Chapter IV: Part 4

But the Boulevard continues, no longer the Capucines, but the Italiens. Some years ago this was the great shopping-place, and it is not bad now. As the ladies promenade past the Opera and into the Italiens, the skirts unconsciously go a little higher. The boulevard proceeds, the next section being called the Montmartre. This part interested me a great deal. On the rue Montmartre, a side street to the right, is the Y. M. C. A., and on Mt. Montmartre, a little to the left, is the Moulin Rouge.

The Y. M. C. A. in Paris is one of the best things in the city, but it does not get much newspaper notoriety. It is an English-speaking organization, with convenient quarters, parlor, reception, billiard, smoking-and dining-rooms. It is one place in Paris where there is no café or bar, and it is a great help to young men from America who are in this city by reason of their business or to study or to visit the historic places. A great many use the Y. M. C. A. facilities, and a membership card from Hutchinson or any other association in the world is good for these privileges in the heart of Paris. I would recommend to every American that when he goes to Paris he make his headquarters at the Y. M. C. A., but I am not going to count on many of them doing it. The Paris atmosphere has the same effect on a Y. M. C. A. that a nice, warm August sun has on a cake of ice left on the sidewalk in Hutchinson. I am not telling what I would like to, but I setting down the facts as they appear to me. The man who goes to Paris and sticks to the Y. M. C. A. as his loafing-place should have his halo ordered at once. He has a cinch.

In the other direction, on Mt. Montmartre, is the Moulin Rouge. I do not recommend it to nervous men, but it is one of the sights of this city. When I was a boy I read somewhere about a “gilded palace of sin,” and now I know what that means. The cowboys out west used to have what they called “free-and-easies,” but the Moulin Rouge is not free. I shut my eyes as the dancers loped by until a friend said the next dance would be a quadrille. I once danced quadrilles myself, and I thought there would be a breathing-place. The young people arranged themselves as if they were going to dance a Virginia Reel, and I could feel consciousness returning. The music struck up and the quadrille began. At first it went as smooth as if it were at the Country Club. Then each young lady passed the toe of her right foot over the head of her partner. Then she turned and pointed the toe of her left foot at the chandelier which hung from the ceiling. And then came the most wonderful display of things that are put in the store windows at home and marked “white goods sale,” or “lingerie.”

It was dreadfully embarrassing to me, as it must have been to any other Kansas man present, but I braced myself, for I knew the worst was yet to come. I felt like getting right up on my chair and saying, “Ladies, there are gentlemen present.” But I didn’t, and I have been glad ever since, for they might not have understood English and thought I wanted a partner for the next quadrille.

Afterwards the proceedings became almost immodest.

So I do not recommend the Moulin Rouge, though I fear that this failure on my part will not detract from the rush of strangers who are visiting in Paris and who might go to the Y. M. C. A. But I will say in passing that it is no place for a man unless his wife is with him, and it is somewhat distracting even then.

* * * * *

Returning to the boulevard. It changes its name to the Poissoniere, and on this part is the office of the _Matin_, the great newspaper, which has 750,000 circulation, prints only six pages, and pretends not to care for advertising. The _Matin_ differs from most Parisian newspapers in really printing news. The general run of papers here are purely political, and put their editorials on the front page. They are very abusive, and the editor has to fight frequent duels. The fighting is done with pistols at a safe distance, and after an exchange of shots with nobody hurt, the principals rush together and clinch, but it is to kiss each other on both cheeks and rejoice that Honor has been Satisfied. I wouldn’t mind the dueling, but I positively would not kiss these Frenchmen, and so far as I can learn the society editresses do not duel.

* * * * *

The _Matin_ is the paper that cleared Dreyfus after his trial and conviction a few years ago. The story is interesting. Dreyfus was made the victim of a conspiracy, and a document showing details of the French army was attributed to him as a German spy. Everybody remembers the trial and the fuss at the time. It became a contest between the Honor of the French Army and Dreyfus. The _Matin_ took little part, but, like most of the French, sided with the army. One evening at a dinner an officer of the court exhibited the original of the document which Dreyfus had been convicted of writing. Mr. Bueno-Varilla, editor of the _Matin_, was present, and as the paper was passed around he looked at it carelessly. That night when he reached home he remembered that a few years before this same Dreyfus had written him a letter about some engineering, and he dug up the letter. The handwriting was not at all what he had seen that evening. He rushed to the telephone and got the official who had shown the document, who promised to bring it to him in the morning. They compared the spy information and the Dreyfus letter which Bueno-Varilla had, and they were utterly unlike. Next day the _Matin_ printed a photograph copy of the document, and appealed to anyone who knew the handwriting to advise the _Matin_. In a day or two a gentleman wrote and said it was the writing of a drunken bankrupt army officer, named Esterhazey, inclosing letters from the latter which proved it. Dreyfus was brought back from prison and pardoned, Esterhazey skipped the country, and the honor of the French army was flyspecked. All of this because Bueno-Varilla happened to keep an old letter, and because he owned the _Matin_.

