without so much expos- ing herself to France or Russia as to invite an assault from either or both. The greatest element in opposition to this Teutonic dream is the potential intervention of the United States, with its tremendous resources, its commanding economic position 54 JOHN BULL, LIMITED and its practical invulnerability against any force of would- be invaders. In case of a war begun by Germany or Austria for the purpose of executing Pan-Germanism, the United States, it is expected, would promptly declare in favor of England and France and would do her utmost to assist them. The United States possesses the very resources needed to make the economic position of England and France fairly impregnable. Allied with her they could not be starved into submission, nor bankrupted by lack of ma- terials to keep their looms running. In addition, she pos- sesses the second greatest steel manufactory in the world, which owns the patents and secret processes upon which Bessemer steel depends, a product surpassed for war ma- terial only by the Krupp steel. Whatever happens in Europe, America can continue to produce raw materials and finished products needed or required at home or abroad, and would further provide an enormous market in time of war for the sale of such manufactured goods as England and France could produce. The starving of England, the depriving her factories of raw materials, the cutting off of her supplies for the main- tenance of a fleet, all depend on the ability of the German navy to outmanoeuvre the English and get possession of the C3iannel in such fashion that a pitched battle would be necessary to dislodge it, or upon its ability to defeat the English fleet in the first place in so decisive a manner that assistance could not come from the Mediterranean or from America in time to avert the catastrophe. In careful consideration of which, the discerning reader will easily account for the milk in the English cocoanut, and in view of the added necessity for America's goodwill, there is also afforded ample explanation of the hair on the ex- terior portion. JOHN BULL, LIMITED 55 Referring once more to the weather, when you go out for a walk, or a Museum, or even just a newspaper, take an umbrella. It rains easily in the British Isles, whether be- cause there is so much water surrounding them or because the English use so much tea that the Lord has to oftener call their attention to water as a beverage is immaterial so long as the fact remains. Four out of every five people you meet carry an umbrella — the other doesn't own one or else doesn't mind the wet. For instance it rained on the day we went to the Tower. We were in a hansom, how- ever, when the rain began to fall, and through the lowered glass we gazed out at the deluge and troubles of other peo- ple with calm and unruffled emotions. The hansom finally stopped at the Tower gate and the cabby remarked cheer- fully from his dripping perch, " 'Ere y'are, Guv'nor!" The cabby was quite correct — ^there we were! The sombre old Tower loomed up behind its enclosing high wall, wearing the same grim, expectant look for us that it wore for the hapless and unwilling visitors in the merry old days of King Richard and the rest. But we wanted to get inside out of the wet, while they would probably have preferred any kind of deluge outside to the receptio'n awaiting them within. Furthermore, having got that far, we were going in any- how. So spreading our faithful "gamps," or umbrellas, and regretting the absence of our "galoshes" or rubbers, we passed through the sentinelled gate to a bird-cage where tickets of admission to the Tower attractions are sold, and then ambled through the pelting rain and mud down an alley enclosed by high walls, to an archway guarded by soldiers, where we fondly expected to find the Tower en- trance and a shelter. Not so, however. We found at right angles to the previous alley another one like it only much longer, and the rain was coming down in that alley like all the proverbial cats, dogs and great guns combined! Com- 56 JOHN BULL, LIMITED pared with that cataract of water in the alley, the rain we had already waded through was a little summer shower. We grinned and bore it, or rather the soldiers grinned and we bore it, and then we threw away dignity, picked up our skirts, metaphorically speaking, and ran like the devil for the other end of that alley ! We reached the haven at last, closed our soaked umbrellas, and \ ruefully surveyed our drenched and reproachful-looking silk "top 'ats" from the brims of which little cascades were falling on the historic pavement trod by Lady Jane Grey, Lord Raleigh and others who had arrived under even more of a cloud than our- selves. We were allowed to look at the Crown Jewels in- side an iron-barred cage that would have held an elephant, and were in turn carefully watched by several guards and other slaves of monarchy lest we might somehow entice a Royal crown through the bars, or maybe just a two-foot salt-cellar. But there was something that interested us far more than the display of Royal gew-gaws — ^the sun was shining ! It had resumed business as soon as we got in out of the rain. We emerged from the Crown Jewel district, to the evident relief of the guards, splashed to the parade- ground with our closed umbrellas, ransomed from a coat- room which they had partially flooded, and gazed up at the turquoise-blue sky and then at our still dripping silk hats. And "it remembers me," as Virgil says, that we spoke no word. There was once a farmer, widely known for the range and profuseness of his profane vocabulary, and one day as he was driving along with a load of hay some bad boys set fire to the rear end. The farmer had barely time to unhitch his horses — ^then he saw his hay and wagon disappear in smoke. To the surprise of his neighbors anticipating an oratorical flight of unprecedented fluency and luridness, the farmer said nothing whatever. Finally someone observed, JOHN BULL, LIMITED 57 "You take it purty easy — 'most anybody'd swear consid'ble hard." The old man walked once around, the ruins, then said impressively, "Durned if I can do the subject justice!" So if anybody should ask the conundrum, "Why is a drowned silk hat like a load of hay on fire?" the answer is, "Neither could we!" Those who have wandered through the old palace- fortress, this gloomy and forbidding royal prison shut in by thick walls, wide encircling moat, and the river itself, with the world outside "so near and yet so far," will need no description of its varied attractions to the sight-seer. The chapel with its historic dead, the stone-carven prison cells of Beauchamp Tower and those far worse cells hid- den in dark passages underground, the torture chamber in the cellars, that small square space for executions beside the chapel, the ancient Armoury decorated with fantastic designs made from weapons of war and containing long ranges of guns, spears, swords, relics and suits of armor for man and horse, the fatal block and axe used in behead- ing so many noble personages, the deep gashes in the wood that tell their own tragic story — all these things once seen can never be forgotten, nor yet the dreary recital of Tower statistics droned by one of the aged retainers, or "Beef- eaters." On the other hand, those who have missed such opportunity for absorbing useful knowledge directly at the fount, will find in Baedeker a full and entertaining descrip- tion of everything, together with a lot more about London which I have either purposely dodged or maybe forgotten. ■Besides, I am a good deal bothered because I cannot for the life of me recollect the name of the lady who refused to be beheaded and finally sat damn on the block, to the intense annoyance of the headsman. What was that woman's name? I lost a good deal of time one day hunting up a scrap of poetry that indirectly appealed to my subconscious some- 58 JOHN BULL, LIMITED thing or other, and I am going to lay that little scrap in here between two leaves, as it were, so that I shall know where to look for it next time. It conveys a good moral to anyone who knows what good morals are. A FABLE. The hen remarked to the muley-cow, As she cackled her daily lay (That is, the hen cackled), "It's funny how I'm good for an egg a day. I'm a fool to do it, for what do I get? My food and my lodging. My! But the poodle gets that — he's the household pet, And he never has laid a single egg yet — Not even when eggs were high." The muley-cow remarked to the hen, As she masticated her cud (That is, the cow did), "Well, what then? You quit and your name is mud. I'm good for eight gallons of milk each day, And I'm given my stable and grub; But the parrot gets that much, anyway — All she can gobble — and what does she pay? Not a dribble of milk, the dub !" But the hired man remarked to the pair, "You get all that's comin' to you. The poodle does tricks an' the parrot kin swear, Which is better th'n you kin do. You're necessary, but what's the use O' bewailin' your daily part? You're bourgeois — workin's your only excuse; You can't do nothin' but jest produce — What them fellers does is Art !" If you should ever go to Scotland, you will see what is usually described under the head of athletics, as a "close race." Take your family plaid along, or if you haven't one buy a plaid shawl or a golf cape, and fly it on general JOHN BULL, LIMITED 59 principles. Next to "whuskey," the Scotch people love a plaid and a bag-pipe. I drew the line at a bag-pipe, but I sported a plaid shawl that made most of the Scotch popula- tion sit up and shade their eyes. It was a Highland plaid, and what it lacked in blue and green splash was made up by passionate bursts of crimson. I got the original pattern from a colored postcard showing a bag-piper standing on a mountain crag in a gale of wind. His kilt was a scanty affair, like a ballet-skirt only more so, revealing a vast ex- panse of hairy legs and terminating much too suddenly around the Southern frontier, being in fact violently abrupt. The scarf, tartan, breeks, and other things helped out the moral effect a little, but nevertheless I felt sad as I reflected on other people's Scotch fore-bares (the spelling is inten- tional) going about in all kinds of weather with prac- tically only a bag-pipe and a rainbow between their volup- tuous curves and a hard winter. Further, although the plaid had a warm and ruddy look about it, like a vegetable hash painted by Turner, I was informed that it carried more itch to the square foot than any other plaid in Scot- land Yard. With such a braw and bonny checkerboard, a Buchanan breath, chilblains on your knees, and an occa- sional "Hoot, mon, hoot," one can go all over Scotland in disguise and feel entirely at home among the Sandys and Daffydowndillys of a more or less diffident and financially- reserved population. The typical canny Scot does not scatter his wealth around in wasteful expenditure. He will squeeze a penny until its maddening screams can be heard blocks away before he will part with it, and nearly die of thirst rather than give up the price of a glass. A visiting Scotchman who had been entertained in London by an American with taxi-cab rides, dinners, theatres, innumer- able cigars, and other life-saving auxiliaries, was shaking hands in farewell when his conscience smote him and he 6o JOHN BULL, LIMITED broke out, "Mon, yee've been generous to me, but I'll nae let ye do all the spending. I'll just match ye to see who pays for a wee parting drop." Someone has stated that it requires a surgical operation to get a joke through the skull of a Scotchman. But there are others equally impervious of comprehension, and resi- dent not far south of the land of thistles and Scotch "whus- key." Some of these officiate in the humble capacity of servitors in palaces, museums and public parks — others oc- cupy higher stations, being even numbered among the no- bility and attendant satellites of Royalty. We love them all. They are glorious company, and in their presence life be- comes a rosy sequence of happy, happy hours — except to them. Par example, as Voltaire says, we visited St. Pauls Cathedral, and after one thing and another, including a walk up to the top of the dome, from the effects of which I shall never permanently recover, the attendant showed us a lot of glass cases containing uniforms and other ancient wardrobe — relics of bygone kings, warriors and many fa- mous men. "This 'ere cooat," said he, "was worn by King George the Third during 'is reign." "Is it a mackintosh?" enquired John. "Ho, no, sir," replied the solemn-faced at- tendant, "w'y would it be a mackintosh, sir?" "Oh, I thought you said something about a rain." That attendant will never know what hit him — GRATEFUL if some KIND-HEARTED PERSON would help her to GIVE THEM A MONTH at the SEASIDE from first August. R. G. N. B 247. Times Office. E. C. People who are worried by debts and desire someone else to pay them, likewise advertise in the Times. Here is one modest request: WILL LARGE-HEARTED LADY or GENTLEMAN assist ad- vertiser to CLEAR himself of DEBTS amounting to 100 pounds Reply O 154. Times Office. E. C. Next we have a "loyal churchman, who has given the leisure of twenty-five years to church and charitable work in London, and who is urgently in need of twenty-five pounds through domestic affliction. Could repay with in- terest next year." Also "a struggling business man, for six- teen years in money-lender's hands," who appeals for "pri- vate loan of twenty-five pounds to free him" and another signed "Anxious," who wants "temporary help, to save myself and family from disaster," and enquires pathetically, "Can I find a friend?" There is literally no end to the variety of these appeals in the Times. In a good many cases these "cadgers," as they are called, are no doubt successful in discovering Good Samaritans, there being many people with money and soft hearts, and it is probable that many of them are touched, in both senses, by these appeals. But it is very certain that the appealers, especially the vicars who advertise for Con- tinental holiday trips, and those other diffident little violets who desire adoption, constitute a weird company. We may draw the line, however, at marriage announce- ments. On such occasions everybody is dragged into the newspaper, and the more titles there are the merrier and more impressive will be the announcement. In this con- nection the following extract from Everybody's Magazine 144 JOHN BULL, LIMITED will be appreciated by every American who knows his Eng- lish marriage column : In this country (i. e., the United States) when the contracting parties to a marriage desire to inform the public of the event, you will see inserted in the proper column a little notice like this : "BROWN-SMITH.— Married on Saturday, March 4th, at St. Josephs Church, Mary Smith to William Brown." It is simple and sufficient. Did you ever take up one of the English social weeklies and see how a marriage is recorded? It will read something like this: "MARRIED at Ramsgate Rookery, near Oakley, Stafford, at noon on Thursday, 30th instant, by the Reverend Plantagenet Clutterbuck, LL. D., F. R. S., A. T. S., M. N. C, Q. E. D., uncle to the bride, Rector of St. Bartholomew's Church, Elephant's Head, Briary Lane, Berkeley, assisted by the Reverend Theophilus Timoleon Tit- mouse, J. O. B., R. R., R. X. Y. Z., D. B. R, cousin of the bride- groom. Rector of Calvary Church, St. Martin's-in-the-back-cellar, Man's Nose, Grantley, Gertrude Maude Beatrice Constance, daugh- ter of Grantville Neville Bolingbroke Bopgappers, Esq., L. P., M. P. T., S. P. Q., W. P. N., of Bareknees Briary, Cholmondely Chair- bones, Somerset, to Harold St. John Evermont Stragsby, K. C. B., R. B. A., L. G. J., and T. E. C, late of the Fourteenth Royal Lan- cers, of Pumpernickel Priory and Stonehenge and Stickleneck Lodge, St. Christopher's-under-the-hedge, Mumblepeg, Hart- ford." This extract is doubly interesting, since it's point was entirely lost upon one of the readers of the magazine, an Englishman, who wrote from the Consulate at Rio Janeiro the following sincere and throbbing protest: "SIR. As a true Britisher, I desire to protest most emphatically against an article appearing in your magazine, showing the differ- ence between an American marriage announcement and an English one. "Unquestionably the person who wrote this article is not well ac- quainted with British titles, customs, or names, and I cannot under- stand the article in question. I shall not bother you much with de- tails, but shall invite your attention to the more glaring errors. The Royal Guards m^iui^i M mr . " - . 'm Enelish Manor House at Chichester JOHN BULL, LIMITED 145 "I am a Cambridge University man and acquainted with the de- grees and titles of England. Will you, therefore, kindly explain what the following degrees are, and by what college, or by whom^ conferred 'A. T. S.,' 'M. N. O.,' 'Q. E. D.,' 'J. O. B.,' 'R. R.,' 'R. X. Y. Z.,' etc. I have never heard of them. "My father was a Church of England clergyman and I am well acquainted with English churches. I defy you to tell me where, in all Britain, one can find 'Rector of Calvary Church, St. Martin's- in-the-back-cellar.' "It seems to me that as a matter of justice to Englishmen, you should give my letter the same publicity as the article from which I have quoted." Well, he appears to have secured the publicity and the chances are that he now knows more than his brethren rer garding English titles and names of churches. And yet England is full of just such solemn and prosaic mortal things as that ! But it is in the daily newspaper reports of proceedings in the Law Courts that surprises await the American reader. The presiding Justice in an English court of law is looked up to as a veritable little tin god by counsel present, and his labored attempts at wit are loudly applauded by the spectators. Both the main object in the trial of a case, and the dignified conducting of the case itself, seem to be of secondary consideration in some London courts, where the Justices apparently seek a reputation for wit and repartee at the expense of witnesses and counsel. Buffoonery of this kind, which is never witnessed in an American court of law, is not only greeted with roars of laughter by the au- dience, but the roars are conscientiously reproduced in the daily newspaper reports! Such lack of decorum in an American court room would result in the instant ejectment of every spectator, yet America is supposed to take not only her legal procedure but also the expounding and practice thereof, from the English law courts. A fair example of 146 JOHN BULL, LIMITED this behavior, which is alike insulting to litigants and public, is found in the following report, taken verbatim from the London Telegraph. It will be observed that the legal point of contention is apparently entirely lost amid the "pififling" of Justice and counsel and the laughter of toadying spec- tators. The counsel in this case are among the most em- inent and distinguished in all England. SPECIAL LAW REPORTS. King's Bench Division. Before Mr. Justice Ridley and a Special Jury. SALISBURY TRAIN DISASTER. The hearing was continued of an action brought by an American Jady against the London and Southwestern Railway Company. Plaintiff was Mrs. Reata Augusta McDonald, whose husband, Mr.' John Edward McDonald, was killed in the railway disaster at Salis- bury in igo6, whilst she was injured. In igo8 plaintiff married Mr. Brodt, of New York. She claimed damages for personal injuries, and under Lord Campbell's Act, for pecuniary loss sustained through the death of her late husband. Sir E. Carson, K. C, Mr. Montague Lush, K. C, and Mr. R. F. Colam were for plaintiff, and Mr. Rufus Isaacs, K. C, Mr. R. B. D. Ackland, K. C, Mr. J. A. Simon, K. C, and Mr. R. B. Murphy were for defendants. Mrs. Mills, of Wimbledon, to whose house plaintiff was conveyed after the accident, was cross-examined by Mr. Rufus Isaacs with regard to Mrs. Brodt's injuries and her present condition. Referring to the plaintiff's journey from London to Aix-les- Bains for her health, Mr. Isaacs said he did not want to ask any indiscreet questions, but perhaps the witness could give him an idea of the length of time she took in motoring with plaintiff from London to Dover. Witness: About four hours. His Lordship: How long would it take to Southampton? Witness : I think it took about four hours, beeause we went very quietly. We went under the twenty miles. {Laughter.) Mr. Isaacs : Oh, I was assuming that, of course. {Laughter.) Sir E. Carson : I do not know why you should assume that. {Laughter.) JOHN BULL, LIMITED 147 Witness said that it was a fact that at this moment plaintiff was unable to turn her head to the right. When she tried to move it she suffered great pain. Answering other questions, witness said she and plaintiff motored to Ascot. Plaintiff sat on a chair in the paddock all day. Witness added: My husband thought that the air would do her good. Mr. Isaacs : But the air at Wimbledon, you know, might be better than the air at Ascot. (Laughter.) His Lordship: Did you go to any other places of entertainment? Witness : We might have gone to a theatre in the evening. But we never did anything very exciting. (Laughter.) Mr. Isaacs: Some people think going to a race meeting is ex- citing. (Laughter.) Witness: Well, it was not exciting for us, because we sat in the paddock all day, and never saw anything. (Laughter.) His Lordship : What you go to Ascot for is to sit in the pad- dock! Mr. Isaacs: You did not go to look at the horses? (Laughter.) Witness: We went to look at the dresses. (Renewed laughter.) Sir E. Carson: You never went on the stand? I suppose there is a stand there? (Laughter.) His Lordship (laughing) : Oh ! Sir E. Carson: I do not really know, my lord. I never went there. My experience is confined to flower shows. (Laughter.) Dr. W. W. Ord. who attended plaintiff on the morning of the accident at Salisbury, said she was suffering from very severe shock, and almost a collapse. She was bruised from head to foot. He had rarely seen such bad bruising. One rib was broken, but owing to the pain the examination caused her, he could not tell if any more were broken. The two ankles were also strained. Dr. W. B. Winton, of Wimbledon, said there must have been over a hundred bruises on plaintiff's body. Radiographs of the lady's neck, showing the atlas bone, were produced. A photograph of an atlas bone taken from a human body was also produced. His Lordship said the original owner of the bone seemed to have met with a violent death. (Laughter.) Sir Edward Carson: The bone did not come from France. (Laughier.) The hearing was adjourned. 148 JOHN BULL, LIMITED I quite agree that to any American more or less familiar with the dignified procedure of American courts, the pos- sibility of such farcical procedure as above instanced, seems incredible. Ample corroboration, however, may be found in the law court reports of almost any issue of the London Telegraph, and in nearly every case the report will be punc- tuated by "laughter," "renewed laughter," and frequently "loud laughter." That reputable citizens, forced to seek protection or relief in courts of justice, may be thus publicly pilloried in a witness-box as defenceless butts for such inane wit and gross discourtesy, is almost beyond belief. Such exhibitions not only lower the dignity of the court, which is the veritable "majesty of the law," but are in execrable bad taste from every point of view and frankly so regarded by very many English people. And if this expression of opinion is "contempt of court" then I am guilty — only con- tempt doesn't half express the opinion ! The following anonymous poem is insidiously seductive because of its text, or moral, or deduction, whatever you choose to term it, and with an additional stanza about Eng- lish courts would be still more instructive. THE CRY OF A PHILISTINE. A painter splashed his canvas full of colors, vaguely blent; He called it Art. A player mauled piano keys until his strength was spent, And called it Art. A poet penned a sonnet weird which not a soul could scan ; A fellow wrote a "problem play" which puzzled every man; Another one composed a song which gave us all a start; They called it Art. Crowds thronged the painter's studio, exclaiming, "What a grand Impressionist !" More gathered 'round the pianist — cried, as they shook his hand : "Impressionist !" JOHN BULL, LIMITED 149 They said it to the playwright, the composer and the bard, And to a lot of other freaks that worked but half as hard Creating weird absurdities to give the world a twist — "Impressionist !" Perhaps I am too dull to grasp their scheme of things; but still, I call it rot ! Perhaps it is because my mind won't give the proper thrill — I call it rot! If s hard to say, but anyhow, I like to use my mind To judge of art, and not be told, "THIS is the proper kind." I think art should be understood, and so, when it cannot, I call it rot! CHAPTER VIII Comparison of English and American Wages. Whit- suntide. A Bit of Wales. York, Old Chester, and the Roman Wall. Midland Dialects. Apropos of weather and the London atmosphere, here is something that ought to be interesting to collectors of tarry hydrocarbons and sulphuric acid. It is taken from "The People of the Abyss," a book descriptive of life in that un- der-world of poverty and human wretchedness known as the East End, or White-Chapel district, of London: "Consider but the one item of smoke. Sir William Thistleton Dyer, Curator of Kew Garden, has been study- ing smoke deposits on vegetation, and according to his cal- culations no less than six tons of solid matter, consisting of soot and tarry hydrocarbons, are deposited every week on every quarter of a square mile in and about London. This is equivalent to twenty-four tons per week or 1,248 tons per year to the square mile. From the cornice below the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral was recently taken a solid deposit of crystallized sulphate of lime. This deposit had been formed by the action of the sulphuric acid in the atmos- phere upon the carbonate in the street. And this sulphuric acid in the atmosphere is constantly being breathed by the London workmen through all the days and nights of their lives." The fact which is established by the above atmospheric conditions is that the London worker is anaemic, physically weaker, and never in as healthy condition as the country worker who always breathes pure air. Aside from the med- ical standpoint, however, there are other reasons to influ- ence emigration by London workers. The London Board of Trade in its recent report giving the comparative cost JOHN BULL, LIMITED 151 of living in England and the United States, shows that ar- tisans and farmers have considerable advantage over other classes in the matter of wages, hours, comforts and oppor- tunities of saving money. The investigations were begun in 1909 and covered twenty-eight American cities and towns. The employments chosen for enquiry were the various branches of the building, engineering and printing trades. Among the main conclusions is the finding that the food of the average English family depending upon the trades named would cost about 38 per cent more in the United States, and that the rent in America is in proportion of 207 to 100 in England. In other words the cost of food and rent together is 52 per cent greater in the United States than in England. The wages in the United States, however, are in the ratio of 230 to 100, or more than two and a quarter times greater. Since there is proof that employment is no more inter- mittent in the United States than in England, workers have a much greater margin, even when allowance is made for higher expenditure. This margin makes possible the com- mand of necessities, conveniences, and the minor luxuries of life to an extent greater than in England, although the effective margin is in itself curtailed by the scale of ex- penditure. The report further established the important fact that although the habit of spending money is greater in America than in England, and although the American is naturally more extravagant and wasteful, those who desire to exercise strength of will and foresight can save more easily in the United States because of the larger income. In the matter of hours, the skilled workers in the building trades in America have the advantage of about six hours weekly compared with the English, and the unskilled have the advantage of about 3^ hours. The American com- positor works about 48 hours weekly as compared with 52J4 152 JOHN BULL, LIMITED hours in England. In the engineering trades, on the other hand, American hours exceed the English by three hours weekly. Such a report is naturally a great argument in favor of protection, and the necessity of tariff reform in England has long been a thorn in the side of her free-trade advisors. As a matter of fact, English wages are about one-half those paid in American manufactories, while the cost of living was about the same. The following comparison was made by an owner of manufactories on both sides of the ocean. Wages in American and English Mills. A comparison of wages paid in Yorkshire, England, and in Providence, R. I., U. S. A., to operators working upon the same machinery and using the same materials : Yorkshire. Rhode Island. Wool Sorters $7.68 $16.00 Men Box-Minders 4.20 8.00 Noble Comb Minders 4.80 9.50 Can Gill Minders 3.00 7.00 Drawers 3.00 7.00 Rovers 2.64 7.00 Spinning Overlookers 7.20 15.00 Girl Spinners (according to the number of spindles) 2.70 6.12 Doffers 2.16 4.50 Girl Twisters 2.64 7.00 Girl Warpers 3.12 8.00 Weavers 3.80 11.22 Weaving Overlookers 8.64 16.00 Joiners 7.64 15.00 Mechanics 7.20 15.00 Stokers 6.00 12.00 "The workmen in our. American mills do the same work that is done by our English operators, and get more than twice the wages that are paid at our plant in Yorkshire. JOHN BULL, LIMITED 153 Here at our Rhode Island plant they comb, spin and weave exactly the same classes of wool, alpaca and mohair, and the same qualities of yarn and cloth as do the operatives in our English mills. They use identically the same machinery. They do precisely the same things. Indeed, many of our workmen here were working in the English mills only six years ago. The length of the working week is almost the same, 56 hours here and 55^^ hours over there." The speaker was Chairman of a company which began business in i860, in Bradford, England, and is to-day the President of a company which began building in 1903 the huge plant employing fifteen hundred persons, situated at Graystone, on the border-line of Providence, R. I. The firm is one of the best-known in the world in its line, and the American plant was erected on account of the tariff, in order to compete for the business of the American market. The mills are now the largest of their kind in America, their specialties being the finest grades of alpaca and mohair. A large number of the employes came to America to work in these Graystone mills, following the company across the ocean. "Now," continued the speaker, "I believe in tariff reform for England. I know that if the English workmen wish to improve their condition, receive higher wages, and have more constant employment, they should adopt a tariff policy for their country. I spend my time alternating between England and America, and I became so convinced of the im- portance of this whole matter that I caused the above care- ful comparison of wages to be made." He referred also to the other comparison of vital impor- tance in this connection, the cost of living. "I have never," he said, "known a workman to return to live in England. The company has built a model village about the mills at Graystone and the operatives conduct their own co-operative 154 JOHN BULL, LIMITED store, just as they do in England. The secretaries of these stores made computations and I have the comparisons here. For instance, a