The boulevard next becomes the Bonne-Nouvelle, and then St. Denis and then St. Martin, and has several other names before it reaches its end in the Place de la Bastille.

This place is even more important in French history than Independence Hall in ours. The 14th of July is celebrated every year, just as we do the 4th of July as Independence Day, because on that date in 1789 the Bastille prison was destroyed by an uprising of the people which became the French Revolution. The Bastille was especially odious because political prisoners were confined there, and it only took an order from the police to send a man or woman to its dungeons. Its use for this purpose was so flagrant and so despotic that the first fury of the revolution was directed against its walls, and it was entirely destroyed, and the jailers and soldiers defending it were killed. The place is now a large square surrounded by business houses and ornamented by a statue of Liberty on a column 150 feet high. From the beginning to the end of this great boulevard with the many names, are places made historic by great men and hard fights. Now it is a peaceful, broad avenue, with shops and cafés and handsome buildings, the promenade-ground for the Parisian and of tourists from all countries.

Some French Ways

PARIS, August 20.

There are practically no athletic sports in France, none at all in and around Paris. In America the men put in a lot of time talking baseball, football, boating and such-like. In France the men talk only politics or gossip. There are no lodges and no clubs in France. This ought to be applauded by the women, but as a matter of fact they probably wish the men would do a little something in that line. There is a secret order or two, but they are not strong and not recognized by the orders in other countries. Frenchmen do not seem to care for athletics of any kind. The nearest approach to it is fencing, and the young Frenchman learns to use the sword so he can fight duels. The popular Hero is not a ball-player nor a prize-fighter, but a man who has invented something new or who has run off with the wife of a friend. They are venturesome and personally brave, but they can’t stand for team work. The attempt has been made to introduce a mild form of football, but every man on the team wanted to be the star. I suppose if the French should organize a baseball club every one of them would insist on being pitcher. They will go up in balloons or airships with dashing recklessness and are brave enough, if that trait is not merely the absence of caution and calculation. French aviators are numerous and successful, though the fatalities are still many. They have shown themselves good fighters but not good losers. They will quarrel over a trifle and then forgive and kiss each other in a manner that makes an American seasick. They are polite in a veneer, for they will lift their hats and make goo-goo eyes at every pretty woman, and they will let an old woman stand up in a street car. They are industrious, thrifty, temperate, and cheerful. Just because they look at some things from a different viewpoint is no reason why we should criticize them, and yet they are so different from the neighbors that I can’t help mentioning a few things that are very noticeable.

* * * * *

The French Government has a president, whose name few people know, and a senate which has little power, and therefore the main factor is the lower house. This kind of government is a mistake, for the large legislative body rushes from one extreme to another; whenever its majority changes, the cabinet resigns, and the result is inconstancy and instability. Public sentiment is the controlling factor, and it takes an acrobat to be a statesman in France. Sometimes the flippety-flop is popular in America, but on the long run he loses. In France he is succeeded by another just as good.

* * * * *

The French are great lovers of art, and in the Louvre they claim the largest collection of pictures in the world. They looted Italy to get them, but they have them. No living artist has a picture in the Louvre. The fellows now on earth have to hang their pictures in the Salon or the Luxembourg or some other gallery, a sort of artistic tryout, with the judging done after they are no longer able to exert any personal influence. I think modern art is as good as ancient art, or better, except that every modern picture is not art. And I may add that in the Paris Salon the pictures painted by the artists of today have just as good color, better drawing and just as few clothes as the works of the old masters in the Louvre. I get along right well with the old masters until they paint Mary de Medici and Mary the mother of Christ sitting and talking together, and then I want to go outside and say a few things.

* * * * *

But while Paris is important in the world, politically, historically, and artistically, its great distinction nowadays is in millinery and dressmaking. The women go to Paris to shop, and the men go on account of the women. The men of Paris are about the worst dressers in the world. The women are the best. The Parisienne has the natural ability to take a hat and stick a feather in it so the effect is brilliant. She can wear a dress that costs much less than the gown of an English woman or an American woman, and she can look stylish when the other women have hard work to look decent. The American woman is second, and in a few respects, like shoes and gloves, she can beat the French; but take it all around, and the world removes its hat to the French milliner. Of course the milliner is often a man, but he has to have his Parisian model or he would fail. Let M. Worth or any of the other Monsieurs who dictate styles in feminine attire go to London and he would be a second-rater at once. This is true, whether you want to believe it or not, and the doubter need only spend a few days on the Paris boulevards to be convinced.