Yorkshire butcher, employed by the Gray- stone co-operative, states that the joints are not cut the same, but that the prices realized for the whole animal are about the same as in England. I have ascertained the quantities of everyday necessities consumed by families ranging from two to thirteen persons and find that the average cost at Graystone is 7J^ cents more than in York- shire, and that a family of five will have to earn jointly ZJV^ cents more per week to be equal to the families in England." Food prices in the co-operative stores managed entirely by the workingmen of the textile plants in Yorkshire and Rhode Island : Yorkshire. Rhode Island. Best flour, per package of 14 lbs... $0.50 $o.S4 Best butter, per pound 34 .32 Best lard, per pound 18 .15 Sugar oSi .osi Best cheese, per pound 20 .20 Currants 10 .10 Coffee 40 .28 Ceylon tea 46 .44 Onions 02J .05 Ham 26 .25 Bacon (Irish) 24 .20 Apples 07i .08 Rice o6i .09 Milk, per quart 06 .06 Vinegar, per quart 08 .07 ' Swiss milk, per tin 10 .07i Bananas, per dozen 16 .I2i It would seem that facts so convincing as these would sooner or later bore through the adamantine blocks that do duty on the shoulders of the English Liberals who cling so blindly to the fallacy of free trade. That the facts have an JOHN BULL, LIMITED 155 interest for the English working-class, however, is shown by the ever-increasing totals of emigration to these more generous and comfortable shores. It is only the lack of passage-money that keeps the great mass of English work- ers at home, where it is not easy to save anything out of wages that average only about three dollars a week for women and girls, and a dollar a day for men. The whole subject is an object lesson, since an equally amazing wage comparison may be made in almost every English trade or vocation. The wonder of it all, in face of the higher cost of living, increased taxation, and depression of business generally in England, is that the working population do not start for America en masse. One thing that impresses a stranger in England is the at- tention paid to details in business, and the minute examina- tion of all matters arising in the daily routine of great cor- porate bodies, such as railways. Returning from a visit to York and a ramble through the grand Minster, along the Roman Wall, and among the ancient Abbey ruins there, we missed a small book, entitled "Poe's Short Stories." We did not miss it until after our arrival home, and at once recollected exactly where we left it in the train — rear seat of the compartment, right-hand side, between the window and the seat-cushion. So I wrote to the Railway Company, giving full details, and as the compartment had contained no other passengers and the train on arrival had been taken directly to the railway yard for the usual inspection and cleaning, I knew the Company had found that book right in that identical spot, and accordingly I requested its return forthwith. Well, that evening we discovered the book at home! Then I was in a quandary. The logical thing, of course, was to write the Railway Company and withdraw my previous letter. But I had had occasion to blister that same Company once before, for mislaying a dress-suit case. 156 JOHN BULL, LIMITED and although the dress-suit case had been recovered, there was a coolness between us and I felt a little delicate about exposing my head to their official club after having used a sledge-hammer so triumphantly on the Company's. It was a serious dilemma. I felt sure that the Railway Company was going to have a lot of difficulty in finding any book of mine in that particular spot in that particular car, for good and sufficient reasons. I knew they would have a search made, maybe several of them — under the seat and over it, and into every crack in that railway carriage, and that an inspector would afterward call upon me with all the offi- cial correspondence, from the guard up to the General Su- perintendent, and then ask me four hundred very pointed questions and write down all my answers. There would be an investigation and a general row, during which they would probably recognize me as the sarcastic complainant in the previous case, and would then search the whole train and also probably along the line clear to York ! In that pre- vious case, neither of us had economized either time or con- venience in making things warm for the other, and I did not desire any repetition of that circus, although I had emerged from the fracas with both my suit-case and the enemy's scalp. But this was different. The situation was a very delicate one, it seemed to me. I wondered if I ought to accept a duplicate copy of "Poe's Short Stories," in case the guilty and conscience-stricken and abjectly-apologetic Railway Company should dissimulate its uncertainty and proceed to make restitution on general principles. It was manifest that I must allow them to thus appease me, or else confess myself a candidate for a guardian or nurse-maid while traveling. On the contrary, should the Railway Com- pany again act 'igh and 'aughty, I would be in a still worse position. How could I do myself justice, and wave the red flag of riot and war over the still bandaged head of my ■■^^^ Beaumaris Castle, Wales A Whale in the Upper Thames JOHN BULL, LIMITED 157 former adversary, when I had the lost article in my pocket ! The more I thought the matter over, the more I perspired, and finally I decided to emulate the example of Brer Rab- bit — "lay low and say nuffin'." I received no word from them during that week, which I regarded as somewhat re- markable, but not so remarkable as to necessitate another letter from myself, so I waited another week, and yet another, without any sign of life from those people. Then I began to breathe a little more freely. I had occasion to go to that railway station to meet somebody one day, and while I was trying to attract as little attention as possible, an engine in the station suddenly gave two sharp whistles that nearly sent me over the news-stand ! Two whistles in a station means that the engineer has found a gold watch or something in the engine, and not having missed anything myself, I went away. From that day to this, however, I have never heard a word from the Railway Company ! Nor has the Railway Company heard anything further from me. Whether my letter of complaint miscarried, or whether they received it and "stood pat," only the Superintendent and the angels will ever know. I certainly shall never enquire. It was the narrowest escape I ever had, and impressed me more than anjrthing Edgar A. Poe ever wrote, even in his wildest flights. On "Whit Week," or Whitsuntide, "all Lancashire and the rest of England" quits work and takes a vacation. In preparation for this holiday, thousands of the Midland mill- workers set aside a portion of their weekly wage in the care of "clubs" or "associations," each employe receiving back his holiday saving at Whitsuntide and thus ensuring his vacation expenses. All Lancashire goes traveling — some to Wales, some to London, and thousands swarm to Blackpool, the nearest seashore resort. The broad Lan- cashire dialect and noisy click-clack of Lancashire "clogs," 158 JOHN BULL, LIMITED resounds from Regent Street to the Scotch border, whole families locking up their homes and "camping out" for the week. The great crowds pouring through the Midland railway stations necessitate the addition of one hundred extra trains a day, and although the crush is something tre- mendous, everything is orderly and everybody well-behaved. Whit Week, as stated, also serves to give all England an unlimited opportunity for cheap travel, special trips at half- fare prices being offered by the railway companies to Hol- land, Belgium and France, in addition to excursion-trips all over England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. And every- body goes, leaving business to take care of itself for a week, and everybody apparently has no end of a good time. At this holiday season an invitation came for us to go to Beaumaris, in Anglesey, North Wales, and we accepted. The route lay through wonderful mountain scenery along the coast line, with grand views of the Irish Channel nearly all the way. Wales is rich in mining properties and consonants. The names of some localities are as long as a village street, and affluent with g's and d's and w's and double ll's. They are practically unpronounceable except by Welsh people and in- clude such gems of thought as Llandudno, Rhyl and Pwhyllgux. There is one particular town that has a name with nearly half a mile of consonants and only three inches of vowels. I have copied this name from the guide-book and solemnly swear it to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and also that I have heard it pro- nounced by a Welsh gentleman who still survives. It is really a whole sentence in a single word, and signifies some- thing or other about "the village by the little house beside the mill by the river" and how attractive it all looks. This is it : LlanfairpwUgwyngyllgogeryclvhwyrnddrobwU-lland- isiliogogogoch ! JOHN BULL, LIMITED 159 They call that place Llanfair, for short, and nobody has ever questioned the sagacity of that idea. Any Welshman will take the whole name in one bite, however, and I could sit for hours to listen and admire. Welsh sounds exactly like a man trying to talk with his false teeth out. I heard a sermon preached in the Welsh language during our brief visit to Anglesey, but it didn't affect me half as much as the name of that town. That name sounded to me like home — ^like an elevated-railway guard calling the One Hun- dred and Twenty-fifth Street Station in New York, and it went straight to my heart. If the rest of Wales is anything like Anglesey, it must be a little Paradise. I shall never forget that coach-ride over the long Menai Bridge, through the walled roads arched by spreading trees, the rolling meadows of buttercups and daisies, the occasional Channel vistas, the changing road views as the heavily-laden coach rumbled through narrow defiles cut in solid rock or rolled easily along by delightful wayside cottages and flower-gardens. Beaumaris is an exquisite little corner of Anglesey, half country and half seashore — with the blue Channel waves at the feet of the quaint old village, and a glorious expanse of green hill and meadow behind. The village and all the rest is a part of the ancient hereditary Barony and is owned by the Lord of the Manor, together with the rest of Angle- sey. Close beside the village is the old, ivy-covered ruin of Beaumaris Castle, a mediaeval fortress of the thirteenth cen- tury — its massive walls arid towers, wide moat, and heavy- buttressed oaken gate backed by three arched portcullises, revealing its former great defensive strength. The entire Castle is roofless and open to the sky, the wide walls now thatched with grass and vines, but showing still the outlines of the interior plan, with dungeons, hidden passages within the walls, and the towers and outer walls pierced with slits i6o JOHN BULL, LIMITED for arrow-shooting. Opening on the inner cotirt is the famous ruined banquet-hall where two hundred Welsh bards, or singers, were treacherously killed while at din- ner, by one of the early Barons and his retainers. The peace of centuries overspreads this historic old ruin. Its grass-grown moat is used as a playground, while the great central court, spangled with flowers, is now a velvet lawn of green and sunshine where tennis-balls and youth- ful laughter replace the strife and bloodshed of bygone cen- turies. Daisies and clover-blossoms whisper back and forth the stories and Castle legends told them by the old ruined walls, or brought by the gossipping rooks that nest in the towers and promenade the moat. England is filled with such historic relics, dating back to the Roman occupation and Lord knows when. Even now, at Chester, York, and many other places, stone coffins and cooking utensils are frequently unearthed, and the once- encircling Roman Wall, or fortification, is still in evidence, with a pretty footpath all along the top. These monuments of an almost forgotten people offer far more food for re- flection when seen face to face than when pictured in story. The real thing is always more convincing, to others besides Missourians. In the British Museum is a "prehistoric man," so called because antiquarians locate him away back with the ichthyosaurus and other freaks before the flood, or just after it, or — anyhow, there he is. He has his stone coffin along with him, and reposes inside curled up like a pretzel, exposed to the sport or curious regard of mankind of to-day. That twisted and fossilized figure is the world's original "oldest inhabitant," and if you are fond of quiet reflection and the accompanying reminiscent thrill, you have a gold- mine in that glass case. As evidence of the seriousness of the British intellect, it may be added that when a London newspaper gravely announced on April first that the "pre- JOHN BULL, LIMITED i6i historic man" was showing signs of returning animation, the British Museum attendants not only received an extra large number of curious visitors that day, but dropped into the "mummy room" for an occasional peep themselves ! Referring again to York and Chester, the quaintest of old English cities — each a beauty-spot of Britain, each diffi- cult of description — for one's interest becomes so divided by the range of subjects and so absorbed by each in turn that an adequate comprehension of all is well-nigh impossible. The history of York and the story of its wars and conquest, from Hannibal to Cromwell, is the history of both, and the dry statistics and perfunctory descriptions of Minster and Cathedral, Roman Walls, and ancient buildings, are all to be found in Baedeker and a hundred other books dear to the librarian and tourist. The most charming way to see such delightful places is to leave Baedeker at home, and wander about as we did, with friends who omitted all the dry statistics and related only what was really interesting, telling the story of each historic object while we stopped to gaze upon it. We learned that the Cathedral was one of the largest and grandest in England, that it dated from about one thousand and something, and had the finest or- iginal stained glass in the kingdom — further, that the Oc- tagonal Chapter House was the most beautiful in Britain. We saw in the Crypt, built in the twelfth century, a piece of masonry said to be of the Saxon era, but I was none the wiser for that, for any old rock looks like any other old rock to me. There was an ancient Guild House down the street that was interesting — it resembled a small chapel, and I was very glad to get outside again, for it was ap- parently ready to tumble down at any minute. We came out on tiptoe. It was not the Cathedral, or "York Minster," as it is called, that most interested us, however. I have seen Cathedrals and great churches all over Europe until I i62 JOHN BULL, LIMITED am tired of them from brain to feet. They all look alike, have the same odor of sanctity, and seem to wear the same universal scowl for strangers. What most impresses one in York. is the old Roman flavor that pervades everything. We stood on the Roman wall that encloses the ancient portion of the town, and dreamed things as they were nine hundred years ago — the Roman sentinel, kindred to the one who stood steadfast at his post in the fiery rain at Pompeii, standing on guard here at the old postern water-gate — the ancient arched and sculptured city gates under which have passed in and out, Norman, Saxon, Roman, Briton, and Cook Tourists — ^the ruined Ab- bey, roofless, with only the high-arched windows and one side-wall remaining after a thousand years, the same little river flowing at its feet where monks in olden days fished for their Friday dinner — the Hospitium, where strangers calling at the Abbey were lodged, now a museum of relics and curiosities unearthed roundabout. In those early days there was no Patent Office, and in that ancient museum we saw hair-pins, scarf-pins, fancy tableware, rings, irridescent- glass ornaments, and all kinds of household adornments, exactly like those in use to-day, and in many instances duplicated in our own Patent Office as models upon which "patents" have been issued to enterprising non-inventive Anglo-Saxons. The dear old safety-pin, friend of our childhood and ever useful, may be found on exhibition in every museum in Europe, some of them cut out of wood and used in Egypt three thousand years ago, along with the hair-pins found in mummy cases — and one day an Anglo- Saxon smarty patented the safety-pin idea and made a for- tune ! We saw a monk in the Museum, or rather what re- mains of him, cowled and with the selfsame rope around his waist that held his gown centuries ago. Most visitors glance at it, pass on, and become interested in the collection of JOHN BULL, LIMITED 163 stone coffins dug up in the Abbey grounds, but I could see that monk passing across the lawn and down to the river- bank with his fish-pole, and by and by his cowled figure going through the ruined entrance to the Abbey, and later mingling with his brown-robed brethren in the chapel — all nine hundred years ago ! Sometimes I wish that I might live a thousand years and go about the earth revisiting old scenes. With my inborn capacity for enjoying everything from an autumn leaf to an insurrection, such a life would certainly be varied and never dull. In some respects it would be charming — sad in others. I have in my little day wandered over a consider- able part of both continents, and find it always pleasant to revisit scenes and people, however widely scattered from West to East. But a thousand years! What changes to observe each century — what new friendships to make, and old friends to mourn — what passings-on of all things tem- poral! And curious it is how gradually and imperceptibly, yet surely, the haunts and abodes of men are finally builded on by succeeding generations and become in turn obliterated by Time and the earthy deposit of Time. We do not realize that what is on the surface of our earth to-day will be largely tumbled down and built upon a thousand years hence. You can dig anywhere in Europe almost and dis- cover buried and forgotten things of long ago, from a button to a temple. Part of a Roman Wall has recently been unearthed near London, Roman coins and the remains of Roman camps, pavements, goblets, and armor are con- stantly being turned up by the plough or spade all over Eng- land — perhaps as reminders "lest we forget" that for five hundred years England labored under the yoke and lash of her Roman conqueror. Even while we were in York they were resurrecting a huge Roman ruin of a bath-house, chariot factory, or department store — nobody knew what it i64 JOHN BULL, LIMITED was or appeared to care. Some Yorkshireman happened to be digging a well and found a cupola ! After relocating his well, he continued operations, and some day he will have a Roman hath, or whatever it turns out to be, and then the English Government will double his taxes and eventually acquire the excavation. One of our York friends who was having a cellar made for a little summer-house in his gar- den, surprised a former Roman citizen reposing there in a stone coffin. The coffin is now in the museum, inscribed not with the name of its former occupant, but with that of the finder! The bones went elsewhere. Apparently the Romans wore out their welcome in York. There is also the old Castle, which I am not going to de- scribe — part of it is only a prison now — ^but imagine going through that musty old fortress, one of the oldest in Eng- land, absorbing ancient lore and getting mentally covered with the hoary dust of antiquity, so to speak — and then emerging into the sunshine and being shown "the finest modern railway station in Europe!" York has both the oldest and newest of attractions — one might stay there for , many and many a day, and find never a dull one. Chester, or "Old Chester," as it is reverently called, also imprints its lasting impression on the memory of pilgrims to its shrine. Nestled within the arm of the slow-winding river Dee, and surrounded by the ever-charming rolling country of Cheshire, its heart enclosed by the still-enduring Roman wall, and its grand old Cathedral looming up amid other buildings old and new — Chester is all that could be desired. Once within its charmed circle, one feels the deep content that betokens earthly peace and good will. It was a fortified Roman town in the first century, and here one realizes the antiquity of Britain. Chester is dominated, not by its majestic Cathedral, its quaint "Rows," its past glories and modern cheese, but by JOHN BULL, LIMITED 165 its famed tutelary deity, the "Cheshire cat." This strangely- shaped and grotesque effigy of a feline pet grins its distorted greeting at you from every shop-window, apparently re- joicing in its hideous deformity and the red and yellow spots. You will find stray specimens of these china mon- strosities all over England, but Chester is the family head- centre, the "old homestead" of the tribe. That cheerful, emblematic grin meets and welcomes you at every turn, and such is its insinuating, persuasive witchery that even while you berate yourself for a fool and the descendant of fools, you cannot resist an idiotic grin in return. The Cheshire cat is the living exemplification of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's "Laugh and the world laughs with you." Its complacent smile has never been paralleled except by the pleased ex- pression of a certain historic tiger returning from its walk with a too-confiding young lady. A beautiful view of Chester and its surroundings may be had from the promenade along the top of the Roman wall, the most ancient in England. A parapet extends along each side, broken by occasional old watch-towers, from one of which King Charles saw his army defeated on Rowton Moor, in 1645. The wall is pierced by antique "city gates," with coats of arms still blazoned above the arches. Near the main entrance and just within the wall itself stands the Cathedral, famous among the famous Cathedrals of England. We wandered through its dark- ened interior, the golden sunshine filtering through the great stained windows, and rested for a little in the cool shadow of the central nave to admire the rich reredos and altar, carven choir-stalls, and grandly-imposing dome. Then with a shilling we corrupted an attendant, who led the way to a little door opening into the old burial-ground outside, where nobody is allowed to enter except Royalty, church members, and us. We are usually able to secure entrance i66 JOHN BULL, LIMITED into everything, everywhere, and always, even though it is contrary to orders, against all tradition, and may mean death to the official in charge. Our "open sesame" is a silver key that unlocks every door, the size of the key vary- ing with the size of the door, and we are particular to always have this key with us when we go a-wandering. The English sightseer seldom spends an extra penny, and con- sequently sees only the regulation free programme, while a nimble little silver six-pence or shilling will open locks and doors leading into all sorts of secret places full of won- derfully interesting historic treasures always kept sacred from the public view. I remember on one occasion when visiting Windsor Castle, we were admitted to St. George's Chapel after the regular hour for closing, due solely to the hypnotic effect produced by a half-crown piece, and how later the attendant nearly wept because he was helpless to acquire a beautiful gold sovereign offered him for a look inside the great marble sarcophagus of the Duke of Clarence. "Don't you want it?" "Want it? — my Gawd, yes!" said the man. "Well, open it, then," said John, pointing to the sarcophagus. "Gawd save us, I caivnt hopen it, the top weighs more than a ton, sir," almost blubbered the excited attendant. John gave him half a sovereign, to. save his tottering reason, and we shall remember that sarcophagus as one of the very few places in England that we failed to unlock. Chester is famous for its ancient "Rows" (pronounced rose), a sort of second-story sidewalk, with shops and house-entrances like those in the street below. They re- semble a long interior balcony, with railing, affording a quiet and shady promenade, with stairways to the street at either end. The idea would seemingly be worth copying for relieving the crush on modern sidewalks. It is said that these "Rows," or second-story sidewalks, were once on a JOHN BULL, LIMITED 167 level with the streets of the old walled town — a statement which appears at first sight more or less doubtful, yet per- haps it may be true. It gives one a sort of apologetic feeling to be promenading in front of what would ordinarily be somebody else's private apartments, but we got over that. The ideal way of seeing England, or for that matter any other place, would be to tour the country in an automobile, with a careful and competent chauffeur, who would also act as guide. By this means, all railway travel and arbitrary hours of arrival and departure are eliminated, and one can ride along slowly or stop whenever desired, to view the charming landscape. There are plenty of pretty wayside inns from which to choose resting-places at night, and one enjoys perfect freedom from time-tables, stuffy railway trains, station conveyances, and a hundred other annoy- ances of ordinary travel. England is fairest outside her cities; the countryside is delightful from April to October, and an automobile trip through Devon, Cheshire and Lan- cashire into Scotland, along the lake and mountain route from Glasgow to Edinborough, thence down the east coast to the sea-side resorts along the "English Riviera," or South Coast, Brighton, Eastbourne, Bournemouth, and the like, is an ideal trip never to be forgotten. There is a world that is entirely different from the world seen by the railway traveler, full of scenes and pleasures absolutely new and delightful to every sense — a world that is open wide to him who journeys slowly and with eyes that see, whether the journey be by rail or motor-car. To the traveler who, races over a prescribed route, in a prescribed and limited time, a slave to his itinerary of travel and with eyes for only what the guide-books recommend, the real joys of foreign travel are unknown. He sees but little, remembers less, and the principal benefit derived from such a trip is enjoyed by the recipients of his foolish and wide-flung travel expenses. i68 JOHN BULL, LIMITED The mill-towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire are all alike in essential respects, being prosaic, commercial and dull in comparison with the quaintness of York and other show- places. Weaving-mills and factories are everywhere, their countless "smoke-stacks" rolling out black clouds of sooty soft-coal smoke both night and day, befouling the landscape and soiling everything it touches. The sun shines brightly in the Midlands, however, and one doesn't notice the dirt till he looks at his cuffs ! The average wage of an adult mill-worker is sixteen shillings, or $4.00, per week. Children of all ages and sizes are also employed, receiving an average of four shil- lings, or $1.00, per week. The working hours are from 7 A. M. to 7 P. M., with an hour for dinner. At 7 P. M. the day-shift leaves the mill and the night-shift takes the va- cated places. The mills grind night and day, grinding human beings ! The day-shift is made up largely of women and girls, the night-shift of men; husband and wife meet at the gates of the mill, he entering, she leaving, or vice versa, seeing each other only in that brief moment until Sunday comes. The mills shut down on Sunday, but they keep the fires going! Bradford is situated on one side of a wide, deep ravine, the ridge opposite being open country and marked out in squares or rectangles by innumerable hedge-rows, the cus- tomary English boundary-lines of farms. The view across the valley is very fine — whenever the smoking forest of intervening "chimney-stacks" permits. Within the silk-mills is the eternal crashing back and forth of countless shuttles endlessly weaving, weaving the story of human hardship and cruel poverty into rich fabrics, amid a deafening and exasperating din. Here are employed thousands of anaemic-looking workers, whose lives run lit- erally in one straight groove from day to day and year to Hi i t \.k^. W'^km WmM l-'f ■*. i»*^ ■ m^sm am^ IHl'^ Entrance to Old Abbey at Chester "Old Ship Inn," near Manchester JOHN BULL, LIMITED 169 year, with little or no variation from the daily path trav- eled from home to mill and back again. Tons of silk cocoons are pulped in these mills, then spun and woven into all manner of silk goods. The largest mill is near the pretty Park, and boasts a "chimney-stack" taller and of greater girth than any in all England. It certainly is a monster, and from its commanding situation on high ground overlooks all the country roundabout. A coach and four horses can be driven round the top, they say, but the experiment has never been tried. On the day when the great chimney was "opened," christened, or dedicated, a dinner-party was held at the top. A temporary railing was built around the outer edge, and the guests were carried up on a small "lift," or elevator, inside the chimney. The peo- ple of Bradford talk about that dinner yet, and probably always will. The stranger, on arrival, is asked : "Hast seen owt (aught) of Lister's chimbley-stack ? Noa? Thow't not — weel, zur, a cooch and voor 'orses can be a-druvven round aboot the top, zur, an' when chimbley war oopened" — and so on. They tell it to you. We heard it every day, until I finally got it so pat that I told it to Bradford people myself, but always locating the chimney in Lancashire! Yorkshire is jealous of Lancashire, and Lancashire has no special use for Yorkshire, so the chimney was always good for a free lesson in dialect. Yorkshire dialect is always richer and broader when the speaker is excited. The bare idea of that Yorkshire prize "stack" being in Lancashire was usually sufficient to transform a quiet Bradford citizen into a violent lunatic. It was very odd. The beauties and capabilities of the real Yorkshire dialect are best heard when the mill-shifts are changing and the adjacent streets and sidewalks are thronged with the hur- rying workers. The Babel of jargon is something tremen- dous. Lancashire dialect is said to exceed the Yorkshire I70 JOHN BULL, LIMITED in broadness and picturesque variety, but I could see no choice myself. Either one can be cut with a knife and make an Irish "brogue" resemble thirty centimes. In traveling across England by rail, the mill-towns are conspicuous by the smoke which obscures the sky above and around them. Sheffield and Birmingham can be recog- nized miles away by their canopies of smoky cloud. We passed through Sheffield in a sort of thick fog, and as the train continued its route across a valley and along the oppo- site side, we looked back at the city five miles away and saw only a smudge of smoke like a great cloud. We were then in brilliant sunshine and among the green fields and harvests. Little wonder that Horace Walpole described Sheffield as "one of the foulest towns in England, in the most charming situation." At night the fires of the great steel rolling-mills there redden the sky like the glare of a burning city, and the scene inside a mill is like a peep into the Inferno of Dante, with the crimson glow and half-naked men, and roaring flames of the wide-open furnaces. But even with such an object-lesson always before them, it is not recorded that the Sheffield population is especially in- terested in theological subjects. CHAPTER IX A Well-Spent Shilling. English Railways. The Goose Muriel. American Village in Man- chester. John Bull and his Crematorium. I remember one especially dull morning while returning to New York on a big White Star liner, when every pas- senger seemed to be buried in a book and steamer-chair, or prowling about the deck in a fit of the dumps, a mental condition which is charmingly expressed in the English ver- nacular as "got the hump." Maybe it was due to the weather, possibly to the long side-roll of the ship, or per- haps just a plain everyday coincidence. I stood at the rail of the promenade deck beside the Only Girl, rejoicing in the sweep of ocean-view, the glorious breeze, and joyousness of life itself. As we watched the great vessel plough its giant path through the white surge that spread away each side of the bow, and the millions of bubbles racing past to the foam-flecked wake behind, I took a handful of silver coins from my pocket, and said : "We are like passengers in a balloon sailing over the mountains and valleys of the ocean-bed. Away down there below us in those blue depths are Alpine ranges and mighty prairies, towering peaks and smooth table-lands, extending for hundreds of miles in every direction, and were this great ocean to vanish and we remain floating here above it all, we could plainly see all these mountains and valleys so far beneath us." "How iar?" inquired this practical maid. "Well, the depth of the ocean varies according to the coinformation of its bed, the greatest depth being about three miles. In the ship's library, my dear, you will find books describing the ocean and its hidden secrets, and also 172 JOHN BULL, LIMITED maps showing the charted heights and hollows of the sub- marine bed itself. It is very interesting. "For instance," I continued, "we are now about a thou- sand miles from the English coast, almost in mid-Atlantic. Directly under us at this moment, according to the library charts, is a valley extending some seventy miles from one side to the other, enclosed by lofty mountains and gradually shelving like the interior of a wine-glass to a base only about ten miles in diameter. The bottom is said to be of hard white sand, and whatever wrecked ships have gone down into this valley gradually shift to this common centre and find a final resting-place upon this white sand. Now, if we were in a balloon instead of a ship, you could look down and see what is there." The Only Girl captured a wind-blown tress and fastened it beneath her steamer-cap. "How awfully interesting that is. I should so love to see it." "Well, we can't very well do that, but we can send a substitute." From the handful of mixed English and American sil- ver coins I selected a bright new shilling-piece, her eyes sparkling meanwhile with suppressed curiosity, while a con- valescent invalid in a nearby steamer-chair regarded us with that scowling disfavor commonly extended by the breed toward passengers with well-behaved stomachs. I held the shilling-piece in my hand, and said : "Now, dear, this little shilling is going to see something that no human eye has ever seen or ever will see. I am going' to throw it overboard and it will sink lower and lower, down, down through the blue ocean to the sandy bed far below, and it will stay there forever and ever, among the shattered wrecks and skeletons and perhaps treasure, and all sorts of queer things. It is sure going to see things, unless some big fish gobbles it en route to JOHN BULL, LIMITED 173 squander in some lobster palace. Now, if this shilling could only come back and tell us what it has seen down there under the blue water, it would be a story worth hearing, wouldn't it ? Well, here it goes ; say good-bye !" The Only Girl looked very intently at the little mes- senger, and said: "Now, don't you stop to talk on the way with any strange fish; you just hustle down there and get busy with those wrecks and things. Then cable us at Daddy's expense." I threw the shilling far out from where we stood, into a dark patch of blue water free from foam and bubbles, and as the liner forged its way past we saw the silver gleam and twinkle as it sank down into the depths, turning in the dark water as if to flash back an eternal farewell to sunshine and the turquoise sky. The incident left a deep impression on the mind of the Only Girl, and will always associate itself with a mental photograph of that ocean-valley and its silent surroundings. Frequently during the rest of the voyage she would emerge from a brown study or interrupt some abstruse remarks of mine with the musing interrogation, "I wonder where that shilling is now. Daddy," and so also during the years that have since elapsed the fate-question of that little messenger has frequently been in our minds. "Full many a gem of purest ray serene. The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear," but not one of them has such a healthy and absorbing interest to me as that little Queen's shilling. I don't think I ever spent a shilling to such good advantage. English railway men are proud of the speed records made on their lines. They admit that they have no long- distance runs like those of the New York-Chicago limited trains of the Pennsylvania or New York Central, but they claim to operate a greater number of fast trains at a greater 5peed than the American railroads. This high speed, how- 174 JOHN BULL, LIMITED ever, is for only a comparatively short run, and cannot be compared with the long mile-a-minute runs extending nearly half-way across the American continent and made by fast passenger specials. It was old Commodore Van- derbilt who once remarked that fast train service in Eng- land was like a hundred-yard race — "they couldn't keep it up long, for fear of running off the island." The fastest non-stop run in England is between Darling- ton and York. The Northeastern Railway does this forty- four-and-one-half-mile run at a speed of a little over sixty- one miles an hour. The express trains of the Great Central Railway cover the distance of twenty-two and one-half miles between Leicester and Nottingham at the rate of a little over sixty- one miles an hour. The next best run is the Caledonian Railway's express, which covers the thirty-two and one- half miles between Forfar and Perth at over sixty miles an hour. The Great Western Railway has some remarkably fast trains. The non-stop express runs between London and Bristol, 1 1 854 miles, at a speed of fifty-nine miles an hour. The Great Western also runs non-stop expresses between London and Plymouth, 225 miles, at a speed of fifty-five miles an hour. Americans landing at Plymouth are fa- miliar with the Great Western's boat-specials that take them from Plymouth to London. They often cover level stretches at a speed of seventy-five miles an hour. From Plymouth to Exeter the line is hilly, which reduces the speed. The French railway men also have some fast expresses to boast about. The Northern of France covers the run from Paris to Arras daily, 120 miles, in 117 minutes. Its Paris- Busigny expresses do the 112^ miles in 112 minutes. Its Paris-St. Quentin expresses do the 95^^ miles in 95 min- JOHN BULL, LIMITED 175 utes, and its Paris-Longeau expresses do the 78^ miles in 78 minutes. The French railways have recently speeded up their Paris-Berlin expresses. The morning train from Paris to the frontier is timed as follows: Paris- St. Quentin, 95^4 miles in 93 minutes; St. Quentin-Erquelines, 53^^ miles in 51 minutes, or at the rate of 62.9 miles an hour. The French railway men think this is "going some." There are a dozen trains from London to Birmingham, no miles, that cover the distance in 120 minutes to a tick. From London to Brighton, the popular seaside resort, is 50^^ miles, and a dozen expresses a day do the distance in just 50 minutes. The difference between the English railway compart- ment-coach and the American railway car is quite as marked as the difference between the locomotive engines. Corridor cars, a compromise between the two types of pas- senger cars, are a great improvement over the old-style compartment car, and far safer for ladies obliged to travel alone. "God bless your Honor," said the old Irish janitor of an office-building in Manchester, to whom I had wished a "Merry St. Patrick's Day" as I stepped from the "lift" on the upper floor. " 'Tis kind av ye, sorr — sure, today is the Siventeenth and 'tis an American ye are, praise God, and not English. Strange things do be happening nowadays, sorr; d'ye mind the bit av green in me coat today? Sure, 'tis only of late years that a man could do that here and openly, yet now, sorr, the wearin' av the green is not only allowed but raley encouraged be the English, God forgive thim ! Faith, 'tis but right, and why ? Irish Ginerals have led the English throops to victory along wid Irish soldiers too often av late years for England to openly ignore Ireland longer, since 'tis the English flag gets all the glory and 176 JOHN BULL, LIMITED honor, sorr. And sure, the Queen sinds the Irish Guards great boxes av shamrocks on St. Patrick's Day, and the King be graciously plazed to allow ut be worn on the British uniform for that wan day only. Bedad, in other days and not so long ago ayther, the English were hangin' people in Ireland for wearin' the green little shamrock, but that is all ended foriver, praise God, and only the red shame to Eng- land remains." True words those. It was worth while to hear the old man talk of Ireland's partial emancipation and catch his appreciative laugh when I explained how St. Patrick was born at midnight on March 8th, and because those present were unable to decide whether he arrived late on the 8th or early on the 9th, they added the two dates and called it the 17th! The celebration of St. Patrick's natal day is not, however, carried to such an extreme in London as in New York — they do not hoist the green flag on Buckingham Palace or the Houses of Parliament yet ; but even that may come in time. The British lion is still sensitive mentally and physically from the trouncing received in the Trans- vaal and Soudan, from which he was rescued by Roberts and Kitchener, Irish both, and what with frequent tail- twistings by Irish members of Parliament, and the awful visitations of the Suffragettes, Sir Leo can hardly be blamed for purchasing peace at any price. Much of this nature and more to the same effect did the old veteran and I dis- course about, while the "lift" waited idly near us on the upper floor with wildly-ringing bell, and men of England filled the entrance-hall downstairs with wrath and lamenta- tion. "But phwy prolong the discussin'," as Tim said when he finally started the car downward. "Sure, 'tis all wan — Here's to thim that wish us well. And thim that don't may g-g — God change their hearts, sor!" With which bit King Charles Tower on the Roman Wall, Old Chester JOHN BULL, LIMITED 177 of Irish philosophy the old man dropped down to the raging tenants marooned on the ground floor below. Near Manchester lived a man known as "Ducky," who had spent about ten years of his life in raising chickens, ducks and geese. He knew more about the habits and eccentricities of that kind of fowl than it seemed possible for any man to retain in his mental system without strain- ing it wide open. As an authority on feathers and cackle he stood ace-high, his judgment being regarded as Gospel truth by all the adjacent neighborhood. One day a well- dressed stranger carrying a satchel walked into the little public-house where "Ducky" was holding forth on the high price of eggs as contrasted with the indifferent business ambition displayed by the local poultry. The stranger ordered a drink and started conversation. "I have something here," he said, extracting a live goose from the satchel, "which I consider one of the marvels of the age, as illustrating what education will do for even a poor dumb creature like this. I am told that you under- stand something about geese, and you are therefore prob- ably aware of the mental disadvantages under which they labor, having little or no brain power or mental concentra- tion, and being easily flustered or confused. When, there- fore, such an absolutely irresponsible proposition develops a high intellectual capacity for absorbing, retaining and ap- plying knowledge imparted to it from a loftier intellectual plane, that object becomes a marvelous exception to the general rule, and as such, a miraculous evidence of the exalting power of higher education. For instance, this is Muriel, the dancing goose." "Garn," said an onlooker. "Chuck it!" The audience roared with appreciative interest. "I sye, old chap," remarked "Ducky," stroking the back of Muriel, then standing on the floor and regarding the 178 JOHN BULL, LIMITED company bashfully, "wot d'ye mean aboot this burrd a-darncing? Geese don't becoom darncers, y'know." "Not all geese, certainly," the stranger continued, "but Muriel, this snow-white wonder, does actually dance. She will do a sailor's hornpipe, a whirlwind dance, the hoochee- coochee, or a pigeon-wing, if preferred. She has had the benefit of a musical education as well, and is gifted with an excellent ear for correct time." " 'Ear, 'ear !" applauded the crowd. "Give us a 'ornpipe, missis." By this time "Ducky" was greatly interested. In all the years of his intimate experience with geese he had never heard of one being so intelligent and graceful as to be capable of executing a dance. But he was willing to be shown, and the stranger was willing to convince him. "Muriel," said he, "will take pleasure in dancing for you, and then if you are satisfied you should take her home to entertain your friends. Nothing would force me to part with her, except actual need of money, nor would I ever do so unless I was sure that she would have a good home and a kind master." The stranger took from the satchel a square piece of tin and placed it on the floor. Muriel backed away a few steps rather shyly, but was lifted up by the stranger and placed upon the tin, with the admonition: "Now, Muriel, kindly oblige us with a dance." Sure enough, the goose began to kick and hop about in a grotesque sort of two-step, varied with an occasional flop into the air, resuming its gyrations when its feet returned to the tin square. The spectators, at first hushed and awe- struck, applauded uproariously and shouted encouragement. "Sling yer 'ook, Dysy!" "Go it, missis!" "Blyme, wot a lark!" " 'Appy days, old girl!" Muriel began to show signs of extreme disfavor and the JOHN BULL, LIMITED 179 stranger lifted her up, replacing the tin square in the satchel. The dance was not so very graceful, "Ducky" admitted, but then one couldn't expect too much from a goose. In the main it was very satisfactory, however, and he was pleased and considerably impressed. After a brief private conversation with the stranger in a corner, during which "Ducky" parted with the amount required for Muriel, he bade the stranger good-bye and took the goose home. On arriving there he placed Muriel once more on the tin square, where she danced as vigorously as before, to the unbounded joy and admiration of a fresh lot of spectators. Then in some way, right in the middle of a startling High- land Fling, the goose managed to get off the tin. Imme- diately the dancing stopped. Muriel, with a little shake of her ruffled plumage, just walked off as a modest little goose should. Then "Ducky" started to investigate. Picking up the bird, he found attached to each foot a fine wire, which ran down each leg. The wire was continued under the wing, where it connected with a tiny electric battery, cleverly con- cealed. When the bird was placed on the tin, a circuit was formed, causing it to kick and stamp its feet! The mys- terious source of Muriel's higher education was revealed. "Ducky" had also learned a thing or two himself. The Midland country lying between London and the Scottish border was the scene of much religious strife in the strenuous days when Oliver Cromwell and his "Iron- sides" overran England, shooting, hanging and maiming that unfortunate portion of the population who differed in religious creed. Spreading the gospel by cropping off the ears and slitting the noses of tardy converts is a method only temporarily convincing. Many an old and battered farm-house still attests the "Protector's" malign presence. i8o JOHN BULL, LIMITED where, after hanging or cropping the unfortunate owner, the departing soldiers put the torch to the old stone-walled buildings. At Drogheda, Ireland, while suppressing a re- bellion in that unhappy isle against the English, over one thousand men, women and children were locked inside a church where they had taken refuge, and burned alive at Cromwell's orders. All these atrocities were done in the name of religion and to the glory of God. During those dark centuries not only was the Tower of London crowded with noble prisoners and the execution-block working over- time, but all England was drenched in the blood of an inter- necine conflict waged in the cause of Christ! Catholic and Protestant alternated in the sunshine of successive sov- ereigns and the fortunes of both great religious parties varied with each change of robe and sceptre. At the death of Cromwell the Protestant Church of England had become firmly and finally established. There is always a moral to a story. This is the story. One day an Irishman wandered into a Protestant cathedral and fell asleep. He was awakened by an indignant official, who exhorted him between shakes : "Come, move on now; you're in the wrong place. This isn't your church, it's a Protestant one." Pat rubbed his eyes and looked about him. "Faith," said he, "ain't thot the statue of St. Joseph?" "Yes," replied the official. "Ain't thot other wan the Virgin Mary?" "Certainly it is. Move along now!" "Ain't thot wan the blessed Saviour?" "Yes, yes." "G'wan, thin ! Whin did all thim turn Protestant ?" Manchester will always be associated in my mind with the Philippines. During the summer an exhibition was opened there called the "White City," a pocket-edition of JOHN BULL, LIMITED i8i the great "White City" at Chicago at the time of the World's Fair. One of the attractions was a "PhiHppine village," a cluster of rustic huts occupied by a number of native Iggorotes, practically naked, and fresh from the Philippines. From a tall flag-pole in the centre of the vil- lage floated the Stars and Stripes — the only clean thing in the place. Now, it is no exaggeration, but a positive fact, that fully one-half of the middle and lower-class population of Manchester and vicinity who went to see that village and beheld our national flag above it, believed those natives to be pure Americans, native-born New Yorkers, perhaps ! This dense geographical ignorance, more especially regard- ing America, is a prominent English characteristic, not con- fined to the lower classes, but frequently encountered in higher circles of society as well. Americans visiting Eng- land are frequently informed that they "speak excellent English." On one occasion much surprise was expressed by an addle-headed young nobleman who sat next to an American lady at a country-house dinner. "Why, bless me, where did you ever learn to speak English? You have no American accent, re-arly, y'know." She confided her reply in a whisper, "Oh, we had an English missionary in our tribe." Whereat he marvelled much, gazing steadily ahead through his monocle, and then beamed upon her with, "Oh, yaas, yaas, of caws; most extr'ordinary, y'know." It did not matter that these Igorrotes were chocolate- colored and bare — they were usually referred to as "the Americans," and that queer collection of huts as the "Amer- ican village!" English visitors were also especially inter- ested in a so-called "dog dance," given by the natives two or three times a day, and during which an imaginary dog is killed, boiled and eaten, in realistic pantomime, by these simple children of nature. In their far-oiif tropic home the dog was always a real one and took a prominent part in the i82 JOHN BULL, LIMITED proceedings, but in Manchester the dog was omitted, and, if wise, got outside the city limits. Another absorbing object of interest to the open-mouthed believers was the Chief of the village, a six-foot Igorrote, who had a record as a "head hunter," having killed eight men, whose heads, nicely dried, were hanging at his happy home-fireside as trophies of his prowess. This fact went still further to prove him a genuine' American citizen, according to the English theory. The entire native costume of male Ig- gorrotes being about the area of a pocket handkerchief, it was a constant and aggravating mystery to his admirers where he carried his gun. Generally speaking, the knowledge displayed by the aver- age Briton regarding all things American is quite on a par with his geographical proficiency. America is looked upon as a sort of Utopia, where large conflagrations, shocking railway accidents, and wholesale negro lynchings are of almost daily occurrence. It is occasionally necessary to explain that people in New York and other American cities do not go about armed to the teeth, an explanation which is usually regarded as a deliberate evasion. "Fancy that! Why, I thought you Americans always carried a pistol and were ready to use it at any moment." Then follows the usual bromidic corollary : "But of caws you do not requiah a pistol in England, y'know." I have met English people of excellent standing who were perfectly certain that I carried a concealed gun, and possibly a bowie-knife in my boot as well, since I never proved the contrary by taking the boot off in evidence. They have read about such things and Americans get the benefit of it. It is a noticeable fact, however, that throughout Europe nearly all Americans are treated with politeness, perhaps because of this prevailing uncertainty as to firearms. It does no harm at least, for on the Continent courtesy is mostly purchased with gold and JOHN BULL, LIMITED 183 silver, and seldom proffered gratuitously unless you are regarded as apt to shoot! Par example, it is always a pleasant diversion, if a waiter is slow, to use the magic word "Goddam." The waiter will instantly vanish and your order be served by a nimble substitute, with a constant wary eye on your hip pocket. I was once asked in all ser- iousness by a charming English lady dining with us in a prominent Paris cafe, "Oh, would you please shoot just once at the chandelier; I should so love to see the waiters go through the windows!" And because I had thought- lessly attended dinner without my alleged armory, she re- garded me ever after as extremely disappointing. One of the English newspapers contained an editorial on the great fire in Chelsea, Mass., locating Chelsea on Tre- mont Street, in Boston. Such a faux pas is not unusual with English papers, while the majority of readers never heard of either place. English newspapers are dull, heavy, and extremely vague on all matters except the daily Par- liamentary reports. There will be columns and pages of ponderous arguments and dreary, stupefying discussions of that august body, and only a half-column or so about for- eign matters. Occasionally the newspapers contain awful breaks in geography concerning things that every schoolboy ought to know. The London Daily Telegraph is probably the best all- round newspaper published in England, with the Daily Mail a close second, but of a different class. The Daily Telegraph made a world record in the Russo-Jap- anese war that for promptness of service and news ac- curacy placed it easily first among all the newspapers of that day, not excepting even the American press. The Daily Mail is the favorite journal with Americans, how- ever, being bright, newsy and conducted in the American style — a lonely and attractive sulphide among the bromides of English journalism. i84 JOHN BULL, LIMITED There is much philosophical wisdom to be derived from even humble sources. The staple products of Yorkshire and Lancashire are cloth goods and dialect, and the slow, leisurely manner of transacting business in that region is convincing evidence that the man who sits down to wait will be still sitting there waiting long after the man who hustles has got what they both went after. There is much good doctrine in the old assertion that "God helps those who help themselves," but the fact remains equally true that a personal, strenuous effort will leave less for God to do. Prompt decisions, like prompt remedies, are often vitally necessary in business, and all business ethics yield to emergencies. A case in point is that of the two little girls who were hurrying along in imminent danger of being late to school. One said, "Oh, let us kneel down here and pray God that we may not be late." The other girl said, "No, let's skin along and pray as we skin." They skun and got there. That seems to be the better way; certainly, it has ad- vantages. Shakespeare, an Englishman himself, has given Englishmen this valuable financial tip: "Our remedies oft within ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to Heaven." In other words, personal effort, not supplication, is the trump card. Reflections like these in time of stress are comforting to bear in mind. It is also of advantage to resolve oneself into a "Don't Worry Club" and practice the essential prin- ciple. But there is a limit. "Excelsior" and "Casablanca" are poems cited as excellent examples of perseverance and obedience for the rising generation to inscribe inside its hat and seek to emulate. While there is no doubt that "Excelsior" as a poem conveys a wholesome moral to busi- ness and financial climbers, the moral can be overdone, and then something happens to the climber. He may even be frozen out permanently. There is a considerable margin Regarded in Manchester as Genuine Americans JOHN BULL, LIMITED 185 between perseverance wisely directed and a fool ambition to climb an Alp all alone. "Casabianca," too, is a pretty poem and conveys another good moral, but that boy was only another kind of fool. He waited too long; he had plenty of pluck, but no judgment. Common sense should have told him that if his father hadn't turned up at that last red-hot minute, it was because he couldn't, and young Casabianca should have skun along and prayed as he skun. The poems and morals are both all right as far as they go, but, as previously stated, there is a limit. One live boy is better than two dead ones. Manchester is the centre of the Yorkshire cotton goods industry and, as in Lancashire, most of the mill workers wear the "clogs," or wooden-soled shoes. No one who has once heard that street music of the "clogs" in the Midlands will ever forget it. Oldham, near Manchester, is a fair sample. The clack-clack is everywhere and always — the sidewalk resounds with it, the air is full of it, and the echoes come back from up, down and across the street. People go clack-clacking by, clack-clacking up side-streets, or clack-clacking in and out of the shops, and the combined racket is something fierce. I was passing through a narrow street in Oldham when I heard a rattling on the paving- stones behind me that sounded like a runaway cab! I stepped into a doorway out of danger, and then discovered that the din was made by two small boys clattering along in their "clogs" to school. You can always tell when people are in a hurry ; it is not necessary to turn round, if they are behind you, for you will have ample evidence of their presence. The clack-clack is comparatively mild and modest when anyone is walking quietly along, but when there is a hurry call the "clogs" go clickety-clack, and if it is a dog fight ahead or a bill collector behind, then the music quickens to a clickety-clickety clack-clack, and you i86 JOHN BULL, LIMITED know that the owner of those "clogs" is doing a hundred- yard dash through the next street. Whether the familiar clog-dance of our variety stage owes its happy origin to the Midland mill towns, I cannot say — they certainly have the clogs, if not the dance. And when on national holidays or the occasion of some special football match at the famous Crystal Palace grounds near London, the Yorkshire and Lancashire population goes sight-seeing to the metrop- olis, then resounds the dialect and the "song of the wooden shoe" high above the roar of traffic, while London stuffs its ears with cotton and folds its hands in pious resignation. From a clog dance to a Crematorium is an easy transi- tion. The English public has not taken very kindly to the gospel of cremation, notwithstanding the apparent vast advantage offered by this process of burial over the English and Continental fashion of using one grave for an entire family, beginning at the bottom and adding layers as re- quired. Cremation has many excellent points in its favor besides sanitary considerations, and to the majority of people but one objection offers itself — the natural aversion to consigning a loved one to the incinerating furnace. But when it is remembered that the alternative of earth-burial consigns the loved one to a process of slow decomposition and decay which is far more revolting, the quick reduction to ashes seems preferable. The modern cemetery is to most people a beautiful park, adorned by nature and man with lovely lawns and shaded paths for quiet meditation; where flowers, sweet symbols of life, are budding and blooming everywhere. It is pleasant to wander about amid such surroundings, apart from the busy world outside, viewing the sculptured tributes to departed friends, enjoying the restful silence, and the hushed voices of the leaves whis- pering in the trees above. All this is dreamy and appro- priate, and since it is what we have always been accustomed JOHN BULL, LIMITED 187 to, is no doubt more or less a solace in many ways. But it is not cheerful to reflect that all this beauty of nature and exquisite handiwork of man, the verdant lawn and flower- ing landscape so charming to every sense of those bereaved, is but a fair and smiling mask to conceal what lies hidden underneath — human remains passing through every stage of loathsome putrefaction and decay. Cemeteries, although attractive to the eye and serving more or less satisfactorily a purpose, yet possess no attendant advantages that cannot also be offered with cremation as a substitute for burial. It is quite as logical to bury an urn containing the ashes of a departed friend or relative as to inter the coffined body itself. No change or alteration in the appearance of the cemetery is required — its floral beauty and effective land- scape remain the same, with sculptured tributes also, if desired. But above all, we may have the final certainty, the deep content, of knowing that there is to be no gradual corruption and dissolution of that form so fondly loved in life, neither any possibility of trance, premature burial, or kindred horrors that, having happened before, may perhaps happen again, and from which any positive exemption can- not be guaranteed. Only cremation can give that great assurance that brings the peace of certainty; only crema- tion can rob the grave of half its terrors and dangers for those yet living. And as cremation becomes more widely known and understood, just so surely will it gain increasing numbers of new friends and advocates. Ever in pursuit of useful knowledge, we visited a Crema- torium, situated near Manchester. In America it would probably be called a Crematory, but in England the Roman forms of speech are more often employed, harking back, perhaps, to the yoke worn by Britons under five hundred years of Roman rule. Old habits are hard to change. The building was about the size of a chapel, and occupied i88 JOHN BULL, LIMITED a prominent location on the main avenue. There was a tall "chimney-stack" towering above it, through which were carried off the smoke and gases from the incinerating cham- ber at the base. A sign-board announced that the Crema- torium was open to visitors on Sundays at 3 P. M. We arrived there at 3 P. M. exactly, and found five or six people waiting patiently before the iron gates, which were closed and locked. There were no signs of life inside the building and it was