* * * * *

There may be some who think that the latest development in costumes, the hobble skirt, has reached America. They are mistaken. No real French hobble skirt could go down the street of an American city without starting a riot. When one does get to the territory of the Stars and Stripes the railroads will run excursion trains. The first day or two in Paris I was nervous about this style of gown. When I saw a saucy French lady in a dress which looked as if it was put on by a glove-fitter, I felt that I ought to blush and look at the statuary. I was told by the best feminine authority with me that in order to wear one of those skirts it was necessary to discard any wearing apparel which is usually beneath the female skirt. The poor, pretty things would go along the street like boys in a sack-race trying to walk, and by a slit up one side which was not buttoned for several feet from the bottom, a little motion was secured. But when the lady crossed the street, or when she climbed to the top of a bus or even stepped into a cab, it was necessary in order that she maintain appearances that there be not even a hole in her stocking above the knee. Of course I do not speak from personal observation. Far be it from me to watch a lady cross the street or climb into a vehicle. But I knew how it must be from a careless study of the environment, and my theory was confirmed by the evidence of all those who did not hide their eyes or observe the scenery. And I will add that it is extremely difficult to keep the blinders on while seeing the sights.

I only speak of these matters because they are much more in evidence in Paris than are the Statue of Liberty, or the Column of Vendôme, or any of the great places that the guide-books tell about.

* * * * *

The French are delightfully “natural” about many things. It is quite the proper thing for a man and woman to hug and kiss each other in public. At first this startled me and I felt that perhaps they were excited. But no, it is just the proper way to manifest their feelings at the time. Just imagine how it would be if the Frenchman across the table from you put his arm around the lady next to him and she snuggled up to him and patted his cheek with her unengaged hand. I felt like getting right up and saying, “Excuse me. Am I intruding?” But I soon learned that they didn’t mind us at all. Their idea of love is to let go all holds and l-o-v-e. Their theory of matrimony is that it is an arrangement based on family position, business and prospects. No young woman can get a husband unless she has a dot, so much capital. The parents arrange the matches, and usually do so carefully and thoughtfully. The girl, who has not even been allowed to go to school with the boys, has no idea of any other arrangement; and the man, who has never thought of matrimony in another way, considers it a part of his “career.”

A man in France cannot marry without the consent of his parents until he is 25 and a woman not till she is 21. This law is strictly obeyed, and there is no running off to some other state where the rule is different. I suppose French marriages arranged in this apparently cold-blooded manner by the parents turn out on the average as well as they would if they let the young people rush in and “marry for love.” But it doesn’t seem right to us, any more than our ways seem good to them. Of course a Frenchman does not insist that his “sweetheart” shall have a “dot,” so that kind of an arrangement is made by the parties themselves. All of which seems very wrong to English and Americans; and yet the French prove it is the best way by using the divorce figures, for divorce is practically unknown in France. The French woman is the business partner of her husband, and necessity makes them pull together just as they were taught to do from their youth up. She doesn’t belong to clubs any more than her husband does. She has a great deal of liberty, and in fact is often the head of the firm.

In Dover Town

DOVER, ENGLAND, August 22.

One of the strange things in this old world is a boundary line. You are on a railway in Germany, hearing no language but German. The train crosses the imaginary line and you hear an entirely different language, and if you try to use the words which were understood ten minutes before, the people do not understand you. They are French, and they not only speak a different language but they differ in custom, tastes and looks. It would be just like a traveler from Hutchinson to Kansas City being able to speak and understand what people said at Argentine, but on arrival at the union depot in Kansas City finding a different looking and different talking lot, who could not understand a word he said. And arriving in the Kansas City depot neither understanding nor being understood, would be something of an ordeal, especially if you were trying to change trains and make a sharp connection. It is no wonder that an ordinary Kansan traveling in this European land puts in much of his time figuring out his route and a lot more doing it.

* * * * *

Of course it is a joy to arrive in England and be able to talk and to understand everything that is said. Two hours after we left the fish-smelly Boulogne I was quarreling in right fair English with a railroad official because a train was late. In France we would have had to stand around and look pleasant, for the official would not have known whether we were cross about the train or the reciprocity treaty. It often relieves your mind to tell a Frenchman or a German what you think of him or his country in English, but it doesn’t cause him any discomfort.