beginning to rain. We waited for ten minutes, on the general principle that ten minutes over- time is allowable for a man, and half an hour for a woman. Then the iron gates were occasionally rattled forcibly, while another ten minutes passed. The rain had increased and there was no shelter except under the dripping trees. Finally we went to a neighboring house for information, but got no satisfaction. Returning to the Crematorium, we found the gates open and entered the grounds. A knock on the door was answered by the attendant, an exact replica of the typical John Bull, fat and pudgy, with a red face decorated by a pair of small side-whiskers, and a breath which at once explained the reason of his tardiness and inattention to duty. He began to say something and I began to say something. "Hi beg pawdon, sir; do you wish to see — " "Look here, do you call this three o'clock ? Do you know what your sign says? What the devil do you mean by coming here late like this ? Do you know it's raining ? Do you " "Hi beg pawdon, sir. Hi cawn't 'elp it, sir; Hi couldn't get 'ere sooner, sir; Hi 'ave to tyke a train from " "You're late because you've been drinking, and I'll report you in the morning for keeping people waiting in the rain here for half an hour!" JOHN BULL, LIMITED 189 "Hi 'ave not been drinking, sir, honly one hale, sir; Hi couldn't " "You're another! You're half squiffed now and you can't talk straight. Go on and show this shop — you'll be reported for this, all right." "Yus, Hi will be reported, sir; Hi shall go hand report myself, sir. Hi cawn't be talked to like " "Here, you sing your song about this Crematorium and shut up about yourself. And you sing it to the others here — don't talk to me — not a word!" John Bull, purple with mingled wrath and ale, and in momentary danger of apoplexy from inability to describe the Crematoriuni and explain his dereliction at the same time, turned helplessly to the half dozen other waiting vis- itors, and, almost weeping with indignant wrath, began to talk. "This here Crematorium was erected in the year " I will not attempt to reproduce the pro forma lecture, which was punctuated with gasps of suppressed excitement and frequent glares in my direction. Someone asked, "How long a time is required for a cre- mation ?" "Honly forty minutes, sir — ^but 'im, it would tyke a hower for 'im!" glaring at me as if he would be only too happy to prove it. But he was sobered ! What with the excitement, and the shock of the assault on his dignity and veracity, the effect of his Sunday potations en route to his post had been dis- pelled and John Bull was slowly but surely cooling off into his normal self. He had finished his long lecture about "the 'ot hair in the chimbley" and the chemical action of the "carbon dihoxhides," shown the empty furnace and its ap- pliances, "sung his song," and his work was completed. As we passed out, I beckoned to him. 190 JOHN BULL, LIMITED "Here's a shilling for you," I said. "Are you going to be late again next Sunday?" "Thankee, Guv'nor — Gawd save us, Hi never 'ad such a time in hall me life, sir; Hi shall halways remember you, Guv'nor ; no, sir. Hi shall not be lyte hagain, sir — not hever, sir." He mopped his perspiring face and spoke fervently. "All right, then, I won't report you," I replied. Whereat he insisted on showing the Columbarium, consisting of square steel boxes set into the wall like those in a Safe Deposit, only larger, each sealed door being inscribed with the name of the person whose ashes, enclosed in a bronze urn or casket, reposed therein. As we came away. The Only Girl remarked: "I don't think I'd care to live near a Crematorium. With the sooty smoke from that chimney-stack settling down all over the neighborhood, I might be dusting some of Mr. Jones off the piano !" CHAPTER X English Egotism. Some Characteeistic Post-Cards. A Social Evening. A London Sabbath and Trip TO Colorado. Metropolitan Rambles. English and Continental cemeteries resemble each other in a general way, but they have certain decorative features seldom or never seen in America. Natural flowers are seldom seen upon graves after the wilting of funeral tri- butes, but in place of these are wire wreaths or crosses covered with artificial flowers made from colored glass beads. Upon nearly every grave is a glass dome enclosing a bead wreath, wax or beaded flowers, and sometimes a photograph of the deceased person. These glass covers are precisely like those used in pastry shops to protect pies and cakes from dust, and present a weird appearance to anyone more accustomed to shops than cemeteries. The effect when the sun shines is dazzling, like hundreds of gigantic dewdrops scattered through the grass. In an English cemetery there is the same careful and dis- tinct drawing of the social line that exists in English society — no mingling of the gentry with the commoners. The vulgar herd is distinguished from its betters by a wilder- ness of plain marble slabs, while in the very best part of the cemetery, and usually clustered around the pretty stone church, are the sculptured angels, urns and marble monu- ments of that exclusive class who will probably be vastly surprised some day to find many of the best seats around the Throne allotted to commoners, regardless of the special arrangement of graves below. Such exhibitions of "caste" and petty social pretensions, based on the "holier than thou" scale of measurement, are sufficiently laughable in real life without being dragged into the churchyard. The 192 JOHN BULL, LIMITED English idea of the general resurrection is apparently based on the English social law, the nobility to have preference in rising when Gabriel blows his summons, followed in turn by the gentry and middle class, and then, when everybody else has passed into the private boxes, orchestra stalls and best seats generally, the common herd can tag along and stand up ! The proposition is certainly delicious from al- most any point of view. Again we have unconsciously wandered from our original subject — the weather. After having experienced the differ- ent varieties of London fog, we were introduced one day to an entirely new form of this distinctively English at- traction — a charming and delightful fog at Liverpool. It was called an "off-shore" fog, being confined to Channel waters, while all along the coast the sun was shining brightly. This is said to be a peculiar and attractive feature of Liverpool fogs. The London, or "land fog," is a very different matter — sooty, thick and "pea-soupy," as they call it, wherein both your skin and your linen suffer equal indignity. But the Liverpool fog, both local and "off-shore," is clean, a word of blessed significance to those who have endured the other variety. We shall always re- member this Liverpool fog, for we were then sojourning at New Brighton, opposite the big sea-port at the mouth of the Mersey, and a fog of any kind blocking the entrance of this great water artery of England is always prolific of trouble. It seemed like two different worlds in touch — one shrouded in gloom and mystery, the other bright with sunshine. Such a variety and Bedlam of sounds came out of the murky depths — horns and ringing of bells from anchored craft, high-pitched and long-drawn whistles from coast steamships, whoops from the siren steam-horn, the muffled tones of the lighthouse fog bell, and an occasional When King Edward Bowed Old Richmond Bridge JOHN BULL, LIMITED 193 deep basso-profundo blast of a big liner feeling its way — all sorts and kinds of medley. It sounded like a barnyard afloat out there in the shrouded mist — ^the Moo-00-oo-OO- 00-00-00 of the liner, then a bla-a-a-a-t from some smaller steamship, followed by a yah-yah-yah-ya-a-a-a-aaah from a tin-horn sailing vessel, a squeal from some impatient tug- boat — you could shut your eyes and almost smell the new- mown hay, the sweet breath of the lowing kine, the violets in the lane, and other odors perhaps not so poetic, but which always cluster around a barnyard, ashore or afloat. And suddenly the fog began to clear away — long lanes of sun- shine pierced the mist and opened up great vistas of blue water dotted with a procession of ocean and Channel craft already beginning to creep into port. Fogs are the precursors, attendants and trailers of the winter season — ^that hopeless and dreary three months dur- ing which the great English nation affrights the Gods by stuffing its ears and nostrils with cotton, winding thick mufflers around its sensitive neck and blanket-shawls over its tender knees, in 'busses or railway carriages, and also occasionally displaying that remarkably British institution, a mouth filter or sieve, strapped on like a dog-muzzle and designed to prevent the inhaling of microbes, germs and other poUywogs of the air ! The fog and the filter go hand in hand in merry England, along with the hermetically- sealed windows and clammy atmosphere. The British Isles include England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man, and the people of these various sections are very clannish. They are all one or the other, and they are all' equally the "best of the lot," even to the little Manxmen of the Isle of Man, where all the cats are born without tails, but are also the "best of the lot" just the same. As a matter of fact, however, the Scotch are the real rulers of Britain — politically, the others do not count. And how these different clans do love each other! 194 JOHN BULL, LIMITED All over England the saying, "Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief," is accepted literally. What the Welsh think of the English is best left unsaid. As a matter of fact, we found the Welsh people quite as pleasant, hospit- able and altogether likeable, as the English. There is nothing on earth that an Englishman regards as equal to what he can get at 'ome in England. He is not ordinarily a likeable person on this very account, since he can see no good in anything not English made, or English managed, and has only criticism for ever3rthing else, whether made by God or man. This is no fancy sketch or flight of the imagination. It is strictly true and accords both with Hoyle and Price Col- lier, who states: John Bull, in his own personality, is a colossal figure of egotism and self-satisfied gratification. He is inflated with a tremendous sense of his own importance, and a supreme indifference to others. That any family, tribe or nation should desire to live under any rule but English, is to him unthinkable. This idiosyncrasy is apparent in the dedica- tion by Lord Curzon, late Viceroy of India, in his book entitled, "Problems of the Far East." He says, "To those who believe that the British Empire is, under Providence, the greatest instrument fo.r good that the world has ever seen, and who hold with the writer, that its work in the Far East is not yet accomplished, this book is dedicated." In this connection it may well be asked where, in the his- tory of mankind, one may look to find another such assump- tion of virtue and omniscience, coupled with inordinate self- satisfaction. Who believes that the world is better where the English dominate? The English. Who believes that India is happier? The English. Who believes that Ireland is happier? The English. Who believes that the East under English protection is happier? The English. This amazing assumption that England and God (for in Lord JOHN BULL, LIMITED 195 Curzon's dedication the British Empire takes precedence of the Deity) have between them done more for the world than any other agency, is characteristic of the Enghsh people. They know only one way — that is their way, and their way is the best way, and is sanctioned by God, who, by the way, is the God of the English national church. The opinion of Ireland, India, or the Far East counts for nothing. Providence, by grace of England, doeth all things well. Interesting, isn't it? Englishmen are not only insular in prejudice, decrying ever3rthing on earth external to their little isle, but also clannish, decrying and backbiting each other. Yorkshire is especially derided by other counties, and the alleged miserly, stingy nature of the Yorkshireman is held up to the world in the following characteristic lines, taken from three postcards which are very popular in England — out- side of Yorkshire: A .YORKSHIREMAN'S ADVICE TO HIS SON. "See all, hear all, say nowt; Eat all, sup all, pay nowt; And if tha does owt for nowt, Do it for thisen." (thyself). The next is equally business-like and conveys a very thrifty moral, the application of which is very far from being confined to Yorkshire. A YORKSHIRE WOMAN'S ADVICE TO HER DAUGHTER.. "When tha starts thinkin' abaht gettin' wed, Alius see t'bloke hes plenty o' brass. Love in a cottage may be all reeght, But a lahl brass is mich better. Tha can love a man wi' summat Just as weel as yan wi' nowt." 196 JOHN BULL, LIMITED On the remaining postcard is a coat-of-arms showing a large shield bearing a flitch of bacon, a flea, a fly and a magpie, the shield being surmounted by a horse's head. The scroll below bears a motto, "Qui capit, Ille habet," which, freely translated, is, "Grab it and keep it." Below this facetious illustration appears the following rhyme, toast, and translation, reproduced in all the quaintness of the olden text. A YORKSHIREMAN'S COAT OF ARMS. A Magpy behold and a Fly and a Flea And a Yorkshireman's qualifications you'll see. To Backbite and Spunge, and to Chatter amain, Or anything else, sir, by which he can gain. The Horse shews they Buy few tho' many they Steal. Unhang'd they're worth naught, does the Gammon reveal. But let Censure stand by, and not Bias the Mind, For Others as Bad as the Yorkshire you'll find. "Here's tiv us, all on us. May we niver want nowt, noan on us. Nor me neither." Qui Capit, Ille Habet. Yorkshire translation: "Cop t'lot en stick." The Yorkshireman, thus held up to the derision of his fellowman, retorts on his Lancashire rival, whom he re- gards with the same fervid and passionate affection dis- played toward each other by the famous Kilkenny cats — a sentiment that is cordially reciprocated by all Lancashire. The coat-of-arms displayed on the postcard devoted to Lancashire bears a duck, a clock, a drain-pipe and a drum, on a red and blue shield surmounted by another duck. Below is the rhyme, in Lancashire dialect : A LANCASHIREMON'S COAT-OF-ARMS. The Lancashiremon's Coat of Arms yo' mun know, 'S Drum, Clock, aiid Duck, wi' a Drain-pipe also, Fer a Drum, when it's 'ollow, meks plenty o' din, JOHN BULL, LIMITED 197 Same wi' th' Lancashiremon, wherever he's bin. T' clock goas on tick fer as long as it con, And soa, when he's chance, wuU a Lancashiremon. A Duck's niver reight on'y when thur's som' wet. And th' Lancashiremon'll sup o' he con get. A Drain-pipe's noa use till it's stuck under grawnd, And it's soa wi' a Lancashiremon you'll a' fawnd. In addition to the above the Lancashire shield has a scroll bearing this inscription, which certainly shows an accommodating spirit : "I'll Sup or Feight wi' Onybody." But if you really desire to foment an insurrection in Eng- lish society, all you need do is to praise the Irish! They will cheerfully and unanimously drop every other pleasure and all business to unite in abusing the whole Celtic race. Suppose you say, "Why, they are the best soldiers in your army; they saved your Highlanders and your Surrey Lan- cers and the very battle itself at Bloomfontain ! Your best generals are Irish, too !" You will not get any farther. They will almost foam at the mouth explaining to you that all these men have been Anglicized in the British army! The ability of the British mind to appreciate humor is a subject on which the ablest observers disagree. It is en- tirely a matter of degree and perception. Someone has said that it requires a surgical operation to get a joke into the head of a Scotchman. To perform this operation on an Englishman may not require such heroic treatment, but before the operation can be regarded as a success the joke must be explained in detail and possibly illustrated by dia- grams, after the manner of "Punch." Then he sees it — perhaps! Or possibly he will see the point later on and tell you a day or two afterwards, "It's ripping, old chap; I simply howled !" The quality of English humor, like that of mercy, is not strained. That is to say, it is not reduced to the essence, or 198 JOHN BULL, LIMITED fineness of degree, that characterizes American humor. The point is always in evidence — always right in front where one can see it at first glance. Nothing is left in uncertainty — the conclusion is never deftly concealed and thereby made all the more delicious for its quick discovery and apprecia- tion, as in America. An Englishman likes his humor dished up to him on a ladle, not served as a delicate tidbit. He will strain at the subtle gnat and swallow the too obvious camel, hoofs, hump and all. Witness an evening social gathering at a private house. Every English person, man or woman, is a born entertainer, or thinks so, which is often quite as satisfactory. There- fore everybody is down on the host's list for a "stunt" of some kind, and is expected to prance out at the proper time and help entertain — play the piano, talk wittily, sing a song, do a violin solo, and, as Dundreary said, "Make a jolly ath of himself." The popular tendency is to be humorous ; puns are irresistibly funny and conundrums perfectly ex- cruciating. Someone will perhaps remark carelessly: "Oh, I say, have you ever hard — er — have you ever hard the story of the three wells?" All hands delighted, and a chorus of, "Oh, do tell us !" "No, what is it?" The inquirer looks very solemnly around the circle, shakes his head mournfully, and says, "Well, well, well." The company shrieks with laughter, going off in singles and batches like a bunch of fire-crackers, according to the length of their mental fuses. The joke is one that every- body comprehends, and the reputation of the propounder as a most extraordinary fun-maker rises immensely. As the titters subside, the host consults his list surrepti- tiously and with upraised, hushing palm ponderously an- nounces : "Er — I feel very shar that we should all appreciate it JOHN BULL, LIMITED 199 very much if Miss Mothpatch will kindly favor us with a song." The company settles into various attitudes of resig- nation, listens more or less intently, and applauds loudly as the lady retreats to cover. "Remarkable voice that, y'know," somebody says in a loud aside, while the fair one tries to appear deaf and everyone nods assent. You murmur, "Quite so, indeed," and look enraptured at the ceiling. Suddenly a young man, wagging his ears with sup- pressed mirth, propounds: "I say, why did the owl howl?" (Now, herein lies a secret — if he says "owl howl" you know he is good class, but if he says "howl 'owl," you have reason to wonder how he ever got inside the house.) Everyone looks wise and expectant, ready to grapple in- tellectually with the answer, which bursts out triumphantly upon us : "Because the wood-pecker would peck her!" Thereupon ensues the inevitable explanation — some can't see it, others gurglingly explain, dissect or magnify it, and finally the slow ones roar, too. Then, rushing on his fate, or following his luck, or whatever it may be, the young man tries another: "I say, what did Noah say when he hard the deluge com- ing down?" "Oh, tell us ; what did he say ?" palpitate the listeners. "'Ark!" That caught on nobly, too. Then some bromide said, "Makes Noah an English cockney, rarther !" This touched off another titter, and the host announced: "Ladies and gentlemen, we will now have a song by Mr. Adam Sapple and myself, accompanied by your hostess." This called for tremendous applause, but everyone seemed to brace for a shock, apparently from past experi- 200 JOHN BULL, LIMITED ence. After the first line, "What Are the Wild Waves Saying ?" I braced also. This ancient conundrum was sung with astonishing verve, amounting almost to a demand for your answer or your life, Adam's apple doing a wonderful up and down accompaniment from behind his high collar, and the piano literally howling for mercy. The hush that followed was more than eloquent, until the company recov- ered its presence of mind and demanded an encore. But this was beamingly and perspiringly declined. By-and-by it became our turn and I tendered the classic morceau : "What goes 'round a button ?" They looked at each other in polite dismay. Someone enquired, "Do you mean the hole, sir?" and someone else said, disparagingly, "Why, the cloth, of caws — rearlly, that's very stupid, y'know." There was a general demand for the answer, and I therefore gave it : "Why, a goat goes 'round a-buttin' !" You could have heard a feather drop in that dense, dense silence and utter gloom. Everyone sat dumb, nobody smiled, nobody saw it, and I began to realize that their intellectual machinery had stopped and could almost hear the fog- whistle. Finally somebody said : "I beg your pawdon. I really don't see — er — you cawn't put a goat round a button, y'know." Another earnest as- surance followed: "I say, it's the buttonhole goes round the button, old chap." "A-buttin'," I shouted, "not the button !" No use. On the funereal occasion that I am recalling, this conun- drum started a debate that in turn plunged most of those present into incipient paresis. One man at last saw the point and began to laboriously explain it to his neighbors. JOHN BULL, LIMITED 201 while I worked heroically over others who appealed to me for light. Gradually the great truth dawned here and there, the darkness lifted, and through the murky mental gloom came the bright rays of understanding. But the joke was a dismal failure. Nobody seemed to like it, although I took the trouble to write out the explanation for three or four who apparently viewed it as a sort of 15-block puzzle to be pored over at home. I have always felt that the original goat was not entirely alone that evening. After supper, desiring to atone in some measure for the previous disaster, I requested an announcement made that I would contribute again to the general entertainment. This created a considerable stir, and as I rose I noticed that sev- eral of the company had a worried look, and some rose to go. A little child burst out crying. Although the outlook seemed dubious, I said: "Now, ladies and gentlemen, here is a very easy one; it came all the way from a New York kindergarten alone; I know you will enjoy it; now pay careful attention; this is it, Why is a henf" Just as I expected, there was a blank stare, so in order to save wear and tear on the straining intellects, I gave the solution at once : "Because the higher the fewer." They said afterward that that was what broke up the party. The dead and wounded lay everywhere just as they fell, and the pale, cold moon looked down on a silent and deserted battlefield as we drove away in the hansom. And I honestly think that if war should ever break out between America and England, it would only be necessary to send over a regiment of bill-posters to placard these two antique conundrums and their answers all over Britain. There is just enough obstructive matter in them to muddle John Bull good, and when once they get well started boring their 202 JOHN BULL, LIMITED worm-like way through the English skull and sooner or later penetrate the crust, in that fatal second the blinding flash of comprehension will overwhelm and forever anni- hilate that man. As a matter of fact, very few English people understand either American jokes or American slang. There was a certain Baronet who was an exception. He understood, or rather, said he did. At all events, he always haw-hawed, and he had one ancient joke of his own so pat that he never tired of it. Like many of the male nobility and army officers, he wore corsets and was very proud of his figure. There was no secrecy about it — everybody knew it. This gave him material for his perennial joke. No matter what you might say, the Baronet had his return shot ready. "Fine day, isn't it, old chap? Of corset is!" and up would go his monocle as he observed with delighted and expectant grin the effect on your risibles. And it is proper to add that although the social value of a Baronet, in comparison with an Earl or other lofty sprig of nobility, is about that of a dime beside a haughty half-dollar, this Baron's "of corset is" was a standard joke up there in the ethereal blue of Court society and was said to have even affected Royalty to tears of laughter. The Baronet was very fond of grouse shooting on the Scottish moors and expatiated learnedly on the best methods of cooking game. He told an American that the proper way to prepare larks was to hang a dead woodcock on a nail, attach the larks to the claws of the woodcock and leave the whole bunch hanging there for eight days. By some occult process the excellence of the woodcock goes into the larks, and at the end of the eight days they throw away the woodcock and eat the larks. The American was much interested, and replied, "We do the same thing in JOHN BULL, LIMITED 203 America, except that at the end of eight days we throw away both the woodcock and the larks and eat the nail !" It was along the same line of reasoning, and with a patri- otic view of imparting useful information and at the same time preventing these children of John Bull from becom- ing unduly puffed up over their native phenomena, that I occasionally invited attention to the remarkable habits of the Side Hill Gouger, an animal peculiar to the mountainous fastnesses of our great and glorious West. This strange quadruped possessed an attraction to the average British intellect that was positively uncanny. It furnished material for many a hot discussion, and a timely reference to it has scared many a refractory child to sleep. The "Gouger" was commonly understood to be a sort of indeterminate nondescript between the Cody buffalo and the Fennimore Cooper savage, and the memory of his weird manner of departing this life will long linger in the minds of true believers. This is the tale and the manner of telling : "The Gouger somewhat resembles the common 'moke,' or donkey, save that it has horns and is noted for its huge size and extraordinary ferocity. Many a belated traveler would lose his life were it not for the most interesting cir- cumstance that owing to its long habitation of steep moun- tainsides, the legs of one side have become nearly twice the length of those on the other side. Owing to this fact the animal cannot turn or follow its intended victim, so if the traveler succeeds in dodging its first rush he is safe. The American Indians have a most ingenious method of hunting it. A fleet and daring brave conceals himself on a hillside adjacent to some level spot of considerable extent, and awaits his game. When the Gouger approaches, the fearless redskin leaves his hiding-place and proceeds to infuriate the beast by approaching him from the windward side with a large piece of Limburger cheese. The enraged animal 204 JOHN BULL, LIMITED instantly charges, and the savage, keeping just out of reach, leads him on until the baffled animal finds himself on level ground. This is his undoing, for the short limbs on one side cause Gouger to spin around in a circle, and, work- ing himself into a frenzy, his rotary progress becomes so rapid that all the blood is thrown by centrifugal force into the blood-vessels on one side. The delicate walls of some of the smaller capillary vessels soon give way, and the death of the animal is instantaneous." It was worth crossing the ocean to hear the gasps of "Most extraordinary," "Gawd save us," "Wonderful, by Jove," and other tributes of respect invariably tendered by a British audience at the conclusion of this truly remarkable narrative. It never failed to score a breathless and horrified hit. There must be a lot of vegetarians in England, for in every city are numbers of "vegetarian restaurants," dotted as frequently as chemist shops. The poorer classes are mostly vegetarians perforce, and they certainly have an un- healthy appearance. This in a land where American roast beef and South-Down mutton chops are world-famous, seems a trifle singular. A certain family living near us were vegetarians, "and a proper lot of scrubs, too," accord- ing to the butcher — stunted, thin and pale. They ate no meat whatever ; even their dog was a vegetarian. This dog was a particularly strong and healthy-looking animal and was pointed out with pride by the owner as an example of what a bean and potato diet could do for even a dog. One day we observed this vegetarian animal industriously dig- ging up a big bone that had been buried for future reference by the dog belonging to our hostess, and learned from her that the husky vegetarian came over nearly every day to help her Irish setter eat his meat dinner ! Twickenham Ferry — Fare a Penny A Typical English Church-Yard JOHN BULL, LIMITED 205 A London Sabbath, as previously stated, is the dreariest of dreary days, even under the sunniest of skies. But Lon- don on a foggy or rainy Sunday, or gripped in the clammy chill and murk of a winter's day, is desolation itself — a prison is cheerful in comparison and even cemeteries afford a wildly hilarious contrast. But there is a way out — not by train, 'bus, tram or other conveyance, but a joyful and sure escape, nevertheless, which, like roller-skating or drowning a cat, is easy for those who know how. I sat before my open fire in London one Sunday morning after the regulation bacon and eggs — a drizzly sleet outside and a damp chill everywhere in the room except inside the little fireplace itself. My feet were warm and my back half- frozen; if I turned about, my back got warm, but my nose froze — a characteristic of most English rooms in the winter season. I longed for warmer and more congenial ■climes, and in sudden determination to escape for a time at least, I went to California! Yes, to California, and by a route far superior to rapid-transit dirigibles and rather more in the line of a magic carpet or an AUadin's lamp. I had in my trunk a variety of time-tables and descriptive pamphlets of foreign resorts, so after deciding where to go I reposed comfortably in my easy-chair, lighted my faithful pipe, opened the particular pamphlet or book I preferred, and, presto — I began to travel ! In a jiffy I had left behind all cold and sleet and the dreary city itself, and knocking the ashes from my pipe and putting on my glad society smile, I walked into the beautiful Mission Hotel in Southern Cali- fornia. Ah, what a difference, what balmy air, what ex- quisite tropic bloom of flower and foliage, with the bluest of sky and the brightest of sunshine! From the shady veranda I saw the palms waving their fronds in welcome; a sweet scent of orange and jasmine blossoms was wafted :from the distant gardens. Somewhere above, the soft tinkle 2o6 JOHN BULL, LIMITED of a mandolin fell lightly on the air and the ripple of a laugh floated down from an upper window. As in a dream I wandered, forgetting London and its dismal garb, oblivious of everything but present enjoyment. After a delightfully refreshing bath to clear away the dusty traces of my jour- ney, and a delicious lunch on the veranda, I lighted a cigar and walked about the quiet grounds. The older portion of the hotel, according to a legend of early Spanish days, was the relic of an ancient monastery, with a queer old well nearby, where the tired traveler once upon a time found comfort and refreshment. Nowadays the dusty-throated traveler is tenderly cared for inside the hotel, and so keeps step with the march of progress. I strolled among the orange trees, rested awhile upon a rustic seat in the shade of the palms, and finally returned to the hotel porch and gazed thoughtfully out over the arched entrance. Dreamy fancies of the old Spanish mission mingled with the blue smoke of my cigar, and I was gradually drifting into a lovely after-dinner siesta, when bing! a great