* * * * *

Dover is a most interesting town, with a castle, a harbor, a garrison, and a history. It is the closest English port to France, and on a clear day with good eyes and a vivid imagination you can see Calais in France, 21 miles away. Ever since William the Conqueror came over and did his conquering, the English have kept Dover fortified in such a way that it would be difficult for another conqueror to follow his example. The town lies along the shore and back into a small river valley. The hills, about 300 feet high, begin at the water’s edge and go up very rapidly. The biggest hill is on the east, and rises straight up from the sea 375 feet. The face of the cliff is white, for the rock formation is chalk, and, topped with green trees and a big stone castle, makes a fine appearance from the water or from the beach. There is not only this old castle, which is a fort with a regiment of soldiers, but the cliff is mined and tunneled, and big cannon are at the opening in the earth, ready to shoot the stuffing out of any hostile fleet or army which comes this way. The only time the castle was ever captured was when Cromwell worked some strategem and got it away from the Royalists. After looking it all over I don’t see how any army could possibly capture Dover castle so long as the defenders stayed awake.

The Romans first built a fort here, and the remains of the old Roman walls are still a small part of the present fortifications. The Saxons built some, then the Normans, and after that various generations of English,--so that the castle contains specimens of a lot of different styles of architecture. On the whole it is one of the most imposing castles in Europe, both by location and by construction.

This castle business is peculiar. Sometimes a little runt of a building with a tower and a high fence is famous in history and story because of a great fight, or a brilliant robber who lived there. To the tourist it is a disappointment. I suppose every one gets his idea of what a castle looks like from the reading done in his youth. When I was a boy I thought a castle must be a good deal like the court-house at Cottonwood Falls, which is 80 feet high, with a mansard roof and a jail with barred windows in the rear. Then I got a larger idea, something like the Reformatory at Hutchinson. And when I came to personally see these ancient castles I have frequently had to back up to my early theories. Now I am an expert in castles, and can talk of them without admitting to myself it is all guess-work. When we started up the Rhine from Bonn I occupied an unquestioned place as an authority, for I had been in the great castle country before. But this time my trip was reversed. To an admiring company of boat acquaintances I pointed out in the distance a magnificent castle we were approaching. I started to tell the legend of the castle, when it became apparent that the structure was a cement plant. Then I was more careful, but soon located another, a really splendid castle standing off a little from the river. I would have gotten through all right if some smart aleck had not butted in with the uncalled for information that the building was a brewery. But that is what a real castle looks like, the Hutchinson Reformatory, a cement plant, or a brewery, whichever comparison comes easiest for you to understand.

* * * * *

Dover was one of the “Cinque Ports.” Five little towns along the coast of the channel had a sort of organization which was given recognition by the government under the early Norman kings. The towns were granted privileges and relieved from burdens of taxation in consideration of furnishing ships in time of war. The principal work of a navy at that time was to capture merchant vessels, slug the crews and keep the cargoes; so the towns prospered under the arrangement. It has been only a couple of hundred years since there was a standing army or a royal navy. When the king declared war he issued a call and the lords and knights responded with their men, and the army was formed for the campaign. If any of the nobles got sore on the king, they took their troops and went home. A navy was raised in the same way, only by the towns along the coast instead of by individuals. Such an army and navy was not satisfactory, but the English parliament refused to furnish money for a standing army until after the days of good Queen Anne, about 200 years ago. Now the English army is not near as large as the armies on the continent, but the English navy is kept twice the size of any other navy in the world. Germany is the country that England suspects as a possible enemy. Germany and France are crossways right now over which shall get the most of Morocco, and England is bound to stand by France in case of trouble. Morocco isn’t worth anything to anybody, but it may cause a terrible war between the most highly civilized nations of Europe. And yet some people are opposed to arbitration because of “national honor.” The opponents of arbitration ought to come over to these poor countries laboring under the weight of big armies and navies, and see how people are suffering because of the foolish feudal notion that the way to decide which is right is to fight it out.

* * * * *

We ate our lunch today in a restaurant which proudly boasts that its steps were the place where David Copperfield rested during his search for his aunt, Betsey Trotwood. Little Dorrit lived at Dover, and the men and women of Dickens land often visited or made their homes in this quaint old seaport or in its vicinity. Shut your eyes to the big cliff and its imposing fortress, forget the harbor with its ships and men of war, quit observing the narrow streets and crooked lanes which run up and down the side of the hill, and live with the people that Dickens made so real that to most of us they surely existed. That is Dover, a different Dover from the red-coated, fish-smelling, quaintly architectured place in which people are buying and selling, and a Dover which will live as long as the English language is read.

Old Canterbury Today

CANTERBURY, ENGLAND, August 24.

This little city of 25,000 inhabitants is the ecclesiastical capital of England, and has been for over a thousand years. Some time before the year 600 Queen Bertha, wife of the Saxon king, became a Christian and built a small church in Canterbury. Then when St. Augustine came in 597 and took the king and all his army into the church at one big baptizing, the king gave him the palace and the heathen church, and they were converted into a cathedral and monastery. St. Augustine and succeeding archbishops were the heads of the church in England, and when the Normans came in 1066 they continued the rule. The first Norman archbishop began the construction of the present cathedral, and as money was plenty and labor cheap, it was built magnificently. The Archbishop of Canterbury received the title of Primate of All England, and he wears it to this day. The English Church is a government institution, the archbishop is a member of the House of Lords, and the position is easily the greatest in the Protestant world.

The murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket, in 1170, was the greatest thing that ever happened for Canterbury. He was in a controversy with King Henry, and made life so uncomfortable for the king that Henry remarked to some of his followers that if he had a few real friends there would be no Thomas Becket to worry him. Henry was probably drunk when he made this talk, although it doubtless was an expression of his real feelings. Four of his knights took him at his word, hiked to Canterbury, and killed the archbishop right in the cathedral. The murder was a shock to Christendom. The dead archbishop was canonized as a saint, and the people generally refused to believe Henry’s statement that he didn’t mean what he said. Everything went wrong with Henry, and the sacrilegious act was held responsible. Two years later the king went to Canterbury and took a whipping on his bare back as a penance for his remarks, and for years pilgrims came to Canterbury, miracles were reported wrought by the relics, and the cathedral and Canterbury got rich from the pilgrim business and the valuable gifts showered upon the shrine of St. Thomas.

* * * * *

It is customary to consider Thomas Becket a martyr to the cause of liberty and to indulge in great eulogy of him as a saint. But he was really a plain man like the rest of us. His trouble with the king came because Henry wanted to recognize some other bishops, and Thomas, who was proud and stubborn, claimed that he alone had the power. It was really a conflict of authority between the church and the state, and a good deal to be said on both sides. Thomas abused the king viciously and had several bishops excommunicated because they agreed with Henry. He also threatened the king, and the disagreement was all over jobs and money. Those were tough times, and the usual way to get rid of an enemy was to kill him if you could. Unfortunately for Henry, his self-appointed friends did a bungling job, Thomas became a saint, and the king had to concede to the church all the privileges that had been claimed. Three hundred years later King Henry the Eighth, in order to secure a divorce and a new queen, overthrew the authority of the church, made himself the head of it, and incidentally sent to Canterbury, took all the valuables that had been placed on the shrine of St. Thomas, and put them in the national treasury, that is, his own pocket.

* * * * *

But during that 300 years the supremacy of Canterbury as the religious head of the nation became fixed. The archbishops generally had to go into politics, many of them achieved greatness, and some were executed publicly. The cathedral was added to, “restored,” improved, and is now one of the very finest cathedrals in Europe. To an Englishman or an American it is more interesting than any other church in England, except perhaps Westminster Abbey. It has specimens of all kinds of architecture in its different parts, but they have been so harmoniously put together that the edifice is imposing on the outside and most impressive on the inside.

Canterbury itself is a sleepy old town, very full of quaint houses and with plenty of tradition to make things interesting. Chaucer, Dickens, Thackeray and other English writers have woven Canterbury into their stories, and on every side you are shown the places where heroes and heroines of fiction made their homes. But this week Canterbury is busy. The last game of the cricket season is being played, and Canterbury is as crazy over cricket as Hutchinson was over baseball when in the Western Association. The cricket association of England is made up of the counties, and I had the opportunity of seeing the game between Kent and Yorkshire. Fully ten thousand people attended, and I suppose they enjoyed the game, though English cricket is as tame to an American as the moo of a cow would seem to a roaring lion, or as spring-water lemonade would taste to a colonel from Kentucky. The game began at 10 o’clock in the morning, with Yorkshire, the visiting team, at the bat. At one o’clock the Yorks were put out after making 75 runs. Then there was lunch, and the crowd stayed on the field and under the trees for what looked to me like a harvest home picnic in Kansas. At 2 o’clock play was resumed, and continued till 4 o’clock, when the game stopped for the players and spectators to have tea. Yes, tea! Imagine an American ball game suspended for a half-hour while the ball-players enjoyed tea and sandwiches! It was too much for me. I saw the last half of the first inning would not be ended in one day, so I quit the cricketers and their tea and went off to look at an old church, which was more exciting.