bell hanging almost over my head struck three times. I don't think I have been so startled since big Carolus in the Cathedral belfry at Antwerp struck unexpectedly one day when I was right beside it. It certainly was very provoking, for up to that moment I had been perfectly comfortable and contented with all California. But when that bell struck ! — well, I lost my cigar, my temper and all interest in California ; I just marched straight to the hotel office, settled my bill and left immediately, on the minute, waiting for no explanation, although the clerk said something about the bell having been there for over two hun- dred years and no previous complaint had ever — ^but I didn't wait ! I made a bee line for Colorado Springs. Ah, there is the real thing ! Romance and reality, the past glorified by the present, and a hotel, the "Alta Vista," with no seductive, drowsy jasmine to lull a man to sleep, and no JOHN BULL, LIMITED 207 d — eafening mission-bell to scare him blue. A small log- cabin stood here, once, but the magic touch of some genii has changed that humble cabin into a modern hotel. The view, the alta vista (high view) was waiting there beyond the hotel in palpitating eagerness for my opinion of it — a wonderful expanse of mountain and valley, with an occasional lofty peak sticking up through the clouds, a mile or more above the sea. I looked long and earnestly, and many new and beautiful thoughts crowded into my mind, especially one concerning a lovely combination of Scotch and other things known as an alta balla (high ball), which proved of material help after the long up-hill trip from the plains. Then I went for a drive and saw some more scenery. Colorado is certainly gifted in the matter of scenery. As I looked down on the terrible chasms and canyons, the low-lying valley with a faint wisp of smoke curling up from some solitary cabin, the split, grim-visaged peaks and upheaved moun- tains all around, I thought of the Irishman who saw for the first time an express train zip into a tunnel and vanish. "Howly Saints," he gasped, "there's going to be a divvle of a smash wan day whin thot thing misses the hole!" Before me lay mapped the awful result of some such mis- carriage of Nature. I tried to imagine that chaos of tur- moil and volcanic wrath, the frightened clouds skurrying overhead, the red glare of the heavens, and the probable view from where I stood. I gave it up and went to look at the Balanced Rock — a gigantic boulder overhanging a precipice and trembling on the razor-edge of nothing. I waited quite a while to see it go over, for it apparently needed only a touch or a puff of wind to send it rolling downhill clear to Chicago! They said the rock had been anchored there for years and that it was impossible for it to get away, but I hung around all the same, and then gave that up. Then I rode over for a view of the famous Seven 2o8 JOHN BULL, LIMITED Falls. At the summit I slipped and got a bad fall myself, and not caring for the other six I returned to the hotel. It was then nearly five P. M. I sat down in one of the large rockers on the piazza, enjoying with eyes half shut the matchless view. But the exhilarating mountain air seemed to have become perceptibly cooler. A knocking disturbed me, and I drowsily recognized a familiar voice, "Your tea is ready, sir." With wide-open eyes I beheld the interior of my rooms in London and the maid-servant bustling about the tea-table. It was the sacred hour for English tea, I was reposing comfortably in my own easy-chair, and the fire in my grate was nearly out. The usual marrow-chilling fog was still enshrouding Lon- don, but I was quite content. I had passed a delightful Sab- bath, far away from fog and England both. I did not envy the passing throng, even those who journeyed in haughty limousines. I knew a trick worth two of that. And next time I shall go to Japan. I have always desired to visit Japan. London has been good to me, and I am very fond of it, but only when the weather is behaving itself. I am fond of Paris, in a way, and quite contented in Berlin. I am also fond of New York, proud of New York, and proud not only of being an American, but an American from New York. Many times I have been asked the question, "Which do you like best, America or Europe?" or "What city do you like best, New York or London ?" For answer I tell them of the man who was dying and somebody suggested a clergyman. He said, "No, I am content — it makes no difference where I go. I have friends in both places." London is solid, respectable, hearty and satisfying, like its own glorious big steaks and thick South-Down chops. Paris is like a souffle and a cold bottle, with a Hungarian orchestra behind the palms. Berlin is bright and lively like JOHN BULL, LIMITED 209 Paris, but more solid and satisfying, and does not begin to get sleepy till sunrise, which is very different from London or even Paris. New York is all three in one, with frills and ruches of lobster Newburg, soft-shell crabs, and other things celestial and ambrosial that are utterly unknown to Europe. Therefore, with friends in all, I am equally con- tent in either great metropolis, but always glad to get back to New York ! Incidentally, I will point out here a brief scamper or two about London, for the benefit of those people who have only a short time to spare, as is the case with so many visiting Americans. The route should, however, be gone over far more slowly, for days, weeks and months may be passed in these highways and byways of a great city with vast benefit and enjoyment. One does not tire of London, somehow — it may be slow, but it is wondrous sure and satisfying. Charing Cross should be the starting point, as the centre of interest in the metropolis. Adjoining it is Trafalgar Square, one of the finest open spaces in the British capital, with the lofty Nelson column, guarded by the four great Landseer lions at its base. On the upper side of the Square is the famous National Gallery, containing master- pieces of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Van Dyck, Gainsborough, Turner and other great artists. Leading from Trafalgar Square is Pall Mall, lined by famous Clubs and buildings of note, including St. James Palace and Marlborough House, both royal residences. St. James Park and Buck- ingham Palace, the residence of the King, are just to the south. Also leading from Trafalgar Square is Whitehall, containing the Treasury, Admiralty and other principal branches of the Government. Before the ancient palace are always two mounted cuirassiers with high-plumed hel- mets, brass breast-plates, tall Wellington boots and "white tights," each soldier motionless before his sentry-box like 2IO JOHN BULL, LIMITED uniformed equestrian statues, "ready to ride on the king's business," — a custom and service dating back for hundreds of years. Just below is the great edifice and clock tower which will be immediately recognized as the Houses of Parliament. Westminster Hall, at the side of the Houses of Parlia- ment, dates back to the fourteenth century. Opposite is the venerable Westminster Abbey, containing Tombs and Chapels of English Kings and monuments to heroes and great men. Near by stands St. Margaret's Church with its beautiful stained-glass windows. Here also is Westminster School, one of the oldest in England. Stretching along the west shore of the Thames from Westminster Bridge runs the Victoria Embankment, with Cleopatra's Needle midway, and along the opposite shore runs the Albert Embankment, leading to Vauxhall Bridge. Starting again from Trafalgar Square and turning West, only a short distance away is Piccadilly, lined with fash- ionable residences, hotels, clubs, and such well-known places as Burlington House, the famous Arcade, and other points of interest. From Piccadilly Circus in the summer season start the coaches and four-in-hands for Richmond, Hampton Court, and other delightful show-places along the Thames. At the end of Piccadilly is Park Lane, bordered with the costly homes of millionaires, and just beyond is Hyde Park, where London society parades daily from Hyde Park Corner to Kensington Gate. Parallel to this drive is Rotten Row, a broad bridle-path for horseback riding and flanked by shady promenades filled daily with the beauty and chivalry of London's wealthy West End. The Albert Memorial, erected by Queen Victoria to the memory of the Prince Consort, and Albert Hall, a circular building seating eight thousand people and devoted to fashionable concerts, are at the Kensington side of the JOHN BULL, LIMITED 211 Park. Near Albert Hall is the Imperial Institute, part of which is occupied by the London University. The Exhibi- tion Galleries, containing the Science Exhibition and In- dian Museum, and the Royal College, are near by. The great South Kensington Museum and the Natural History Museum are just beyond. Kensington Gardens, a beautiful park containing Kensington Palace, where Queen Victoria was born and resided until her accession to the throne, is within easy reach. Thence by carriage one may visit Kew Gardens, one of the most famous spots in England. Another interesting trip is into the older part of London, starting again from Trafalgar Square and proceeding down the Strand and Fleet Street, replete with historical interest on all sides, past St. Paul's Cathedral and the Guildhall to the little space around which stand the Bank of England, Royal Exchange and Mansion House, or residence of the Lord Mayor. A little further on is the Monument com- memorating the Great Fire of London, London Bridge, and the Tower with its Crown Jewels and historic memories of Royal and titled prisoners sacrificed to the block and axe. Nearby is the Tower Bridge with its remarkable lifting roadway. Should you wish to see the seamy side of London, sunk in the same repulsive poverty and misery that once bred a French Revolution and may some time breed an English one, you will go to the East End, or "Whitechapel" dis- trict. Take a hansom by day, and a policeman with you after dark, and even then you will not be entirely safe, for there are many alleys and windings there into which even the police seldom venture. The main thoroughfares are safe at all times. In this district, too, are found the "costers," dressed in a sort of Mexican style with hun- dreds of pearl buttons decorating the costume. After having "done" London, all rural England extends 212 JOHN BULL, LIMITED inviting arms to the visitor from other shores, and a great variety of trips are available for your choice. There are four-horse coaching trips through Cornwall, Devon, the beautiful Lake country and rural Wales, boating trips up the lovely Thames and trips by rail or automobile to his- toric show-towns, or the famous South Coast resorts. Eng- land is a veritable summer Paradise, offering everywhere an unlimited range for instruction or enjoyment. There is no country-side like the English country-side, with its firm yet gentle lines of hill and dale, its ordered confusion of features, its deer parks and downlands, its castles and stately houses, its hamlets and old churches, its farms and ricks, great barns and ancient trees, its pools arid ponds and shining threads of rivers, its village greens and kindly inns. Other country-sides have these pleasant aspects, but none such variety, none that attract so steadfastly through- out the year. Thus speaks an English lover of English rural scenery and landscape. Yet not all people think alike, for other countries have attractions, too. Picardy is pink and white and pleasant in the blossom time, Burgundy is lovely with its wide hillsides and vineyards, Italy offers its wayside chapels and olive orchards, the Ardennes has its woods and gorges, its torrents and romantic ruins ; Tou- raine, the Rhineland, the Campagna with its distant Appen- nines, and the snow-topped mountain background of Switz- erland, all leave their special beauty and glories im- printed on the memory. But none, it is claimed, so fre- quently change character, or have such diversified sunlight and cloudland, or so perpetual a refreshment of soft, strong sea-winds, as merry England. Thus rhapsodizes another lover of the English country-side. But one must judge for himself. Take your Baedecker, gird up your purse, and go forth into your kingdom, for all these things shall be gathered unto him who hath eyes to see and soul to appreciate. CHAPTER XI Railway and River Excursions. Quaint Village Names. England a Paradise for Negroes. Sail- ing OF THE "Mayflower." The New Forest. From London to Dover is a journey of special interest, through the ancient Saxon kingdom of Kent. Every sil- ver-tongued description breathes the selfsame story of England, which here unfolds itself century after century, which will speak to you from the ivy-clad ruins of feudal fortresses, and from marble tombs of warrior kings and imperious bishops lining aisle and nave of the ancient churches. Not a town or hamlet through which you pass that has not its record of ruthless pillage and cruel slaugh- ter, not a Cathedral crypt that has not been oft a refuge place for shrieking women and children, from massacring invaders. Every foot of the exquisite stretches of orchard valleys, of hillsides smiling with green and yellow crops, of woodland clumps and forest patches, of wide-spreading oaks and beeches, has been fighting-ground over and over again. The Kentish coast, being nearest to the Continental mainland, was the logical landing-place for foreign in- vaders. Caesar beached his Roman galleys near to Dover, probably at Deal. The Saxon conquerors landed at about the same place, and the Normans occupied Kent and its Saxon cities after the great battle of Hastings. At Eltham, nine miles from London, are the ruins of the Palace of the English Kings from Henry the Third to Henry the Eighth. In this Royal residence Queen Eliza- beth passed her baby days and here Van Dyck painted the memorable portrait of Charles the First. Maidstone, far- ther on, is a city of great antiquity and all the surrounding country rich in picturesque ruins and relics of the past. 214 JOHN BULL, LIMITED Here are the hop gardens, blossoming in golden glory, and orchards of the cherry and apple trees for which Kent is famous. Leeds Castle, near by, belonged to a Norman family in the days of the Conqueror, and afterwards be- came a Royal residence under Edward the Second. Later it was the prison of a niurdered king, Richard the Second, and is today still well preserved. At the stately city of Rochester is the Cathedral, second oldest in the kingdom, and Rochester Castle, a Norman stronghold on the site of the former Roman citadel. Gadshill, close by, was the home of Charles Dickens, and the neighboring inn was made famous by Mr. Pickwick and his friends. Thence we come to Canterbury, the Mecca of Chaucer's pilgrims, dominated by the towers of its illustrious Cathedral, the largest in England and dating from the time of that St. Augustine who christened the Saxon King Ethelbert. The Cathedral contains the shrine of the murdered Thomas a Becket, the Tomb of Edward the Black Prince, ancient cloisters, a marvelous crypt, and tombs of archbishops and bishops from the sixth century. Nearly all the Kings of England have taken part in solemn ceremonies in Canterbury Cathe- dral. Sixteen miles farther on we come to Dover, with its high chalk cliffs and ancient feudal castle-fortress. From the top of the walls there is a magnificent view of the French and English coasts, with Calais in the blue distance before you and the green vales of Kent behind. In the narrow strait below was fought the first great battle of the Armada. No sea-view in all England rivals this narrow historic expanse of water. Do you prefer the river, or perchance a coaching trip? During the summer season there are delightful "combined" trips whereby you can leave behind the dust of London and travel luxuriously by rail to North Cornwall and North JOHN BULL, LIMITED 215 Devon, thence coaching through the rugged West Country, famous for its picturesque views of land and sea. The great beauty of English railway travel is that it does not require very much time to go anywhere. Nor do you become tired, as on long trips in America or on the Conti- nent, for traveling in the English compartment railway coaches is very different in many ways, and always a novel and pleasant experience to an American. The English rail- way trains are very unlike those we are accustomed to see on American railways. The mammoth engine with its in- significant little smokestack like a cigarette, its cab wide open to the air and the driver and stoker apparently at the meicy of the elements; the long line of passenger coaches, divided into small compartments, each with its separate door to the platform ; the uniformed and always courteous "guards" — everything impresses an American at first sight as deliciously new and strange. The passenger coaches of each train are divided into three Classes, the railway fare being graded according to each Class. The Second Class coaches, while less luxuriously furnished than the First Class, are very comfortable, but not nearly so well patron- ized as the Third Class, which in England are quite equal to most First Class cars on the Continent, both as to fur- nishing and comfort. The Third Class coach of England is, however, not to be compared with its fellow across the Channel, wherein the seats are not cushioned and the pas- sengers are of a class impossible of long-sustained associa- tion. In England the great majority of well-to-do people travel Third Class, as much on account of the real comfort as of the lower price. "Good Heavens, why do you travel Third Class ?" gasped a fashionable Londoner to an equally fashionable but more sensible acquaintance alighting from the Brighton special. "Because there's no Fourth," she gurgled happily. However right this may be in England, 2i6 JOHN BULL, LIMITED it would be all wrong on the Continent, where a Fourth Class does exist, being mainly used for transporting soldiers, peasantry and grimy sons of toil. Nearly every English train has private compartments reserved for ladies only, designed primarily for ladies traveling alone, and into which no male biped is permitted to hardly even look. It is proper to add that one such look is usually quite enough, for these sacred precincts are usually monopolized by ancient virgins with a vinegary distaste for mere man, or timid old ladies subject to "sinking spells" whenever the train starts. Most of the modern railway carriages are heated in winter-time, though many are not, and in the latter case passengers are forced to depend on shawls, rugs and "foot- warmers" — long flat tins filled with hot water, which are shoved in by the railway guard at occasional stops. Baggage checks are practically unknown in England. Your trunk, or bag, travels in the "van" and at the ter- minus is shot out upon the platform into a general heap, where each passenger selects his particular belongings, which a porter wheels off to the nearest cab. In the face of such an almost criminally loose system, and the apparent opportunity offered for theft, the amount of lost or stolen baggage is surprisingly small. Should you desire, however, you can pay a small fee and "register" your baggage to its destination, receiving in return a scrap of paper with the necessary details laboriously written thereon by the baggage master. This apparent survival of some old Roman custom saves the traveler much worry and annoy- ance, and more nearly approaches the American brass- check method. But do you know that your trunks can be checked from your hotel or residence in New York directly to your hotel or residence in London for the amazingly low charge of fifty cents each by simply notifying the New JOHN BULL, LIMITED 217 York agency of either of the great English railways, or Cook's ? Your keys will be forwarded in a separate sealed envelope to the London agent, who will have the baggage examined by the Customs and thereupon forwarded (with keys in another sealed package) to your terminal address. Think of the trouble and expense thus avoided. Why, it is cheaper than the New York cab-fare ! And on your return you can check from London in the same manner. All "hand-luggage" is free on English railways, and as a natural result most English travelers carry with them a large bag, or valise, that can be stowed away in the capa- cious overhead racks in the passenger coaches, and handed to a porter on arrival, or even carried personally. The enormous size of some of these infant Saratogas that travel as innocent "hand-luggage," would put even the "head- luggage" of an Italian emigrant to shame. If you have ever seen an aged Italian woman carrying on her head a load of furniture tied up in a sheet, you will know what I mean. But the average Englishman will incommode his fellow-passengers and act as his own porter besides, to save tuppence. However, we were just taking a train for a little run through the West of England. While occupied in compar- ing notes on English and American travel, our well- appointed railway carriage has been speeding along over a solid-ballasted roadbed winding through a pretty landscape of smugly-trimmed hedges, woodlands, meadows and farms, until lo, we have come to ancient Salisbury, with its ex- quisite Gothic-spired Cathedral, the highest in England. Nearby is Stonehenge and the mystic stone circles of Druidic origin. After passing Fordham Abbey, we cross the border into "Glorious Devon," with Exeter just beyond. Here is that other famous Cathedral, so exceptional in its decoration, with stately Norman towers and superb octagon. 2i8 JOHN BULL, LIMITED The curfew is still rung every night on Great Peter Bell, as an "early to bed" hint, with possible dangers of a bogie- man. Here also is the quaint Elizabethan Guildhall, with the romantic ruins of Rougemont Castle, founded by Wil- liam the Conqueror and mentioned in "Richard III." Old Exeter was the scene of hard and terrible fighting in the Norman era and Middle Ages. Beyond Exeter you may mount your "coach and four" for a glorious ride through King Arthur's Land to Ply- mouth and Torquay, or on to lovely Clovelly, Ilfracombe and even Penzance. Clovelly is a wonderful little fishing village beloved of artists, with a quaint uphill main street built like a stone staircase, queer donkey carriers and won- drous coast views in gray and sapphire. All about this Eden country are the beautiful valleys, luxuriant lanes, wild moorlands and picturesque Old-World villages for which Devonshire is famed. Painters and poets have rev- elled in the summer color-glories of sea and sky along this favored coast. Gainesborough, Shelley, Coleridge and Southey were all frequent visitors here. The Doone Val- ley, familiar to readers of "Lorna Doone," is within easy reach, and farther on at Penzance is the centre of the Cor- nish Riviera, where frost and snow are said to be almost unknown. This is probably an English joke, however; at all events it is regarded as a myth and a fable and even something stronger by those who have experienced Eng- lish winter weather. The airy apparel worn by the Gil- bertian "Pirates," and more especially that of the chorus, in the well-known opera, is not the prevailing style in Pen- zance, for even summer wear. I learned this fact by en- quiry among the villagers, some of whom were quite rude in their replies. Incidentally, an Englishman with whom I was conversing one day made such wondrous hash of pronouncing certain JOHN BULL, LIMITED 219 American names that it was impossible not to sit up and take notice. Here was a man who really ought to have known better, but didn't, because he had been taught his pronunciation in an English school, just exactly as his chil- dren are being taught today. He was referring casually to Illinois, which he pronounced "Illinwah." Then he men- tioned a place that sounded like Dagger-iar. I said, "What language would that be on the map — Dutch?" "Fancy," said he, "why it's one of your own States !" It proved to be Dakota. When I gently but firmly endeavored to disabuse his mind of these and some other fallacies regarding Amer- ica, he complained bitterly of the rankness and impurity of American names generally, and the particular criminality of expecting Englishmen to pronounce them perfectly. Whereupon I obtained a map of England and pointed out to him certain names thereon, after which the subject of both American and English nomenclature was dropped by mutual consent, with the honors fairly even. In loving memory of that conversation, I have been re-examining a map of Britain and submit herewith what appears to be an excellent case of circumstantial evidence. What would you think, for instance, of Borrowash and Matlock Bath, Whatstandwell and Hitchin, Oxenhope, Ox- ted, Dove Holes and Frog Hall — all good old English names that smack of the countryside and the Englishman's passion for a "tub." Then if you fancy double names there are Bell Busk, Kirby Muxloe, Horsted Keynes, Shepton Mallet, Lyme Regis, Chorlton-cum-Hardy (good old Caesar!), Bury St. Edmunds, Stoke Poges, Barrow-in- Furness (a singular place for a barrow, moke or Shadrach coster), Cheadle Hulme, Penny Compton, Sutton Coldfield and Broom Junction — each of them an illuminating head- light to warn posterity into simpler and less tangled paths. But there are others, and here is a little group that appar- 220 JOHN BULL, LIMITED ently might bear watching — Potter Heigham, Chipping Norton, Marsh Gibbon and (whisper it!) Fenny Stratford, and last, but evidently not least, Walton-in-the-Naze. It reads like a newspaper story, all suspicious characters and a mystery at the bottom. For whatever happened to Wal- ton-in-the-Naze certainly ruined the spelling of it, if not the shape, and possibly it is wise not to enquire into causes or reason. Consider instead whether any possible extenuat- ing circumstances can exist for such sweet violets of etymol- ogy as Bletchley, Shanklin, Rowsley, Bognor, Yeovil, Work- sop, Thirsk, Wigan, Bootle and Diggle. The last three jewels sound like an East End law firm, and suggest the dying struggle of Bill Sykes, pendant from the roof. But it is in Wales that "gems of purest ray serene" are found — names productive of lockjaw and dental expenses, large, generous, double-d'd and hyphenated extravaganzas of spelling and pronunciation both. Observe these sample exotics, carefully culled from a garden tropically luxuriant in consonants, diphthongs, and peculiarly shaped alphabetical orchids that only grow in a Welsh atmosphere: Ynysddu (why wouldn't one d do?), Aberystwyth, Penwyllt, Llan- elly, Ynys (pronounced In-nes), Perrhyn, Pwllheli (mean- ing probably a noise like a Chinese laundry), Nantclwyd, Llanrhaiadr, and also such lofty skyscrapers as Pantyffyn- non, Pontnewydd, Pehclawd, Tal-y-lynn, Llanwrtyd, Ma- chynlleth and Bettws-y-Coed. I do not know how they swear in Welsh, but it certainly looks easy. It seems almost like painting the lily and also adding insult to injury, but there are nevertheless a few deserving Scotch candidates fairly clamoring for recognition, such as Killicrankie, Kingussie, Dalwhinnie, Blairgowrei, Coupar Aegus, Arbroarth, Auchmacoy, Old Meldrum, Balquhidder, Ballachulish, Auchterardes, and others equally shy and modest. Ireland, too, can muster quite a formidable array, Crab Inn, Isle of Wight One of England's War-Dogs, Portsmouth Dock- Yard JOHN BULL, LIMITED 221 which, for the sake of the proofreader, are omitted. The case appears to be amply proven, however, and Britain, as in other respects, should not be boastful of her pulchritude in this regard. "lUinwah" is sufficiently avenged. Given a bright, sunny day, there is no prettier jaunt than from London to Windsor, either by rail or by boat. From Putney to Mortlake is the famous racing-water of the Cambridge and Oxford crews. Then Richmond, with its quaint stone-arched bridge, its Deer Park, old Royal Palace, the thirty-mile view from Richmond Terrace, the Great Park, and at its entrance the renowned "Star and Garter" Inn, delightful resort of Royalty and commoner alike, famous for its dinners and glorious views of the Thames valley. The river is at its best from here onward; hun- dreds of punts, boats and launches dot its placid surface or peep coyly from the fringed and overhanging banks. A little beyond is Hampton Court, a Royal Palace built orig- inally by Cardinal Wolsley, resting like a wonderful river- garden within a forest park and well-beloved by English and Americans alike. From Marlowe to Windsor is an exquisite river trip, passing Cleveden, the former magnifi- cent residence of the Duke of Westminster, now owned by William Waldorf Astor. Windsor, with its stately Park and great Royal Castle, has been for centuries the home of English sovereigns, dating from Edward the Third. The State Apartments, St. George's Chapel, and Round Tower, with the Albert Memorial Chapel and Castle Terraces, are open to the public when the King is not in residence. Directly across the river is the historic Eton College and its famous play- ing-fields. This lovely river-trip should be prolonged to Oxford, the seat of Magdalen, Christ Church, Merton, and other col- leges dear to the masculine English heart. Near by is 222 JOHN BULL, LIMITED Blenheim Palace, which for a score of years has been pre- sided over by American Duchesses. The money of the Duchess Lillian, formerly Mrs. Hammersley, of New York, helped pay for many of the much-needed repairs under the former Duke. The present Duchess, formerly Miss Con- suelo Vanderbilt, of New York, also brought such an enor- mous dowry to her husband that her son, the Marquis of Blaedford, will some day be perhaps the richest Duke in the House of Lords. His only rival will be His Grace of Westminster, or possibly His Grace of Roxburghe, also married to an American, formerly Miss Goelet, of New York. England is an earthly Paradise for negroes, and the col- ored man is promptly accepted not only as a man but lit- erally as a brother also. No question is raised regarding color, smell or social status — he is clasped to the bosom of John Bull and rapturously introduced to the family. Well- dressed negroes walking with respectable and well-dressed white women are frequent spectacles, and social courtesies may properly be extended to a negro in England which would result in ostracism of the hostess from all white so- ciety if perpetrated in America. In these matters the Eng- lish people seem to be literally color-blind. I have seen the Royal box at Covent Garden occupied by members of the Royal family, with the opposite box occupied by negroes, and they may frequently be found in the best seats at any theatre or music-hall, escorting either white women or those of their own color. At the popular restaurants negroes are welcome guests and apparently possess a weird attraction to the white Continental waiters, who anticipate every want and frequently extend to them preference over white pa- trons. To an American, and especially to a Southerner, such an exhibition is simply revolting, yet not more so than the general indifference displayed by the English pub- JOHN BULL, LIMITED 223 lie. To them the negro is apparently an agreeable person- ality, possessing an especially mysterious attraction to the English female. The young English woman who would elevate her sensitive nose at the thought of being seen in public with one of her father's honest, middle-class clerks, cheerfully accepts the negro, not only as a social equal, but as a very badly-used and misunderstood proposition in the United States. I have heard people of the best and highest standard in England declaim indignantly against the whole American population for lynching or burning negroes at the stake for certain crimes, without regard to the slower processes of law. "Why burn and torture?" they argue. "You Americans are savages!" "Was it less savage for Englishmen to blow Sepoys from the mouths of cannon after the Indian