* * * * *

There are some peculiarities about cricket when viewed from an American standpoint. The association or league corresponds very well to our National or American League. A club of eleven men may be all professionals, or, as is usually the case, some may be amateurs. A professional is a player who is paid, and on the score his name appears without prefix, just “Brown.” But if he is an amateur and plays without pay, his name is on the score card “J. M. Brown, Esq.” He is then called a “gentleman player.” The game usually lasts two days. The side that is in stays in until ten men are put out. The pitcher or bowler tries to hit the wicket, three little posts that stand like our baseball home plate, and if he does, the batter is out. The batter, or in English the batsman, defends the “wicket,” and when he hits the ball far enough runs to the other wicket, which is located at the pitcher’s box. If he knocks a fly and it is caught he is out, or if a fielder gets the ball and hits the wicket while he is running, he is out. Two batsmen are up at a time, and a man may make a lot of runs. I saw Woolley, the pride of Kent, score 56 runs, and players often exceed the hundred mark. If the game is not finished in three days it is declared off.

* * * * *

The crowd was quiet and ladylike. Occasionally they would applaud and say “Well bowled, sir,” but they did not tell the umpire he was rotten and they never urged the visiting club to warm up another pitcher. Not a word was said by the players, not a pop-bottle was thrown, nobody was benched and there was never a thought of such a thing. The English are better sportsmen than we are, and they applaud a good play by a visitor. A man who tried to rattle the bowler by screaming that his arm was glass, would be arrested and probably hung.

* * * * *

Besides the cathedral, the quaint buildings and the cricket, Canterbury also offered an opportunity to see the moving pictures of the Jeffries-Johnson prize fight in a theater next to the church. Of course I did not go. I told several Englishmen that in America we considered these pictures degrading, and as between the fight pictures and the cathedral I preferred the cathedral. Besides, I had seen the fight pictures before.

* * * * *

Another very interesting church in Canterbury is St. Martin’s, a little one, but considered the mother church of England. It is said to be the one erected for Queen Bertha before her Saxon husband, Ethelbert, was converted. This was prior to 600. It is on a foundation which was used for a Roman temple. Within the church is a big stone font said to have been used for the baptizing of Ethelbert. There is little doubt but that the history of St. Martin’s is clear and it is the oldest Christian church in all England.

* * * * *

Associating with old cathedrals and Saxon churches makes one feel a few thrills. Even the inn where Chaucer put up his pilgrims seems modern. But cricket and the prize-fight pictures make up a sort of balance, and second-hand shops with wonderful salesmen bring one back to the 20th century. Canterbury has a famous brewery which is better patronized locally than is the cathedral, and farmers are in town trying to get hop-pickers just like Kansas farmers after hands in harvest-time. If St. Thomas could come back and see the automobiles running around his old monastery, notice the electric lights in the cathedral crypt, observe the American tourists with their guide-books and their gall, he would probably have some thrills himself.

The English Strike

LONDON, August 28.

There was a great strike of railway men in England last week, the news of which was sent over the world. As a subject of conversation and discussion it has taken the place of ordinary sights and tourist stunts. A very large per cent of the railway employés went out, there was rioting in several places, the soldiers were called upon, there was almost war in spots, and several people, innocent by-standers usually, were killed. The government secured a cessation of the strike by getting men and managers to agree to submit the differences to a national commission and be bound by it--an agreement both sides will break if it does not suit them. A railroad strike is a most serious thing in England, for in London and the manufacturing centers the people depend on the railroads to bring in their provisions, and as ice is almost unknown very few shops have more than a day’s supply of meats, fish and fresh eatables on hand. So the strike was pinching millions of people who had no personal interest in its result.

If I were a railroad employé in England I would strike, or at least I’d strike out for America or some other land where a man has a show. Railroad men are not well paid in England, rather worse than other working-men. Engineers, or drivers as they are called, rarely get to exceed 30 to 35 shillings a week (seven to nine dollars). Firemen, switch-men, baggagemen, station-men, operators, conductors and brakemen get from 20 shillings to 35 shillings a week (five to nine dollars). And yet both passenger fares and freight charges are higher in England than in Kansas. In discussing the subject with an educated Englishman I complained that a man with a family could not live on these wages. “Yes, but they do,” he said; “but the family doesn’t get meat every day--and the family doesn’t need meat every day.” I argued on, that a man can’t buy a home, or save anything for trouble or old age. “That’s true,” he said, “and it is unfortunate. But his children won’t let him starve, and there is some light job he can do to help out. The government is now preparing a plan for the pensioning of old people. When that law is working, a man won’t have to worry about the future.”

Which is a rotten theory. It merely means that with the prospect of a pension of less than two dollars a week an English laborer can be kept working at the present low standard. I am for the old-age pension, but I am for the proper payment of a workingman while he is at the age to enjoy life. This beautiful England with its castles and palaces and picture galleries and great history is far behind every other nation in its treatment of the workingman, and consequently England is now sitting on a keg of dynamite which is likely to explode. Once get it out of the heads of the English workmen that they have to submit to these things and these wages because their fathers did, and that it is a great blessing to have a king and lords, and the English working-men will raise Hades with the present political and social conditions in merry England. It seems to me that the time is not far distant when the explosion will take place. Only very skillful management on the part of the English statesmen and the very conservative habits of thought of the English people prevented most serious trouble last week.

An English workman usually has a large family, and the only way they can keep from going hungry or to the poorhouse is for the whole family to work and mother and children earn money to put into the common treasury. Meat, vegetables, fruit, everything to eat, costs more in England than it does in Kansas. Rent is less, but our workmen wouldn’t live as these have to. Clothing is cheaper in some respects and dearer in others. But the item is small with an English workman. You can see that after he pays rent and buys food he has very little left for wearing apparel, so father wears his suit until it is worn out, mother gets along on second-hand clothing, which is generally used, and the children have a cheaper grade and little of it.

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I am not knocking on the English. This condition which seems so distressing to me is a product of their conditions and is not the deliberate purpose of the people. I think it comes from the conservatism of the English character, and also from the fact that the English workman competes against the world. English manufactures and commerce have been built up because in England labor is intelligent, high-class, and cheap. I can have a tailor-made suit of clothes for twelve dollars in London. That’s fine for me, but how is it for the tailor? And it doesn’t help the other English workingman, for he does not have the twelve. On the other hand, the ability of the American workman to buy has brought it to pass that he can get just as good a suit, better fitted and better looking, at a Hutchinson clothing store for twelve to fifteen dollars,--and he has the money and buys! There is going to be some discussion of clothing and the woolen schedule in the United States, and I want to put in this testimony. Before I left home I bought a suit in Hutchinson for fifteen dollars. No English tailor-made suit for that price looks near so well, and the way it fits and hangs is complimented by the English. The only kind of stuff that is cheaper in England than with us is that in which hand labor is employed. Women buy laces because they are made by intelligent working-women who are paid 25 to 50 cents a day. Silk hats are cheaper, but the same quality hat I buy at home cost me just as much in London, and shirts, underwear, sox, etc., are as expensive here as in Hutchinson. I am told the same rule applies to women’s clothes. Americans who come to England and continue to live on the same standard they do in America say that living is more expensive here. Of course they can have three or four servants for the same price they paid the one hired girl at home, and can pose as being “upper class.”

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I went to a barber shop, a first-class one. I was shaved for a “tuppence” (four American cents) and had my hair cut for a “trippence” (six American cents). I gave the barber a tip of a penny, for which he was very thankful, and then I went out of the shop growling at a country where I could get shaved so cheaply and where a tailor-made suit cost only $12. In this world of ours we are so dependent on one another that you can’t cheapen one man without cheapening all the rest. I asked the street-car conductor and he told me he was paid five dollars a week--and he has a family of six. The chamber-maid at the hotel works for a dollar a week and board. A good coachman or a house-man gets one to two dollars a week and board. A clerk in a store does well to beat five dollars a week. How do they live? I don’t know, but they do; but they have all heard of America and Canada and Australia, and would go there if they could raise the fare, or if it were not for leaving family and home.

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I am getting away from the strike subject. I make myself unpopular with some of the English, the wealthier people and their foot-men, by insisting that the railroad men ought to strike and ought to have their wages doubled, when I have to pay more than two cents a mile for a second-class fare, and about twice as much for shipping freight as I would in Kansas. And I always compare with Kansas, a place most of them never heard of, and I suppose they think I am describing a fictitious land where the millennium has already arrived.

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We spent an afternoon at Richmond, where high hills rise from the valley of the Thames and the view of English farm and village, river and forest, is one of the finest in the world. Far away in the distance is Windsor Castle, the favorite royal dwelling-place, the Thames like a silver streak dotted with boats and wooded islands, quaint towns with old churches, and winding roads white with the macadam of chalky stone, occasional tram-ways, busses with the passengers on top, gardens and orchards, little strips of pasture with sheep and cows, fences of hedges and ivy-covered walls,--all of these things are a panorama which make the breath come fast, the heart beat more rapidly. The ground is historic, for it has been the living-place and fighting-place of great men from the time of the Saxons, and every town and hill is like a page of English history. Beautiful homes adorn the hillside and comfortable inns offer entertainment to the traveler and the visitor. It is a great picture, and artists have copied it onto their canvases. Turner and Gainsborough lived here, and their pictures of English scenery are more beautiful than their conceptions of saints and their portraits of sinners. Here is where good King Edward, the most popular monarch England has had in many years, came for a view and a night out. In the road-house on the height is the place where Lilly Langtry achieved fame by slipping a chunk of ice down the back of Edward’s princely neck.