Mutiny, as a deterrent example? Even as a Sepoy believes that the spirit of a dismembered body cannot attain to Paradise, so the superstitious negro believes that whoever perishes by fire will burn forever in torment," I reply, "And were his white victim one of your own family or friends, sir, you would be in the front rank of avengers instead of preaching mercy for a fiend. Only by such prompt and terrible punishment for these crimes has the South been made safe for unprotected white women. You will find the same answer written in your own history abroad." The fact that a few members of the colored race have risen above the general brute level is no criterion that the mass is to be either trusted or respected. The radical dif- ference of race traits will always serve as a barrier against the mingling of white and black on the same social plane — the races are not homogeneous and can never assimilate. Unlike that of the American Indian, the negro race is not diminishing; when the red man shall have vanished from the Western Hemisphere, the negro will have multiplied 224 JOHN BULL, LIMITED ten-fold. In America the negro is theoretically free and equal with the white man, but is kept in his proper sec- ondary place, partly by custom and partly by force of cir- cumstances. South of a certain geographical limit, he is not permitted to enter public conveyances or places of amusement, but rides in separate or "Jim Crow" cars, and in a theatre sits upstairs in the "nigger heaven," apart from the white audience. How different the reception accorded the colored brother in England, where he struts in well- dressed and apparently conscious superiority, a shining mark for English admiration and American amusement. It has been suggested that herein lies an easy solution of the American negro problem, it being simply a matter of emigration of the colored brethren from the United States to England, a solution which would doubtless meet with entire satisfaction from both Americans and Afro-Ameri- cans, and ensure the latter a cordial and sympathetic recep- tion by the same John Bull who not so very many years ago was enslaving and selling their South African progenitors. But that is another story, and possibly embarrassing. The natural result of all this cordial showering of Eng- lish hospitality is that the negro takes what is so freely ten- dered. Although some slight distinction is made between the Afro-American type of negro and a native of India or the West Indies, the Englishman draws no rigid line of demarkation, while to the American "all coons look alike" and are about equally objectionable. The American Indian, as exemplified in the so-called "Wild West" shows, is likewise a human magnet socially to many English people. It was a common sight during the old days of the original "Wild West" exhibition in England, and more recently in New Brighton during the palmy days of a mediocre cowboy and Indian show, to see white girls promenading the street with uncouth, repulsive JOHN BULL, LIMITED 225 and gaily-blanketed Indians, apparently entirely oblivious of the social chasm between the two races. One of the most popular girls in New Brighton was a young squaw- member of the visiting troupe, who was constantly sur- rounded, whether on the water-front promenade or at the skating-rink parties, by an especially attentive coterie of the best young men of that distinctively English society. In America, the "squaw-man" and the white wife of a negi^o have about the same social status, if any, but in England both Injun and coon seem to possess an equally fatal charm for English people. The social limit is drawn apparently at the Chinaman, and you will meet only polite pity and deprecation if you allow your "American pre- judice" for the negro to show itself. It is not so very long ago that the London Standard, a leading publication, printed a solemn warning against "im- migration of the blacks," so-called, based upon the investi- gations of a London detective agency and bringing to notice what was termed an "invasion of England by negroes, es- pecially American, which has been steadily proceeding for several years." The report stated that "Englishmen's tra- ditional tolerance of the differences of color, race and creed has blinded them to the real danger now threatening them," and proceeds as follows: "London is the Paradise of the black man, and the American negro has discovered this fact. Every ship from the United States brings fresh arrivals to swell the large colony which is already here, where they are treated on an equal footing at the lodgingrhouses and sit at the same table with whites. For the first time in their lives, they are permitted to mix with white women on social equality. This has created a grave peril which is becoming worse every day." The Agency report draws an ugly picture of the negro character, and, referring to the Southern States of the United States, says : 226 JOHN BULL, LIMITED "Lynching seems to be the only way to prevent the whole- sale commission of crimes against womanhood by modern negroes, because fear is the sole restraining influence they know." Jesso ! The winter climate of England has already been re- ferred to, more or less disrespectfully, but there exists one literal ray of sunshine that pierces even the Channel fogs, Scotch mists and drizzling rains, which constitute this, to use an English term, really "beastly" portion of the year's calendar. It is the South Coast of England, called the "Sunshine Belt," "English Riviera," and other prettily de- scriptive names, and well deserves all the good words bestowed upon it. There the winter climate is milder and more agreeable, the sun shines brightly two-thirds of the time instead of not at all, as in London, and under such conditions it is little wonder that thousands of well-to-do people leave the Northern Counties at the first touch of frost and hie them with the song-birds southward. Devon- shire, Hampshire and Kent are beautiful all the year round, and, like the southern coast of Wales, abound in delightful land and sea resorts. The Isle of Wight, a famous winter haven for invalids, lies but twenty minutes' sail across from Portsmouth, while Brighton, Eastbourne, Bourne- mouth and other charming English watering-places form a chain of coast attractions difficult to equal. With this de- lightful South Coast itself so very near, and palms and orange trees of the French Riviera and Spanish and Italian winter resorts only a day's journey from London, the amazing thing to an American is that so many English peo- ple of the leisure class, amply able to spend the winter elsewhere, remain uncomfortably at home not only through- out the whole wretched winter season, but even all their lives! There are thousands of English people of ample JOHN BULL, LIMITED 227 means who have never been off the island itself, though all the Continent of Europe with treasures of every kind dear to the appreciative, lies directly at the door of England in almost irresistible proximity. These short-sighted "stay- at-homes" spend at Bournemouth or Folkstone each year more than enough to take them comfortably through Hol- land, up the Rhine, and through Switzerland — a foreign trip sufficient to store one's mind with memories and' pictures of everything from wooden sabots and whirling windmills to the sunset glories of Rhenish castles and the snowy Alpine range beyond. Everything Continental is so abso- lutely different from England — language, customs and peo- ple — such a complete and wonderful change of scene, so near and so delightfully easy of access, and yet compara- tively few of the English people ever leave their accustomed home-rut to travel ever so little into the great and won- derful world outside. Such are the people who marvel that Americans will travel thousands of miles across the ocean and part with huge sums of money to see lands and peoples that practically have little or no meaning to Britons. They live their little lives in their own little English groove, and are perfectly contented in their ignorance and sloth — nay, even proud of it ! Southampton and Portsmouth were always the Mecca and Medina of my youthful traveling aspirations, so far as England was concerned, partly because Dickens was born -at Portsmouth and partly because the Pilgrims sailed from Southampton, closely followed by a certain great-ancestor of mine in 1638. Whether he was chased out on account of his piety, as the Pilgrims were, does not matter. He probably was. But my interest in seeing Southampton was not so much on his account, beyond a secret desire to set fire to it because of the unrighteous treatment accorded there to the original member of the Hills family. It was 228 JOHN BULL, LIMITED too late to get any satisfaction, however. Everyone re- sponsible for my early ancestor's religious difficulties had, I was told, since died, and as they were probably now re- gretting it every time they looked at the thermometer, I let it pass. Southampton has many interesting features, being an ancient seaport town and rich in old houses and quaint corners. Its distinguished feature today is the magnificent system of quays and docks for ocean liners. This is also the sacred spot where the Danish King Canute and his Royal arm-chair narrowly escaped being carried out to sea during his historic experiment with a tide that continued rising in disobedience to his command. After the imperial retainers responsible for this practical joke got His Majesty back on dry land, they heard something drop, or, as his historian describes it, "his flattering courtiers received the famous royal rebuke." But despite all other attractions, my mind kept returning to the sailing of the Mayflower from this oldentime water- front, in 1620, that momentous date for Old as well as for New England. It must have been a grand and stupendous sight when that noble leviathan, loaded to the topsail-yards with old-fashioned furniture and peak-hatted Pilgrims, moved majestically out into the stream with snowy canvas spread and course laid true and straight for Plymouth Rock. I saw the white foam curling underneath the "Standing Room Only" sign nailed to the bow, and an occasional mislaid spinning-wheel or gilt-framed mirror bobbing in the wake astern. I beheld in fond imagination the multitude of intrepid Pilgrims clustered in the shrouds, the deck piled mountain high with old-fashioned mahogany furniture and garnished with clock-reels, flax-winders, spin- ning-wheels, three-legged stools and high-backed chairs, while passing breezes wafted back to the cruel opposition JOHN BULL, LIMITED 229 on the dock the sad sweet strains of Gospel hymns. I could hear the stately, endless ranks of "grandfather's clocks" striking the hour in one grand farewell chorus, everybody's clock apparently outdoing everybody else's clock, while loud above the din rose the hoarse voice of the Captain shouting back an order for more Colonial furniture by the next boat. It was an occasion fraught with stupendous moment to future millions of both freeborn and imported American citizens as that gallant ship faded out into the Solent, pro- pelled by Fate and following the finger of Destiny pointing to the New World. Gee, it was a great day ! The following notice on the dock-wall attracts the atten- tion of American visitors : On the isth August, 1620, from near this West Quay of South- ampton, the famous Mayflower began her voyage, carrying the little company of Pilgrim Fathers (including John Alden of Southamp- ton) who were destined to be the founders of the New England States of America. Incidentally, there were also some Pilgrim Mothers on board, a fact apparently overlooked in the notice, but this omission will no doubt be duly rectified when it is called to the attention of the militant English "suffragettes." There is something mysterious about the sailing of the Mayflower. She apparently departed several times on that memorable trip to America, and from several different places. Frinstance : According to the inscription at the Southampton dock, the vessel left from Southampton, on August 15th. According to "Montgomery's American History," the Mayflower sailed from Southampton on August 6th, then came back and made a fresh start on September i6th, six weeks later, sailing from Plymouth. According to the "Encyclopaedia Brittannica," the ship sailed from Southampton "in August" (which is a trifle in- 230 JOHN BULL, LIMITED definite), then returned and started all over again on Sep- tember 6th, but the port of her second departure is not mentioned. After such a series of "farewell performances" and the attendant discomforts of a winter voyage across the Atlan- tic in a furniture van, yet another large and juicy lemon was handed to the Pilgrims on arrival, for, albeit they held passage tickets to sunny Virginia, they were landed on the stern and rock-bound coast of Massachusetts, with no railway facilities for continuing the journey to Old Point Comfort. Whereupon they philosophically settled down and developed that race of sturdy Yankees which one hun- dred and fifty years later made a teapot of Boston Harbor and tied permanent Gordian knots in the tail of a highly indignant British lion. This stupefying conquest is ex- plained and accounted for in England today on the ground that the victorious Americans were in reality Englishmen! Dr. Watts, the great writer of church hymns, was born in Southampton in 1674, half a century or so too late to have supplied the Pilgrims with up-to-date concert material. It is generally understood, however, that no blame attaches to Dr. Watts for this apparent oversight and his subsequent career appears to have been entirely blameless and exem- plary. There is a charming old Abbey at Beaulieu, just beyond Southampton, that is said to have been founded by King John. The principal feature of interest there is the local pronunciation of the name Beaulieu. It is called by the natives "Bewley," which is presumably the proper way of pronouncing the name — in England. To reach Beaulieu, we were told that it was "a three-mile walk over a sandy road from the boat-landing, and follow the telegraph wire." In view of our inability to walk on a telegraph wire, and a lack of enthusiasm regarding the six-mile round-trip over JOHN BULL, LIMITED 231 a sandy road, we cheerfully omitted "Bewley" from our route. But we heard it pronounced ! On the other side of Southampton is Winchester, birth- place of Alfred the Great, and fairly reeking with antiquity and the lore of ages. Egbert, the first King of England, was crowned here in the great fog of 827, to which was due his famous English witticism, "Be sure you crown the right man." If you fail to laugh at this moss-grown fable in Winchester, you are guilty of lese majeste. But the his- tory of this "city of Kings" ante-dates this fable by many centuries. The grand old Norman Cathedral is its chief attraction today, and has been added to, century after cen- tury, until now it includes every kind of architecture from Norman to early Rennaissance. You are shown the Tomb of William Rufus and the fatal arrow-head which fell out from his bones when the coffin was opened some years ago. There, too, are the sarcophagi of the Saxon Kings, and enough other objects of interest in that old Saxon city to occupy a month of sight-seeing and subsequent reflection. The crowning glory of Nature in this part of Britain is the New Forest, an ancient Royal hunting demesne com- prising a wonderful expanse of woodland glades and reaches of park-land, with masses of huge beeches so dense at times as to suggest actual darkness. This wooded scen- ery is of unsurpassed beauty, some of the great trees being more than a thousand years old. The New Forest is about one hundred miles in extent, being some twenty miles long by about twelve at the widest part. In one of the lovely glades is the famous Rufus Stone, a low pillar marking the spot where the second Norman King was slain by the arrow of Walter Tyrrell. How anyone could commit murder in such a veritable temple of Nature as this magnificent forest park, is inconceivable and shows a turgidity of character hopeless of redemption. I do not remember what hap- 232 JOHN BULL, LIMITED pened to this Tyrrell afterward, but I could not help hoping that he was duly and properly boiled in oil, or slowly and carefully skinned, or otherwise painfully and permanently removed from his mistaken sphere of human usefulness. Elsewhere in the Forest is the pretty Lyndhurst Church, with its beautiful altar-piece, "The Ten Virgins," by Lord Leighton. But not all the virgins of merry England, red- cheeked or grey-headed, pictured or alive, could entice my soul away from contemplation of those majestic forest monarchs whose close-leaved branches darkened the noon- day sun, making the cooling shade and emerald turf be- neath a glad Elysium of rest and peace for mind and body both. The silence of these forest depths is awesome and profound — even the birds are hushed as in some dread and mysterious Presence — the cities and haunts of Man fade farther and farther away, and into the soul steals some- thing akin to reverence for these grave and silent giants that have stood a thousand years of storm and bid fair to stand a thousand more. To lie outstretched upon the velvet sward and look upward into those dark-green caverns above ; to follow the great branches leading from the mighty trunk and ever multiplying while mounting upward to the sun ; to mark one by one the scars and ravages of centuries upon the savage frontlets of those warrior kings — all this brings a deep and abiding content that steeps one's inmost soul in restful peace. In yet another way the spirit of the forest manifests itself, and to him who sits entranced upon an English coach behind four regulation English coach-horses and rides through miles of shadowy forest-aisles of this great out-of- door Cathedral of Nature, under the arching beeches and along charming woodland drives — to him shall be vouch- safed the memory of a day that though he live a hundred years can never be forgotten. A Bit of Hampton Court Gardens H BP W^'* ^vQ^^ n SB Pj"-^""'" J ^S^ ^ 4 J ^^ y §^ & ^ . ~-^.,^ ■■■■!C''':t- ^3 mm 1 |g K . ^™*i25: ^^n — "' —^^ ^ ■1 igmni Hampton Court Palace CHAPTER XII Americans as "Aliens." Tea and Scotch. Law of Private Domain. Monument to George Wash- ington. Tale of a Shirt. "Bobs." I quote from a letter which gives a bird's-eye view of what the South Coast looks like to an American girl : We are spending a few days at Southsea, the court-end of Ports- mouth. It is good to see sunshine again after weeks and weeks of London atmosphere, which is composed of fog, smoke and rain-water. The beautiful Isle of Wight is directly opposite and all about us are lovely sea-coast resorts. We have been to Cowes, the quaint little town on the Isle of Wight where the famous annual yacht races are held, and to Osborne (spell it with a u in England), the favorite residence of Queen Victoria and where she died. We have sailed up and down the famous Spithead anchorage of the British war fleet, and visited the old Garrison Church at Portsmouth, where the soldiers march in with band and drums for Sunday service, and where we were escorted into one of the pews reserved for oflBcers because Daddy used to wear a sword himself in America and knows the Major in command here. We have visited the funny old streets and byways of the very oldest part of Portsmouth, where Charles Dickens was born, the Duke of Buckingham assassinated, and from which Nelson sailed out to sink the French fleet at Tra- falgar. We have been aboard the historic old Victory, lying honor- ably at anchor here in the inner harbor for the rest of her days, and have stood on the very spot where the great naval hero died. We have strolled along the beautiful Marine Promenade and beach and listened to the military bands playing on the Pier, and have seen the sham battles between the warships and torpedo boats at night, and the target practice of the big cruisers by day, and the regiments that are forever at drill on the parade ground or march- ing up the water front. We have been shown all the objects of interest and met ever so many nice people. On Tuesday we are invited to an elegant garden-party at Arundel Castle, the residence of the Duke of Norfolk, for we are "intimate friends of an intimate 234 JOHN BULL, LIMITED friend" of the Duke's brother. Lord Talbot, and next week we are invited to go aboard the Royal Yacht some day when the King isn't there? Isn't it lovely? We were .at Bournemouth for a week — such a charming place, with thick woods behind and the ocean in front, and glorious sea-bathing. The women wear the frumpiest bathing-suits you ever saw, and the men — well, the least said the better. The more I see of some people the better I like my dog. But of course that doesn't apply to everyone. We are to spend the Fourth of July on the Isle of Wight — ^no, not to escape the noise, for the Fourth is the quietest day in England — but Daddy wants to celebrate where the English fleet can hear him. Isn't it awful?" The story of that Fourth of July celebration is best left untold. It only shows what a little rocket and some red fire on a deserted beach can do toward waking up five miles of war-ships and an army of English constabulary, and I shall always regret that no official time-record exists of my hun- dred-yard dash up the lane. The English navy is appar- ently a very sensitive proposition. At least that was the im- pression that I received. They are probably watching that mouse-hole yet. The Portsmouth navy-yard, or "dock-yard," as it is called, is quite a large affair, both in area and naval equip- ment. Thousands of workmen are continually passing in or out, and there are always several lead-colored, wicked- looking cruisers and battle-ships moored alongside the great work-shops undergoing refitting or repairs. Sub- marines and torpedo-boats are almost as common as row- boats in the inner harbor and attract no special notice. We were invited by a prominent local resident to visit the dock- yard with himself and daughter, and accepted the invita- tion. After passing through the great entrance-gates, we were ushered into a small guard-house and requested to sign the visitors book. When this formality had been completed, the tall Sergeant who had charge of the party glanced over our signatures, beheld the fatal words "New York" proudly JOHN BULL, LIMITED 235 inscribed thereafter, and turning to me, said, "Are you a Henglish subject, sir?" "Not on your life," said I. "Look at the book." "I 'ave looked at the book, sir," he rejoined, "and I am sorry to say that you cannot henter the dock-yard." My friend started forward to expostulate, but the Ser- geant was firm as his own Gibraltar. "No aliens are al- lowed to visit the dock-yard, sir," was all the satisfaction to be obtained from his stolid front. "We will go to the Commandant," said my friend, and while the ladies waited like Peri at the gates, we went in to consult the oracle and read him the Riot Act. The Com- mandant was away, but his private secretary received us with all the honors of war, and explained at great length the regulations, proving that the Sergeant was quite right. "Aliens" were tabooed. "Do you call Americans aliens?" I enquired. "Certainly," he replied, "all who are not British sub- jects — all foreigners — are aliens." "Are not the Japanese ahens also?" I said. , "Well, yes, in a sense they are. But they are our allies." "But, my dear sir," I protested, "you bar out Americans, whom you claim to be your own flesh and blood, yet admit the Japanese without question and permit them to inspect everything desired." Once more the parrot-talk. "The Japanese are our allies." "Yes, they are your allies to-day. But let me tell you something. Your nation is now educating the Japanese in modern war-methods, and they in turn are educating the Chinese, consummating thereby the 'Yellow Peril' to the white race. The day is coming, perhaps, when the Japs, your present affectionate allies, will come knocking at the gates of England as enemies, having learned all of modern 236 JOHN BULL, LIMITED warfare that England is able to teach, and mark my words, when that day shall come, England will entreat the help of America in defending the very dock-yards and arsenals from which Americans today are barred as 'aliens.' I hope, sir, you will have become more hospitable to us before that time arrives." We went away, my English friend greatly mortified with our experience. I was somewhat nettled and made up my mind that I would get into that dock-yard now, anyhow! I had not cared very much about it previously, having vis- ited other dock-yards equally interesting, but after having been called an 'alien' in my dear old mother-country, I de- sired to hand them back a grape-fruit in return for the lemon. Accordingly I got in touch with the American Em- bassy at London, gave the high sign, stated my case, and was handed this bunch of rhetorical green grapes by the Ambassador himself, "It is useless. The law is very strict regarding entrance to English dock-yards. I could not even obtain admission myself, not being a British subject." That settled it. I said, "All right ; I shall wait until some day when the Japs come around to that old dock-yard on war business, and then go in along with them ! And I hope that private secretary will be there to see 'us aliens' wrap the British lion in a Japanese kimono and run him round his dock-yard ahead of a bunch of firecrackers." The moral is obvious. As straws show which way the wind blows, so little things like this betray the yellow under the English red. If Americans are regarded by the English Government as "aliens," what degree of confidence can be placed in the constantly reiterated assurances of blood-rela- tionship and the loyal grasp of "hands across the sea ?" British sentiment hostile to America has been more re- cently shown during the threatened complications between Japan and the United States over the California alien land JOHN BULL, LIMITED 237 law, and the attitude taken then by the London newspapers is not at all encouraging of the spirit of brotherhood that the two English-speaking nations are expected to maintain before the world in the celebration of one hundred years of peace. There is a grim comedy in a peace celebration with a nation that openly exhibits its jealous dislike through the medium of its press. Witness, for instance, the attitude of the London Saturday Review in May, 1913, which stated editorially that the Japanese dispute could hardly be settled by diplomacy, and predicted that the Philippines would fall into the hands of the Japanese as easily as they fell into the hands of Admiral Dewey, and, further, that Japan would be able to make her temporary command of the Pa- cific permanent, and to occupy Southern California and Oregon. "And then," said the London exponent of British journalism, "it is Great Britain's duty to stand aside, as she did in the Russo-Japanese war, for Japan will look to us to hold the ring;" or, in other words, to prevent interference with the desired downfall of America. It concludes : "The United States is working for the supremacy of the Pacific on lines as unfriendly to England as to Japan. Should she fall foul of Japan in the process, it is not for us to help her out to the injury of our ally." It is only another indication of the "yellow" under the British red. As a matter of fact, boiled down to the very essence, the English have no love for America or Ameri- cans beyond their fervent adoration of American dollars, and whenever the English mask occasionally slips out of place, the same old perfidious Albion is disclosed behind, purple with suppressed envy and venom. Nor is this an idle expression of personal opinion, but a statement of fact supported by facts, known and thoroughly comprehended in all the chancellories of Europe. Yet England's only hope today, in case of war against her by a foreign power, 238 JOHN BULL, LIMITED lies in the moral if not active backing of the United States, and not only our "holding the ring," but if necessary break- ing it ! It is a tidy question, as we say in Lunnon, isn't it ? But never mind. There is a fable concerning two He- brews who lunched at Delmonico's and were afterward be- wailing the high prices. "Dot man is a robber. I have to pay seventy-five cents for apple-pie and a cup of coffee!" "Neffer mind, Ikey," said his friend, "Gott has punished dot Delmonico alreaty. I haf two of his silver spoons in mine pocket!" The same divine Providence which tempers the wind to the shorn Hebrew is dispensing retributive jus- tice to England, through the happy mediums of tea and in- toxicants. Not content with drinking tea at breakfast, din- ner and supper, the entire British nation stops short about four o'clock every afternoon, and, dropping all other busi- ness, braces up on a cup of tea! At home or in the busy office, in factory or palace, when the mystic hour arrives everyone reaches for the teapot. To an American business man the spectacle of a tea-tray on an Englishman's office- desk in the middle of the afternoon is a revelation, and when he learns that not only is the "boss" indulging, but that the bookkeeper and typist are also making tea over the spirit-lamp outside during a temporary stoppage of all office work, the fact becomes a hilarious proposition. Im- agine "down-town" New York stopping business every af- ternoon to drink tea! Shades of Delmonico, the Savarin, Stewart, and the Astor House cafe! Alas for the dry Martini, the soothing Manhattan, and the high-ball which cheers, whether or not it inebriates. Imagine the "Only William," author of the highest printed authority on cool- ing beverages, and skilled beyond his fellowmen in artistic combinations of liquid sunshine and ambrosia — imagine William making tea ! God forbid. JOHN BULL, LIMITED 239 Yet for all its American popularity the real cocktail is comparatively unknown either in England or in Europe. There are sundry hotels and public resorts which profess to dispense American beverages, and proudly bear aloft the sign of relief yclept "American Bar;" but sign and beverages are alike delusions. Anything mixed in a glass is regarded as a cocktail by the benighted English barmaid, and Heaven pity the deluded partaker. The reason why Englishmen do not take kindly to this American specialty is probably due to its weird English compounding, which in- cludes stirring with what is known as a "swizzle-stick," and serving the dry Martini with a cherry and the Manhattan with an olive, exactly contrary to rule. It is little wonder, therefore, that the Englishman whose interior has been in- sulted and outraged by one or more of these nightmares, turns in his blindness to plain Scotch, "the whiskey of his forefathers," and to the national beverage — tea. He turns, whatever the reason, and the oceans of smoky Scotch that annually disappear down the capacious British gullet are only approached or equalled by the rivers and seas of both tea and whiskey that drench the interior recesses of the female population. Both beverages are deleterious to health, but their great-grandfathers, grandfathers and fathers, and all their corresponding female ancestors drank both tea and Scotch, and the custom being an English custom will therefore never be changed, interfered with or improved upon, for being English it is not capable of improvement. The life-saving clause to an Englishman lies in the addition of soda to his Scotch. A half-inch of Scotch whiskey, served in a large glass, then drowned and utterly obliterated by the addition of about seven inches of soda-water, will keep an Englishman occupied for half an hour before it is all absorbed. The spectacle of an American nonchalantly tossing down the Scotch and declining all but a small 240 JOHN BULL, LIMITED "chaser" of the soda is appalling to John Bull, forgetful of the fact that the Lord has provided him with