We had lunch at The Boar’s Head and took tea at The Red Dog, two of the many taverns which show the English taste in names is just the same now as it was when Pickwick traveled and motor cars were unknown.

Englishman the Great

LONDON, August 31.

London is easily the capital of the world. As much as every other large nation might argue the question, there is general acceptance of the fact that Great Britain is the greatest force politically. The English navy, superior in size and quality to any other two navies, the English commerce which goes under the English flag to the furthermost parts, the great English colonies (almost independent states) Canada and Australia, the rich English possessions like India and South Africa, the English “spheres of influence” like Egypt and Persia, and the supremacy of English capital and banking methods,--all of these and the capable, self-possessed, educated English manhood and womanhood have made the power of Great Britain foremost among the nations. And London is not only the political capital of England and its dependencies, but it is the capital in business, books, art, fashion, science, and money. The wealth and the literature and the commerce of the world depend on the judgment of London. The very thought of the power thus included is impressive. I walked down Threadneedle street and Lombard street, each about as large as an alley in Hutchinson, and thought of the millions and millions of money and capital which those plain buildings contained, and of the power which the men within them possessed. Then I thought of the eight million people of London, moving around like ants in a hill, and the size, the activity, and the never-ending motion, brought most forcibly to mind how insignificant is one man, especially if he is from Kansas and doesn’t know a soul in all that aggregation.

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But there is one part of London in which all English-speaking people have a part--the London of history, of Dickens, Thackeray, Johnson, Shakespeare and those men whose names are living long after the money-lender and the broker are forgotten. A little way from the Bank and the bankers is the old Curiosity Shop, the Cheshire Cheese, the Cock, the Temple Courts, and hundreds of names familiar to every reader of English literature, and instead of being lonesome and oppressed by the weight of the millions of people and money, I felt that I had met old friends, and that Little Dorrit, or David Copperfield, or Samuel Johnson, or Pendennis, or Oliver Twist or some other acquaintance whom I knew very well was expected every minute. That is the great beauty of being an American in London, for all of the history and literature that have centered here is ours as well as our English cousins’.

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The hansom cab and the old omnibus are disappearing before the taxi and the motor-bus. It is a shame, but the world will move on. Every Englishman or traveler remembers the London cab, with its two wheels and hood-shaped carriage, and the driver up behind. There are still a few, but the taxis are faster, and the London cab horse will soon be freed. So it is with the old bus, drawn by two good horses and driven by an expert driver who knew all of the history and romance of the buildings along the route, and who would impart said information with decorations and embellishments to the traveler with a sixpence. All of this so-called progress, the motor cars and the wider streets, are doubtless more efficient and more sanitary, but they are not near so picturesque or interesting. The taxicabs go through the London crowds, the jam of vehicles and the congestion of traffic at a speed that would not be tolerated in a small town in Kansas. The policeman stands on the corner and regulates the moving mass, but apparently there is no speed limit, only punishment for bad driving. The motor-driver who runs over a man is severely punished, and that makes him careful. The rule works well, but not quite so well as the one in Paris, which punishes the pedestrian who gets in the way of the motor car.

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Next to the wages problem is the land problem in England. Three or four men own half the real estate in London. Their ancestors got it in a fairly legitimate way when it was outlying country, and now it is the heart of a great city. The English law of heredity keeps the estate together. The English land conditions are the worst I know of in any nation in the world. The rich old dukes who own so much of London cannot be pried loose from their holdings, and the actual residents cannot buy their homes or their business houses. The proprietor usually leases for 99 years, but every improvement goes to him eventually; he will do nothing himself, and the renter pays the taxes. On Piccadilly street, in the center of the fashionable residence and shop district, the Marquis of Landsup, or some such title, has a park of twenty acres which is surrounded by a high stone wall. It is a pretty park, but the owner’s family is there only a couple of months in the year when the weather is cold and the park is not usable. The rest of the time no one but servants and caretakers occupy that beautiful tract, with the city all around it. And thousands and tens of thousands of people are walking the streets or living in miserable tenements. I suspect I’d be a Socialist if I stayed long in London and thought much about such things as this. With all their brain and intellect the English statesmen have not solved the land problem in England, and they never will solve it until they upset the table.

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