only a tea- stomach. Even under such circumstances, however, John managed to spend in Great Britain and Ireland in 1910 a total of over $780,000,000 for alcoholic liquors, an increase of about $10,000,000 over the previous year. This increase was due to the increase in price, however, the actual con- sumption of spirits having been nearly 2,000,000 gallons less than in 1909. The decreased consumption was due en- tirely to the increased cost under the revised system of tax- ation, and not to any reform of either appetite or custom. The consumption of ale and beer in England is something amazing, considering the poor quality of the latter and the competition afforded by tea-shops and coffee-houses. These are temperance places, supplied with newspapers, draughts, cribbage-boards and other mild attractions, and are popular resorts for making appointments with custom- ers by that small class of business men who are without an office or business address. Within the ale and beer houses, commonly known as "pubs," the space outside the bar- counter is divided by partitions into private slips, patron- ized by customers of both sexes. The spectacle presented in these places, especially at night, is astounding to anyone not accustomed to seeing women of the middle and lower classes drinking beer or gin in public. The malt liquors are of a common, cheap quality, and not to be compared for a moment with the nutritious German brews of Pilsner and Munschen. From the roof-seats of any passing omnibus, passengers can look directly down and into these brilliantly- lighted drinking-places, and the sight is not an improving one. But with the English working-class beer is practically in the same category as bread and butter, and such resorts flourish abundantly in every city and town, much of the scanty and hard-earned wages of the poorer classes find- JOHN BULL, LIMITED 241 ing its way to the till of the publican, who is often the nabob of the district. I saw in London, one afternoon, a funeral procession entering Kensal Green Cemetery, and was attracted by the expensive splendor of the high-plumed and flower-wreathed hearse, the sombre lace-tasselled trap- pings and tossing head-plumes of the iet-black horses, and the two following barouches piled with gorgeous satin-rib- boned wreaths, crosses, and other floral tributes. When the long procession of carriages had filed within the ceme- tery gates, I said to a bystander : "What prominent person- age is being buried here?" He looked surprised at my igno- rance. "Why, it's the son of the publican over 'ere; that's 'is funeral," he replied. I went away reflecting on that costly display — the money wrung from the poor in the pub- lic house neighborhood, and the shabby-genteel funerals common to the publican's customers in comparison with that of the publican's son. The public house will always be a cancer on the English body politic, but to the majority of the poorer class beer will always come before household necessaries. "Health, Fame and Fortune will pass away, but Thirst remains," saith the Oriental prophet. "Pint of four-'arf and a pot of bitter, miss," echoes the poor man, and the red-cheeked barmaid will draw the amber fluid with the foamy crest as long as the squiffy customer con- tinues to draw from his pocket the necessary coppers. His children may be in want of shoes, or even bread, but the public house attendants exhibit as little concern in that direc- tion as do the vultures of the pawnshops. The English poor are the poorest poor on earth in many respects, yet they pay into the "pubs" the tremendous annual tribute men- tioned above, and then cheerfully go hungry. That amount would shoe and clothe all the poor children in Britain, and there is hardly a street in the poorer districts that is not full 242 JOHN BULL, LIMITED of these ragged and bare-foot little waifs. In no other civ- ilized country will you find children growing up under such vile conditions, — conditions for which the English public- house is directly responsible. As previously mentioned, the Fourth of July is always celebrated by Americans living abroad, the Nineteenth of April being next in importance. In London and many prominent Continental cities, the "American colony," as it is called, signalizes the "Glorious Fourth" by a banquet, where the American eagle flaps his joyous wings with the expatriates, temporary and permanent. The Fourth of July is one of those days upon which the English look with disfavor. Except concerning the days made glorious to them by British conquest, they are not a reminiscent people. They do not recollect victories won by the other nations. Ahd it is a noticeable fact that in all the Art Galleries throughout Europe, no nation has placed anywhere any- thing on public view commemorative of any personal mili- tary or naval defeat. Everything is a "hurrah for our side." English text-books of modern history omit entirely, or skim very lightly over, our own Revolutionary War, stating merely that the American Colonies were "allowed to set up for themselves." Thousands of English people do not know that such a war ever occurred, nor are the school- children of to-day being very much enlightened. In the fair lexicon of English youth there are no such words as Lexington, Bunker Hill, or Yorktown. But Waterloo is there in Gothic capitals! However, ample reparation is made in American text-books for English omission of per- tinent historical facts, so the proper mean is fairly main- tained. The shy English idea is excellently expressed in one of the topical music-hall songs, the point of which is in the concluding line: JOHN BULL, LIMITED 243 "I sye, Miss, there's a beetle in the pudding!" Says she, "I wish you'd 'old your jaw. Now every hother customer will want one. So what d'ye want to TALK abaht it for?" There are other forcible illustrations in the same ditty, particularly one referring to a too-talkative child, — a child endowed with neither diplomacy or foresight of conse- quences, whose curiosity as to the absence of hair on the coco of its avuncular relation results in a "smack in the napper" and Auntie's frantic expostulation: "Cawn't you see your Uncle doesn't loike it — Then what d'ye want to TALK abaht it for?" The composer of this musical gem missed a golden op- portunity. He should have added a verse about George Washington if he desired to see the audience foam over the foot-lights. Some people are awful touchy. The Englishman is insular in everything pertaining to himself or his island. He lives within his own circum- scribed area, large or small as his means permit, and re- sents any intrusion within his private domain, extending toward the public about the same degree of cordial hos- pitality that the average farmer displays to an inquisitive polecat. Instead of fences or hedges many suburban estates have solid walls ten feet in height along the roadside, rendering it impossible for passers-by even to view the grounds within. These grounds are always "Strictly Pri- vate," and at intervals fairly bristle with warning signs, "No Trespassing Allowed." The deep religious awe with which these signs are regarded by the British public is something amazing to an American accustomed in his own land to the open and generous hospitality evidenced by frequent ab- sence of fence or boundary of any kind between or around suburban residences. The English law of private domain, 244 JOHN BULL, LIMITED however, draws a "dead-line" around every man's habitat and grounds, beyond which no one may pass without the owner's permission, on pain of trespass. This is the law that transforms an Englishman's house into his "castle," and to the majority of the English population it is as sacred as the law prohibiting murder. Never in my life have I seen such respect paid to any law as the English people pay to this relic of feudal days, — the law of private domain. The only exceptions to the rule are burglars and Americans. There is a beautiful Country Club on the bank of the Thames, a few miles out of London, and between the Club grounds and the river is a tow-path, much frequented by visitors to this pretty suburb and affording a charming walk. The river comes nearly to the edge of this tow-path, and at certain times when the tide is unusually high, flows over the path and rises a foot or more against the Club wall, which thus acts as a temporary dam. One afternoon, as I sat en- joying a cigar and an American newspaper on the Club- House veranda, my attention was attracted to a commotion on the tow-path, where a number of people were running frantically back and forth, apparently in an endeavor to es- cape from something or somebody. I said to an attendant : "What is the trouble there?" "It's the 'igh tide, sir, has come hover the pawth, and the people cawn't get out either way." "Why don't they climb over the Club wall, then; there is no water on this side ?" I enquired. "Climb hover the wall, sir? Gawd save us, they cawn't do that. These are private grounds, sir." "Private nothing! Here, you come with me and help those people over that wall ! By thunder, I never saw such a lot of sheep — standing there in the water, because some- body owns the dry land ! Come along, now ; hurry up !" JOHN BULL, LIMITED 245 "But the Club Directors, sir; there'll be a hawful row. Those people 'ave no right in the Club grounds, sir." I walked rapidly across the sloping lawn to the wall that divided the sacred Club grounds from the tow-path. Fifty people, mostly women and children, were helplessly ma- rooned there in water which had already risen nearly to their knees, and yet with only a four-foot wall between them and dry land, never dreaming for a moment of climb- ing over or even upon it; for that would be a most sacri- legious invasion of an Englishman's private domain! Several Club members, with ladies, were standing on the Club lawn near the wall, regarding the spectacle with more or less amusement. On the tow-path an empty baby-carriage was floating toward the river tideway — the tears of the mother mingled with the crying of the rescued child. I shouted : "Why don't you men help those people ?" A fashionable Club member drawled in reply : "Aw, I say, the tide won't rise much higher." My answer was far from complimentary, but it stung three or four into offering assistance as I mounted the wall and told the woefully-drenched pleasure-seekers to come into the Club grounds. They all looked very sur- prised, but several children were immediately lifted to the crest of the wall, and hands extended for women to mount likewise. Most of the men, however, remained standing in the water, manifestly afraid to intrude. Row-boats were now rapidly approaching the spot from a boat-letting es- tablishment farther down the river-bank. And thereupon was afiforded a second object-lesson in British manners, for the boatmen charged every one of those drenched and res- cued unfortunates all the way from tuppence to sixpence for the service! 246 JOHN BULL, LIMITED There was no subsequent "hawful row" in the Club Di- rectorate over my unprecedented and unlicensed action in admitting so many strange people within the hallowed Club precincts. It certainly was unprecedented, for I learned later that innocent pedestrians were marooned and drenched in exactly the same manner and exactly the same place once or twice every summer by some unusually high tide, and that the occurrence was regarded only as a trifling matter of amusement to the Club members, and of more or less profit to the boatmen, since there was no especial dan- ger and the people were "no class !" I will not dwell upon the frank American opinion which I somewhat freely ex- pressed, both regarding the discourtesy apparent on one side of the wall and the abject supineness exhibited on the other — an opinion which was regarded as "most extraor- dinary" in view of the English law of private domain and the fact that "an Englishman's house is his castle, sir!" I was also privately and impressively informed that if almost any other member of the Club had admitted "all those persons" to the Club premises, the result would have been a prompt request for that member's resignation ! The fact that I not only expressed no repentance, but even inti- mated that I should do exactly the same thing again, if necessary, was regarded as "very American — most extraor- dinary and unaccountable." However, not one of those rescued people even said "Thank you," and, principally because of such ingratitude, I will say here, confidentially, that next time I will cheerfully assist in drowning the whole lot. All of which brings us naturally and easily to consider- ation of the following news item, carefully and tenderly culled from the columns of an English periodical whose editor was apparently too astounded to even comment on it : JOHN BULL, LIMITED 247 "It is proposed to erect a monument to George Washington in Westminster Abbey, funds to be raised by subscription throughout the British Empire." The following design for such a memorial is respectfully submitted, in view of certain historic facts : THREE Cheers for Universal Peace, three Cheers for Concord too. Let's grip The hands Across the Sea, let's Pledge the Genial Amity Which gives our George His due. Where once They longed his neck to Wring, his praises now They loudly sing, and Soon a marble shaft they'll fling, On high for his renown. And on This column, pure and white. These words, of course, they'll Then indite. And sign them with a dove. In memory of that dear old time. When up a tree he made us climb. To George of YorktoWn, name sublime. This shaft we raise, with love. There is one very curious thing regarding English habits and customs that I do not remember ever having heard of 248 JOHN BULL, LIMITED before, or seen mentioned in either the American or Con- tinental press. It is a matter that concerns the people of our fair young Republic only in the same sense that some peculiar characteristic of the ancient Egyptians might con- cern or interest us, except that in this instance it is a news item that has apparently slipped past most historians, al- though evidently a very ancient custom in Britain. Whether it was imported by the Romans and grafted itself upon the nation like the Roman walls, ancient viaducts and roads, and other relics of the invasion, none can say. The fact remains that it is a rare and curious custom common to every male in Great Britain who sports a tunic, Roman or plain English, and that it is shrouded in impenetrable mystery. For this is the song of the shirt — not the Hood variety, with slow music and stitching accompaniment, but just an ordinary everyday shirt-tail that begins where others leave off, and continues indefinitely without apparent use, pur- pose, or ambition. And this is the way it happened : While in London I had occasion to order some shirts made, and was duly measured by a haberdasher who spoke slightingly of my shape and criticised my fifty-two inch waist measure. This being the natural and manifest envy of a haberdasher weighing about one hundred and ten pounds, and who kept his clothes looped around him by a leather belt, I passed it by, for a haberdasher can neither help being a haberdasher, or possessing yearnings for a change. Even a dog does that. It was after the shirts were sent home that I began to sit up and take notice, and while I was trying on the first one that things began to happen. Aside from the fact that the neck-band was nearly as wide as a cuff, it had a starched bosom that for length and stiff- ness was like a coffin-lid on end, and I discovered to my amazement that it was about a foot longer behind than in JOHN BULL, LIMITED 249 front ! That sort of thing being both new and unique, I sat down on the extra material to figure it out. I had never seen a garment of that particular style. My lifelong expe- rience with shirts had taught me that the lower edge, so to speak, was the same distance from the ground all the way 'round, without any swallow-tail surprise or court- train effects, or other frills. Nor had I ever previously ob- served such a lavish display of cloth. Being an inside gar- ment, it did not seem that a skirt was necessary — yet there it was. I worked the cuff and coffin-lid off over my head, hung the shirt on the gas-fixture, walked round it several times, and then sat down again to meditate. The more I studied the proposition, the thicker it got. The shirt was an English shirt, made in England, for English wear — that much was easy and plain, and if so, it was manifestly the proper caper for an Englishman. For if it was not the cor- rect thing, an Englishman would know it was not the cor- rect thing, and wouldn't buy it. Neither would it have been mapped out, constructed and offered for sale to a people who never depart from the established customs of their fathers, grandfathers, and other ancestry. That opened up another branch of the subject. For the English way is the way of tradition, and an English ances- tor and what he did, and presumably what he wore and how he wore it, is a sacred and tender subject to every English- man. Under which theory, it seemed probable that Nelson, Wellington, Guy Fawkes, Cromwell, and other historical British personages, even the nobility, and perchance Royalty itself, past and present, had all been reared to manhood and gone through life hampered, restricted, trussed, trammelled, swathed, and generally "fussed up" like a lot of new-born babes. I reflected long and carefully, but had to give it up. There was evidently something back of it all besides cotton 250 JOHN BULL, LIMITED goods — something international. I resumed the garment, folding up the extra cloth and packing it around me in ter- races, and went down town to interview the haberdasher. His bald head perked up from the depths of a six-inch cuff that served him as a collar, and his eyes wore the glassy look of anticipation. He rubbed his hands and came for- ward, scenting trade. I scouted his polite advances, and de- manded to know why my London shirt was a foot longer in the back than it was in front, and why they called it a shirt instead of a chemise? He gasped and said, "Fancy that ! Don't you Americans pull a shirt forward ?" I said, "Which? How? Where? Under?" "Certainly, sir." I said, "Well, no, we don't." Whereupon he remarked, "Fancy that!" I left him wrestling with his fancy, and went out of my way to get professional advice from one of the best drapers in Bond Street. Draper is the superlative form of haber- dasher. He heard my feverish opinion, studied a bit over it, then brightened up and said, "Oh, yessir — all English shirts are cut longer in the back, sir — ^no reason given, but it always has been done, and probably always will be done, sir — British custom, y'know." I said mechanically, "God save the King," and came away considerably jarred. In defiance of custom, I proceeded to have my redingote amputated three inches round the neck and about eight inches round the after-guard skirt-line, thus making it im- possible for any drawing forward underneath between be- hind, or other lightning-change effect. I do not regard a court-train as appropriate without two or three velvetted pages to hold it out in place; but what saddens me most is to find that I have lived half a century to learn that every male English biped is wearing his shirt to-day the way a scared dog wears his tail. And afterward, when I walked down Piccadilly and compared my stately American tread JOHN BULL, LIMITED 251 with the lah-de-lah teeter pecuHar to the English lord of creation, I rejoiced in my sleeve — for I knew the reason why. I have often been asked by people who were about leav- ing for a European trip, or who expected to do so at some more or less future date, what to take with them in the mat- ter of trunks, clothing, and cash. It is always a pleasure to me to exude information like this, and even to have it type- written for people with short memories, but there is a limit. People who act on my information usually blame me if they lose a trunk or get charged for "extra luggage ;" and one or two persons have even cabled me for money on the ground that my estimate fell short. Therefore, I resign. It was my original intention to devote several pages to "Hints for Travelers," showing how to evade the dog-law and smuggle Coney Island "hot dogs" into England wholesale, how to travel with excess baggage at one-fourth the legal rate, how to get a Continental sleeping-car apartment entirely to one's- self and even turn out a present occupant if necessary, hovv to render a pet dog so invisible in a first-class railway com- partment that the guard will bring him a glass of water and watch him drink it without ever seeing the dog at all, how to distinguish between "wooden money" and legal ten- der at any Continental frontier, how to take photographs successfully where detection means fine or imprisonment, how to reply quickly and effectively to an enraged cabby in any language, how to win the affections of anything from a hotel portier to the Sphynx, how to break the bank at Monte Carlo, how to avoid buying colored bone necklaces for coral, what to pay for hotel tips, the only antidote for Scotch whisky and sure cure for fog, a "starred" list of the best- natured and most obliging trans-Atlantic pursers, the best side of the ship for a stateroom, the safest seat in a railway train, how to avoid sea-sickness, what to do in case of fire, 252 JOHN BULL, LIMITED hydrophobia, shipwreck, or overcharge in a hotel bill, how to quietly murder a Paris guide without detection, when to change your underwear, and what you must not say to the Customs officer when you return to New York. I find it best, after mature deliberation, to cut this all out, saw wood and say nothing. This, I am aware, will be a severe jolt and disappointment to a good many people who are expecting to acquire valuable points from this book of mine, but their loss is my gain, and there will be no boomerangs in this instance. Some day in the dim, misty, purple future I may write another book, "Echoes From the Confessional," "Shudders of Crime," or some such thing, containing all these professional tips and perhaps some others still more shady, but that is another story. Besides, I expect to go abroad again some day, and what people over there don't know about me now won't hurt anyone then. It is a wise decision. Run along little girl, and play. Incidentally, we have a dog — Maltese and Pommeranian mixture, with pure white coat of softest curly fleece, and a perfectly lovely pedigree. His father was crossed by a French Napier, or in other words that was the special brand of motor car that ran over him. This dog is named "Bobs," after England's celebrated little fighter, Lord Roberts. We never quite understood why they called him "Bobs," for he is not a war-dog at all, though full of pluck and very cheeky in his remarks to other and much larger dogs. He re- sembles the toy dogs one sees mounted on four wheels, and is frequently referred to in the street as a "dear little lomb," the North Country pronunciation of lamb. "Bobs" will die for his country, say his prayers, sit up and beg, ferret out a lump of sugar in your pocket, dance a waltz, do a balanc- ing act on your outstretched arm, and almost anything else but talk. He travels on a dog-ticket at one-half the price of a third-class fare, and never gives himself away when trav- The Doff Watch JOHN BULL, LIMITED 253 eling in first-class railway carriages, or street-cars, where dogs are not allowed. He knows accurately the difference between a lump of sugar and a railway conductor, and will only come out for the former. He is worshipped by all the servants in hotels, who load him to the muzzle with sugar and cake, necessitating subsequent tribulation and castor oil. His disposition is the most charming that I ever knew a dog to possess, and The Only Girl is positive that he is the reincarnation of some sweet-natured baby-lamb that per- ished before it was old enough to swear. Wherever we travel "Bobs" goes also — all railway and hotel dog-regula- tions giving way before his triumphal march. Only once has he ever been torn away from the Only Girl and rele- gated to the lower deck with other animals, and even then his sentence was commuted to sleeping with "Cooky," the ship's cook, who stuffed him full of goodies and the next day openly pronounced him far superior in manners, edu- cation, family descent and several other respects to the pie- faced, cross-eyed slob ("Cooky's" description of the Purser, not mine) who had banished him below. I will add paren- thetically that "Bobs" traveled with us for five years over England, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, France and Italy, crossed the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean, and is now a resident of the United States, a locality which he apparently prefers to all Europe, thereby showing evi- dence of good judgment and a proper reasoning ability. CHAPTER XIII Bubble and Squeak, Heavenly Hash, and Trifle. South Coast and Isle of Wight. A Bathing Episode. An Irish Princess. The Pig That Saw New York. Listen, careless reader of these rambling pages, have you ever in your life — now, think seriously and don't answer until you are sure — eaten "Bubble and Squeak?" It is an everyday English dish, composed of cabbage, potato, and a little meat, chopped, mixed and warmed up, and derives its poetic name from the bubbling and squeaking and gen- eral noisy protest it makes while sputtering in the pan. We had it one day during lunch in the Club dining-room at Richmond, and when she heard the name the Only Girl laughed a rippling laugh that caused most of the people there to wonder "what ailed the Americans." We returned them a Roland for their Oliver, however, by giving the steward the recipe for "Heavenly Hash," which is simply cold beets and potatoes chopped fine, warmed up, with a slice of bacon, and served hot with salt and butter. It is a very appetizing dish. You will never tire of it, morning, noon and night, and will eat until you are torn away from the table. "Heavenly Hash" was served at the Club one day as a special dish, and, as usual, jumped into instant favor. In deference to the feelings of the dinner-guests, since the English are fearfully literal and abominate the word hash and all that it implies, the delicacy appeared on the menu as "Broken Hearts," so christened for its lovely beet-red color. The dish made a second hit when the man- ager announced that it was "Miss Hills' specialty." , He referred to the dish and not the name, but everyone roared, and he wisely let it go as an original witticism of his own, JOHN BULL, LIMITED ^55 deceiving nobody, however, but himself and the Only Girl, who thought it a perfectly wonderful flash of English in- tellect. And so it would have been. Speaking of intellect, here is the recipe for one of the most delicious English desserts that it is possible to imag- ine. It is the direct road to any man's heart, and well de- serves its reputation as one of the most popular of English "institutions." By adding a blend of chopped figs and prunes to the interior decoration, it is made considerably richer. They call it "Trifle"— "just a trifle," as they say : Take two sponge cakes, one day old. Slice each and spread a thick layer of strawberry jam. Put one cake on the other and pour over them a wineglass and a half of whiskey, sherry or brandy. Then pour over this a pint of thick hot cornstarch custard, flavored with vanilla. Let it stand over night. Just before serving, spread over the whole a whipped cream effect composed of two gills of cream, two teaspoonfuls of fine white sugar, and vanilla flavoring, with two or three drops of cochineal added to give it a pink color. This is the famous English "Trifle," and in the light of past remembrance it has been something of an effort for me to calmly write these directions and restrain my newly aroused appetite for this dish of the Olympian Gods. Yet although England boasts this food ambrosial, nowhere within her borders have I ever been able to find a proper American strawberry shortcake. I do not mean the soaked and spongy atrocity usually presented under that seduc- tive title, but the real thing — the real "shortcake," made like a big, hot yeast-powder biscuit, broken apart (not cut) and buttered, then spread thick with cool, ripe strawber- ries, the hot upper lid laid over this, and covered with an- other layer of cool, ripe strawberries. Serve with vanilla cold sauce (sugar, butter and egg beaten together), which will melt into the delicious strata of cake and strawberry be- low, and — there you are ! It is a breakfast dish of high de^ 256 JOHN BULL, LIMITED gree, and you will require nothing else. Always will remain the tender, lingering and ever-delicious memory of that lus- cious feast. There are two hotels in London that now serve strawberry shortcake, a la Americaine, in the strawberry season. I gave them the recipe, and the fame thereof has crowned those hostelries with much enduring high repute and exceeding profit from Americans and English both. Some day I will tell them how to make a respectable apple pie, and also how to engineer a proper broiled live lobster. A ride out into the London suburbs in April is a joy un- alloyed to anyone who loves Nature and the flowers. From a front seat on the roof of a motor-bus or tram-car the view is one of ever-changing interest, with long-drawn breaths of a fresh country air that is as different from the London atmosphere as wine is different from warm water. All around London are charming country roads, bordered by vine-covered houses and lawns, and banked on either side with elm or chestnut trees, masses of lilac, white and purple, sweet "May" or hawthorn, great bushes of a blue flower that I have never seen anywhere else, whole trees of hang- ing yellow laburnum, and frequently a piazza, porch or arbor resplendent in a wealth of beautiful heliotrope-col- ored wisteria. Flowers everywhere — always flowers, of all sorts and kinds, in gardens, windows, and over-running even the walls and hedges. England in its spring dress is sim- ply a floral garden that must be seen to be appreciated or even comprehended. Such sweet fragrance in the atmos- phere, such a constant serenade of birds — birds are every- where, robins, thrushes, blackbirds, and all manner of Eng- lish songsters, in gardens, trees and hedges, quite unafraid of man. It is almost a capital crime to kill a song-bird in England. I read in a suburban paper of the arrest of an Italian for shooting half a dozen robins. He was sen- tenced to seven months' imprisonment! You may strike a JOHN BULL, LIMITED 257 woman in England, and if she is your wife you may beat her black and blue for a five-shilling fine ; but touch a song- bird, and up you go ! How I would like to be an English magistrate for awhile, and give a wife-beater the whipping- post first and about five years' imprisonment afterward, with more of the whip added every month. I would in- clude a few lashes for the bird-killer as well. And for pun- ishment to those guilty of cruelty to children and animals I would have a special prison where exactly the same cruel- ties practiced on their helpless victims should be meted out to them in daily doses, and if possible with the identical instruments of torture. Indeed, to my mind there is no nobler or more deserving charity than the institutions maintained for the protection of these helpless little chil- dren and our domestic animals. In Italy, on the other hand, you will never hear the song of birds, or see even a sea-gull flying overhead in the harbors, unless perchance the gull is a stranger. Birds are not wanted in Italy, be- cause they injure the grapes on the vines. They are ac- cordingly shot on sight. Every Italian has his grape vine- yard, even if it be a patch no larger than his shirt, and from these grapes comes his vintage of Italian wine. What, then, is the bird or its song to the Italian in comparison with a few quarts of chianti ? It is only in other countries that destroyers of song-birds are legally dealt with and taught wholesome lessons. But we are wandering from the subject. Come with me again to the South Coast and the Isle of Wight — the Eng- lish Riviera, where the sun shines in winter, all the pros- pect pleases, and only man is vile. England indeed, without its people, would be an Eden. John Bull at close view, and generally on close acquaintance also, is not altogether a pleasing subject, although there are some notable excep- 258 JOHN BULL, LIMITED tions ; but his island is one of the beauty spots of the globe for six months in the year. The South Coast is a charming mixture of seashore and lovely countryside. Oh, the harvest fields and cool orchards, the thatched cottages, the Hampshire pigs in the great barn- yards, the bee-hives and poultry, the great square hayricks with thatched roofs of straw, the odd-shaped carts and strange dialect of the country-folk. What more delightful than to ride through such a garden-land, stopping at a wayside farm for a glass of milk with a fresh-laid egg whipped into it, chatting with the pleasant-faced dwellers, and tarrying at some pretty, vine-covered inn along the way for lunch ! This is "Dickens' country" — he was born at Portsmouth, you know — and it is all just exactly as de- scribed in his immoftal "Pickwick" chapters — the old inns and courtyards, where a prototype of Sam Weller directs your steps to the "coffee-room" for lunch — the same old inn, same old joint or roast of beef or mutton, same great round loaves of bread, with foaming ale and snowy Stilton cheese, and always a red-faced and jolly "John Bull" host to attend to your pleasure and comfort. English inns will always be a dream of joy to me, not only because of the delightful environment and quaint ways of service, but be- cause there are no such thick chops and juicy tenderloins (yclept filets) anywhere else on earth, no such great joints of beef, no such musty ale or 'arf and 'arf. At some inns the entire joint is wheeled up to you on a small table, and after you are served the white-aproned waiter wheels the joint along to the next table. The English nation doesn't know much about broiled lobsters, soft-shelled crabs and cocktails, but they certainly strike a good average on some other things, even if the best "roast beef of Hold Heng- land" does come all the way from Chicago ! JOHN BULL, LIMITED 259 Next in point of interest to the inns are the old abbeys and ruined chapels that still rear their shattered and broken walls in mute testimony of other days. In England the word "old" means anywhere from a thousand years upward, and the age of some of these wonderful relics of past centu- ries is something amazing to a modern appreciative globe- trotter. In some of them the pulpit was built high up on the inside wall instead of at one end of the church as now- adays, the church having also been commonly used as a refectory by the monks in those happy days of long ago, and there on his lofty perch the preacher, or "reader," was wont to discourse to his bewhiskered or shaven brethren while they ate. All this is very curious to an observing mind, for it would seem that to a community that had more time than anything else, time would apparently be of no object, yet here is a careful and studied combination of dinner and sermon that appears not only an unnecessary economy, but a probable nuisance and affliction to those at dinner. I wonder if he was ever invited to "come off his perch," or his bald pate furnished a target for hard-boiled eggs. I hope so, for any man who does all the talking at a dinner-table, whether he is up on a wall-bracket or at the table itself, is a proper candidate for anything from eggs to a shotgun. Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight are synonymous terms, for although separated by seven miles of Solent, each is dependent on the other. Everybody goes to the Isle of Wight, both in summer and winter, for it is almost the only- spot in all England where there is sunshine in the winter season. In summer it is a Garden of Eden, and at all times of the year a great resort for what the English call "inva- leeds." From all the pretty woodland drives over and about the island you catch cool glimpses of the blue sea around, viewed through the most exquisite vistas of trees and flowers. 26o JOHN BULL, LIMITED Many places on this lovely isle are famous. Here is Cowes, where the great English yacht races take place an- nually and the German Emperor sends his royal racer to compete with England's yachts. Near by is Osborne, the favorite residence of Queen Victoria in other days. All over the island are scattered charming bits of historic or pastoral interest — castles, abbeys, the famous Shanklin "Cheyne," and at the outer tip of the sea-kissed cliffs are the "Needles"— the outlying and dangerous rocky ledge that, like all of Britain's coast, has its tragic stories of gale and sea, shattered ships and drowning men. There is a dear little village called Sea View on the Isle of Wight. In summertime it is crowded with pleasure- seekers and bathing parties from the mainland opposite. There are no four-wheeled bathhouses at Sea View, as at Margate, Brighton and other South Coast resorts. The bathhouses at Sea View are just little tents, hardly large enough to turn round in, and with frightfully insecure can- vas sides. I was over-persuaded to join a bathing party there one day. I say "over" advisedly, for it must have been that, or I should never have gone in at all. People with a generous waist-line like mine should avoid sea-bath- ing. But the day was warm, the sandy beach and smooth sea inviting, lots of people were splashing about and having a good time — well, the proposition looked to me like "a bit of all right," as we say in Lunnon, and I proceeded to my tent, carrying on my arm a towel and what was alleged to be a bathing suit. After I got myself inside the tent, there was no room left for even a fly, and no space to undress, as I discovered after nearly falling through a side-wall into the next tent, occupied by two thin women and a very in- dignant little girl. I "pairsevered," however, like the Scotchman who tried to acquire a taste for Irish whiskey in the absence of Scotch, and succeeded at last in getting JOHN BULL, LIMITED 261 out of my every-day regalia. Then I examined the bathing suit. It had apparently been made for a small boy, although it certainly possessed considerable stretching power. Still it was not my imperial size, and there seemed to be a scanti- ness about the way it was chopped off at the extremities. I pulled and hauled and perspired and puffed until finally, after a mighty stretching, I managed to crowd into it, feel- ing like an apple-dumpling and fully as hot. The suit seemed all right, but was if anything a little noisy in its color-scheme, consisting of a pink and yellow horizontally- striped single piece that made me resemble a "strawberry and vanilla mixed" as I teetered bashfully over the sandy beach. My appearance on the scene created marked interest — everybody had a fit, or rather everybody noticed that I had a fit, and a tight one. I will draw a curtain over that promenade, and would have been more than glad to draw one at the time. They told me afterwards that all public business stopped, and the feverish interest of bathers and onlookers alike was fo- cussed on my curves and dimples. I got into the water without attracting any more attention than a fire alarm might, and sorely did I yearn for a live rat to chuck into that crowd of tittering women. I had to wade out nearly half a mile to get under water, the beach being almost a level floor and sloping very gradually seaward. There I concealed my blushing form from the rude gaze of the mul- titude, and began to formulate plans for getting back to that tent unobserved. This, I found, was going to be dif- ficult, for the people on the beach were gradually concen- trating at one place, evidently anticipating the arrival of Royalty or something even more attractive, and I observed with some solicitude that the particular point of concentra- tion was where I would eventually have to leave the water ! About that time I was also confronted with the awful cer- 262 JOHN BULL, LIMITED tainty that when I made my hurried dive into the deeper water something serious had happened to my — well, some- thing had happened ! I could go out of the water all right, but I couldn't possibly go up to the tent, unless I went up on my back. I had already remained in the water a longer time than is customary for bathers, and the assembled throng on shore was apparently becoming impatient. Tenderly I examined my raiment, hoping against hope that the fracture might be held together while I did a fifty-yard dash between the shore line and my tent. My friends were some distance down the beach, waving, beckoning hands to me and splash- ing bravely. I splashed also, and rejoiced to see a row- boat putting out from the beach in my direction. Whether it was a police boat or not it meant rescue for me, and I splashed and sank and rose again and waved for the boat- man to get busy. When he got to me, I immediately climbed inside the boat, my disappearance being greeted with a de- lighted yell from the crowd and a horrified grin from the boatman. Once more we draw that convenient curtain while I as- sume the extra pair of trousers that did duty for the merry boatman in stormy weather. It was mighty stormy weather for me, certainly, but I really enijoyed the trip from the boat to the bath-house after that. I felt safe in those oil- skins, and the happy smiles of a few thousand strangers, balked of their prey, didn't worry me at all. My worry began a few moments later, when safe in the enfolding arms of my bath-tent, I tried to get the bathing-suit off. It wouldn't budge — it simply stuck closer than any brother ever did, and refused positively to be separated from me by either force or persuasion. After nearly upsetting the tent several times, and making remarks that caused the adjacent tents to be vacated and the flaps pulled down, I finally took JOHN BULL, LIMITED 263 my knife, cut the bathing-suit wide open, and breathed freely for the first time that afternoon. I was sorry after I had cut it, for I found that I could probably have crept out of it backwards; but I was glad to get out at any price. I paid the bath-house proprietor for the damage, although he said it was a shame to take the money, and I donated the bathing-suit to an Old Ladies' Home nearby, where it was eventually made up into bed-quilts. The Isle of Wight is full of pretty nooks and byways, with fair woodland and a smiling landscape, and is alto- gether as lovely a bit of green earth as one would find in England. It is all "up and down hill," however, and high cliffs mark its southern and western borders. There is also a railroad, so-called because it possesses what are alleged to be railroad tracks, upon which stray back and forth at sun- dry intervals strings of boxes upon wheels, which halt with evident relief at half a dozen way-stations and start off again with creaking and painful efforts calculated to keep passengers in a healthy shudder. If you miss a train, you have ample time to look the island fairly well over in a foot- ramble before there is another, and only the angels and the Isle of Wight natives know what happens on that railroad in the winter ! I have referred to the Shanklin "Cheyne" by name — just a touch in passing. It deserves more, for Shanklin is per- haps the prettiest and quaintest village on the island. I will not attempt to describe it in detail. Picture white chalk cliffs, a hundred and fifty feet high, with the entire front terraced to the top by lines of lovely villas, stone cottages, and trees that grow there in apparent defiance of wind and weather. A zig-zag road leads from the sea-front, and after winding back and forth across the face of the cliff your carriage will eventually emerge at the top, whence you have access to the interior of the island. At the foot 264 JOHN BULL, LIMITED of the cliffs is a long Pier (always spelt with a capital) extending out into the water, and upon this are pretty pagodas, "shelters," and small places of amusements. Here also is the bathing-beach, hard and smooth as a floor, with long lines of four-wheeled bathing-machines, while backed up against the cliff behind is a broad, paved promenade and roadway. A large elevator, or "lift," takes you to the top of the cliff for a penny, where there is another promenade and a view over sea and shore that is simply indescribable. Half a mile up the beach is the famous "Cheyne" (Saxon word, meaning a cleft), which is only a gorge, or ravine, but the most beautiful one that can be imagined. The en- trance from the beach is three hundred feet wide, but the gorge narrows gradually until at the farther end it is only a few feet across, and one can hardly squeeze out through the gate ! A broad, winding path ascends gradually to this exit, marked at intervals with rustic bridges where it crosses from side to side. From these bridges you may look down at the rocky sides covered with green lichens, and even into the trees growing directly beneath you, or you may trace the path upward and onward through the cool green vistas above. No sunshine penetrates the "Cheyne," save here and there a touch of gold to accentuate the deli- cate shade. Along the bottom flows a stream of water that falls from the cliff summit in a long cascade and goes splashing its way down among the trees and rocks until it finally emerges on the beach far down below. You can rest on one of the many rustic seats along the path, and if you love the cooling shade of trees, the song of birds, and a wildly luxuriant growth of vines and flowers, you will find your rustic little retreat beyond compare. "There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar." Bird's-eye View at Isle of Wight JOHN BULL, LIMITED 265 These lines are not mine. I quote them partly because this appears an excellent place to drop them into, and partly because I couldn't get them out of my mind all that afternoon. At the upper exit of the path we rested some time on a rustic bench and then squeezed through the gate into a quaint old village street bordered by thatched-roofed cot- tages, with front gardens luxuriant in old-fashioned flowers. It was a scene fair to the eye, appropriately crowned by a rustic, vine-covered little hostelry at the lower end, called the "Crab Inn," which appeared to me at that moment far more like a life-saving station, and where I was much re- freshed and comforted after my toilsome "pilgrim's prog- ress" upward from the beach. Subsequent to my pleasure in the pathless woods, and my rapture over that thoroughly English inn and its musty ale, I sat in the shade and reflected upon Man and his ulti- mate finish, and also upon Life, both in the abstract and concrete. The end of my meditation came with the end of my cigar, and even as I threw the one into the honeysuckles at the veranda-edge, so here I throw the other into the drift- wood of these reminiscences: What is Man? A button, That by a single thread Is fastened to the coat of Chance, A transitory circumstance That dangles — and is dead. What is Life? A flicker As from some passing star. A little flame that dimly glows. Till Fate draws in her breath and blows— And dammit, there you are ! A trifle of seven miles sail across the Solent, past the Spithead anchorage of the British war-ships, brings one to 266 JOHN BULL, LIMITED Portsmouth — England's great naval base and stronghold, alleged to be absolutely "impregnable" to assault by a for- eign foe. This theory always has a ring very similar to the theory of modern "fire-proof" buildings. On the day when either a sufficient foe or a sufficient fire arrives, the result in each case is likely to be a melancholy one. The harbor defenses of Portsmouth are backed and reinforced by some formidable earth-works and forts on the hill-crests behind the city, and a hostile fleet in the Solent would undoubtedly meet with a warm reception. But behind the high cliffs of the Isle of Wight, directly opposite Portsmouth, is a pro- tected anchorage where a hostile fleet of mortar-boats, guarded by outlying cruisers, could apparently lie at ease and with impunity drop shot and shell into city, harbor defences, and hill-forts alike. Vicksburg was thus reduced in our own Civil War, until finally forced to surrender to General Butler and Admiral Farragut, commanding re- spectively the Union land forces and fleet. I do not re- gard Portsmouth as "impregnable." I may be wrong, but so it appears to my possibly impaired vision. Neverthe- less, I am not going to worry about it, for the English War Office may have something up its sleeve that we know noth- ing about, wherewith to surprise an enemy undertaking that very thing. They may be able to drop the Isle of Wight under water for awhile, and so gain an uninterrupted gun- range, or possibly they might surrender before an enemy had an opportunity to test the mortar idea. Either would be in the nature of a surprise, but it is useless to speculate. Only a man who can tell accurately which way a grasshopper will jump can fathom the mind of an Englishman. Portsmouth possesses many objects of interest, including Charles Dickens' birthplace, now used as a "Dickens Mu- seum" — the house where the "Juke of Buckingham (as every Englishman calls it) was assassinated — the Dock- JOHN BULL, LIMITED 267 Yard, into which, as already shown, no Americans or other "aliens" are admitted — ^the old sally-port under which Nel- son passed when he boarded the "Victory" just before the Battle of Trafalgar, and the "Victory" herself, anchored peacefully in the harbor side by side with the Dread- naughts of today, the Mecca of Englishmen and tourists alike. This ancient frigate was Nelson's flag-ship at Trafalgar. We wandered over her historic decks, lined on either side with curious old cannon, and descended into the small "cock- pit" where the great naval hero died — saw the old-fash- ioned lantern hanging from the beam overhead just as it hung in that sad hour for England, and gazed upon the brass-lettered plate fixed in the deck — "Here died Lord Nelson," etc. We inspected the' furniture in the officers' quarters within the high, old-fashioned stern, and looked out of the slanting square windows in the great Admiral's own private room — ^viewed the relics in glass cases on the gun-deck, climbed away up the lofty "poop" deck at the stern — and there performed the customary miracle of tem- porarily destroying the eyesight of our guide by allowing him to inspect a silver 'arf crown while I took a lovely snap-shot of the deck away forward to the tip-end of the jib-boom. A camera is "taboo" on the "Victory," though why this should be so on a ship that has been fitted with new decks, new masts, and pretty much everything else new except her ribs and the cock-pit, is a conundrum that only an Englishman can answer. Incidentally, there was an American college youth in our "Victory" party who did not appear at all impressed with either the venerable ship herself or the fervid explanations of our guide. I said to him, "Nelson was a great fighter — a great hero." He looked at me a moment, then said, "Say, our Dewey could have scared him blue !" 268 JOHN BULL. LIMITED Thousands of post-cards are sold on the "Victory," bear- ing the famous flag-signal, and the translation, "England Expects Every Man To Do His Duty," or rather what was supposed to be the translation. According to the Eng- lish press, which never seems to recognize a boomerang by sight, there has been a terrible mistake and the British public has been worshipping the wrong signal — the correct translation being, "Hurry up, America." But a little thing like that will make no difference to the nation — all the world may laugh, but they will go right along and sell off all the remaining post-cards before printing a new lot. In England a penny means a penny, and for twelve of them you can get anything from postage-stamps to sitting half a minute on the throne. Of course, the throne must be vacant at the time. The ferry-boat that travels back and forth across the inner harbor is a veritable curiosity. Instead of proceeding like any other steam water-craft, it drags itself along on two enormous chains attached to either shore, the chains sag- ging to the bottom when not in use. During the passage, these dripping links are lifted from the water in front, passing through the ferry-boat itself, and disappearing into the water behind, the process being attended by a racket simply deafening. As the boat can only travel on this lim- ited "chain-cable" route, every other craft is obliged either to turn out for it or wait while it creaks and rumbles and clanks its hideous way across, carrying the heavy chain- loops along with it. People half a mile away from the ferry can tell when the boat is coming by the awful din that smites the shuddering air, and the contrasting silence while the one and only boat is getting its breath at a terminus is like a Sabbath in the country. They call this ferry the "Floating Bridge," a title which is both absurd and mis- leading. "Floating Boiler-Factory" would be a far more ^.■*~'- -.♦, _~-«--«l» Nelson's Flagship "Victory," Portsmouth Chain Ferry-Boat, Portsmouth JOHN BULL, LIMITED 269 appropriate name, although certain other names applied to it locally and profanely are perhaps as expressive. The inner harbor is full of war-ships and torpedo-boats, but they all politely extend to this ferry-boat the right of way and allow ample time for her chains to settle back into the muddy bottom. After Sunday service the beauty and chivalry of civil life, known as "sassiety," adjourns mournfully to the "Ladies' Mile," a wide concrete "promenade" across the Common and said to be a mile in length. Here the regular Sabbath "Church Parade" takes place after every morning service, the ladies doing the peacock strut and smiling pityingly at each other's raiment. The awful and majestic dignity of the dowagers and the labored sternness and rigidity of the mon- ocled male elect, were in happy contrast to the joyous relief of the rosy-faced younger fry and myself. A crowd of con- genial critics filled the camp-chairs at either side (rented for a penny each), and were in turn recogpnized, openly criti- cized and pitied by the passing throng. This "Church Par- ade" is a holy custom in all parts of England. After a whole hour of prayer and ritual, it is apparently a vast relief to parade a bit and slam everybody else's fit and style. Any- way, they all do it, and if there is not "Church Parade" in Heaven lots of these people are going to be disappointed, and will probably find the place uncongenial. I have an Irish friend in New York, a prosperous man of business, who injects his adored nationality into everything about him. The name on his office-door is painted in emer- ald green, the office-boy is a diminutive, red-headed Mick with two ready fists- and a lovely brogue, and the office in- terior is a color scheme in olive and Nile. I shall never forget the St. Patrick's Day that I draped his chandelier with orange ribbon and he tore down the fixture, ribbon and all, in one grand outburst of appreciation. Well, when my 270 JOHN BULL, LIMITED friend learned one day that I was about leaving for Eng- land on a business matter, he wept on my neck and en- treated me to bring him back something from Ireland — a memento of some kind, bog-wood cane, shillelagh, or "any- thing that was the real thing." I promised, and five min- utes later had forgotten all about it. Such is the occasional mystic working of my mental equipment. After completing my business in London, I left for New York on a Liverpool liner, and next morning we stopped at Queenstown for passengers and the final English mails. It happened that these were about four hours late, and it oc- curred to John and myself that this Providential delay af- forded an excellent opportunity for going ashore and in- vestigating the reason why Irish grass is the greenest in the world. The Captain was dubious about losing us, but finally consented, the Purser said, "Mind, we sail at noon, old chap," and a long line of passengers peered over the rail and showered advice about getting left, taking wooden money, avoiding the police, and other mossy subjects. We were enthusiastically welcomed ashore by a shirt- sleeved "jarvey," who led us to the jaunting-car of our dreams — a side-seated affair drawn by a rough-haired, vicious little pony that got two kicks at the driver before we started and made a grand upper-cut for him with a hind- foot afterwards. Owing to the frailty of the car, John oc- cupied one entire side-seat and I the other — ^back to back and facing outward. After the pony had galloped over most of the map of Ireland and we had forgotten all about the emerald grass in the joy of our "jarvey's" exuberant conversation, we suddenly recollected the Governors of two prominent States in the glorious Republic beyond the sea, and at once instructed the driver to stop at the nearest life- saving station. He was profuse in his grief and mortifica- tion, "Sure, yer Honors, we're siven miles from any 'pub." JOHN BULL, LIMITED 271 This was awful. John, ever resourceful, said, "Well, cut out the 'pub and drive to the brewery." The driver was cautious, and looked embarrassed. "Begorra, maybe 'tis excise yer Honors are ; I dunno ?" Two minutes later he was so thoroughly convinced that we had no interest in King's Officers or Royal Excise Laws that the pony was trotting briskly up a lane at the end of which stood a typical little Irish cabin, with one door and a window, and a rear-sloping roof that you could step on and walk right up to the sod-chimney. The driver stepped off his perch, dodged the pony's off-hoof, and rapped on the little green door. The pony nibbled grass, and John coughed a very expressive, dry cough. Then the miracle happened. The door opened, and framed in the portal stood the fairest dream of a girl that ever rejoiced an artist's eye or enraptured a true believer. She was the pure Irish type, with black eyes, cream and roses complexion, the whitest of teeth and reddest of lips, and hair falling to her waist. There she stood, bare- footed, and clothed in apparently a single garment that was as ragged as she was Royal. The "jarvey" said something in choice Gaelic, whereat she laughed and flashed a glance at the two perishing invalids in the car, then disappeared in the cabin. We sat entranced — no, not paralyzed, just entranced. She appeared again, holding a broken tea-cup and a black bottle. The driver personated Hebe, and after one taste I passed the cup shudderingly on to John. He was suffering from thirst more than I was, and besides that I needed all the time there was to study the beauties of Irish nature. I handed the driver half a crown — tuppence for the "moun- tain-dew" and twenty-eight for the dream in the doorway, and the second smile that she flashed back irradiated the 272 JOHN BULL, LIMITED landscape roundabout and even made the pony look up and appreciate. Then John started something. He said, "Driver, tell that peach I'll give her half a crown for a kiss. Here, catch it." The "ijarvey" translated into Irish, the girl laughed aloud and nodded, and next moment she was standing on the wheel-hub, with one arm round my neck, and I was receiv- ing something warm and nice that legally belonged to John ! Then she ran back to the doorway. At that celestial moment, nine little pigs came round the corner of the cabin, with mamma trailing. I came out of a trance and remembered my promise to Patsy in New York, to bring him back "the real thing." An Irish pig would be ideal. "Hi, driver, catch that little pig — the cream one with the black patch over his eye — grab it quick !" The pigs ran squealing in six different directions, but the driver won out and delivered the little chap to me safely. Oh, my sainted great-grandmother, how that small bunch did squeal! He had surplus voice enough for an elephant. John snapped a rubber-band round his jaws (the pig's, not his own!), the shrieks of profanity subsided into mumblings that were muffled but none the less fervent, and once more we could hear each other speak. I threw another half crown toward the doorway, received another hundred-dollar glimpse of white teeth and laughing eyes, and the pony trotted down the lane. Well, we drove back to Queenstown, everybody silent but the pig. John was sore over the kiss, I was sore over the parting, and the driver had put away a whole cup-full of that raw "mountain-dew" and was communing anxiously to himself and pushing the pony onward. When we finally reached the ship, the pig was listed as an extra passenger in care of someone "down cellar," as John called it, and JOHN BULL, LIMITED 273 shortly thereafter we sailed from Queenstown. But it is fair to add that both John and myself were very late for lunch that day, partly because the green grass of Ireland could still be seen beyond the ship's foamy wake, and partly because a certain vision enclosed in ragged raiment could not. The pig ? That is another story. Some day I will relate how the little fellow, washed to a cream pink and resplend- ent in green sash and ribbons, was publicly presented to Patsy at the Club ; how forty hilarious members in a dozen carriages escorted the pig around New York; how at each halting-place the pig was asked his opinion of the only city on earth and responded (after removal of his gag) with joyous shrieks that echoed for blocks and blocks; how, after being introduced to many more or less prominent residents and sundry police officials, the pig was somewhere lost, mis- laid, abducted, enticed, or stolen — and how his loyal escort returned over the route with threats of violence and offers of gold, but found no trace, and how Patsy's grief knew neither comfort or consolation for many a black day there- after, as was evinced by the crape on his office door. I will tell that story some day, but not now. The memory of our loss is still too fresh after many years. I have little more to say of Albion, although there is much that could both enjoyably and consistently be added. Here on the delightful English Riviera appears my golden opportunity to tiptoe lightly away from the sleepy reader and vanish — pen, extra manuscript, and all. But gradually, not too precipitately. Let the reader get soundly asleep be- fore I improve the opportunity and the open door. Shall we go to Bournemouth — the "City of Pines by the Sea?" Here is the Atlantic City of England, fashion's favored week-end resort from the heat and dust of Lon- don. The wonderful beach, the magnificent promenade 274 JOHN BULL, LIMITED along the shore, and the charming "Underdiff Drive," are all something to be remembered. Or will you go to Brighton, another fashionable resort only an hour away from London, to which the late King Edward was wont to motor down for a quiet day or two afar from cares of state? Eastbourne and Hastings also offer you with open hands their delightful hospitality. The South Coast is always charming at every season of the year, and in addi- tion to its own attractions possesses one mighty and crown- ing superiority to all the rest of England, for it is that por- tion of the island that is nearest the Continent, and there- fore when you are bored you can step across the Channel, and in a few hours be contentedly luxuriating in any one of a hundred Continental resorts like Scheveningen, Ostende, Boulonge-sur-Mer, Dieppe, Cherbourg — all the way from Holland to Normandy, with wooden shoes, Flemish lace- caps, odd costumes, pretty faces, strange-sounding speech, and all that the name Continental implies. Nor will you regret the temporary separation from John Bull and his island, for all things have their compensation — fancy that! THE END.