Chapter II: Part 2

The Irish have kept the English Parliament in an uproar for a generation on this land question, and in recent years they have secured some friendly legislation. A court can now fix the rent rate on appeal—but the English government names the court. So far as Englishmen of the present day are concerned they would be glad to get out of the Irish problem and let the Irish have their land, but of course that can’t be done. The present parliament provided a plan for the eventual purchase of land by tenant, at a price to be fixed by the court if the two parties cannot agree. This is a step in the right direction and the Irish are glad of it, but as my Glengariff friend said, “It will not do any good in this generation.” And the exodus to America continues.

The Irish are very intelligent. I do not think the poor people of any other country are naturally so bright and so full of perception and understanding. They are kind and gentle. They are affectionate and patriotic. The English say they are “lazy,” but under the circumstances you could hardly expect them to be yearning for work, when more work means more valuable holdings, and that only means more rent for the landlord. The Irish have a reputation among the English for honesty. They are religious, and I thought at first they gave too much to the church and did not keep enough for themselves, when I saw the large and rich cathedrals. But, as an Irishman told me, “We’d rather give to the Lord than the landlord.” Public schools are providing education for the rising generation, and in the public school the boys and girls are being taught the Irish language and prepared for the coming fight which the Irish must make to capture Ireland—not probably for an independent government, but for actual ownership of the Irish soil.

Taxes are heavy. The burden of taxation is the income tax. “That falls on the landlord,” the thoughtless might say. Not on your life. The tax is simply added to the rent. There are fine public roads in Ireland, as good in the country districts as Main street in Hutchinson will be when it is paved. The only advantage a despotic government has over a popular government is that it builds better roads. When the people elect their own road bosses and levy their own road taxes I notice the roads are not so good as when some prince or cabinet minister who does not care what the people think, levies the tax and orders the road built right. The Irish statesmen are struggling for Irish ownership of Irish soil and an Irish parliament to deal with Irish affairs. They are “getting on,” and, as I said before, they make so much trouble in the English Parliament that I know the English would be glad to get rid of Irish local politics and give them back their parliament, if it were not for pride,—and the next parliament may cut out the pride.

I want to record one fact which I was surprised to find. The Irish are very temperate. I have been in city, town and country for ten days, have not been careful about keeping in the nice parts of town, and I have seen only one man under the influence of liquor, and he was an English sailor at Queenstown. This is in spite of the fact that every inn and grocery sells “spirits” and nearly everybody seems to drink them if he or she has the price. Perhaps the reason is that in Ireland all the liquor-selling is done by women—barmaids. Perhaps the influence of women behind the bar makes for temperance. I won’t state that as my conclusion, but just submit it for what it is worth to those who are trying to solve the liquor question in other countries.

Dublin is a good deal like an American city. It is full of business and not as Irish as the inland towns or Cork, although it has statues to O’Connell, Curran and Grattan, and will have one to Parnell. The lord lieutenant-governor, the representative of the king, resides at Dublin, and a big garrison of soldiers gives it an English tone. There is a fine university, which we visited. It was started by Queen Elizabeth, and has only recently been opened to Catholics and to women. Dublin has some great stores where Irish linen and Irish lace should naturally be cheap. If Mrs. Morgan were writing this letter she could add a chapter. I will only tell this little story: I was telling an Irish driver how nice everybody had been to us in Ireland and how pleasant the Irish were to Americans. “Yis,” he said. “Whin you go down the strate, everybody sez: ‘There’s some Americans, God bless ’em: mark up the prices on the linen and lace.’”

FRANCE.

THE CITY OF PLEASURE.

PARIS, FRANCE, June 19, 1905.

Since my last letter to The News we have been “going some,” and I will leave a few ideas I may have gleaned about England until I get back there on my return from the continent. We are pushing for a short visit to Italy before the summer gets too far advanced.

To use a classical expression, Paris is a bully sort of a town. If there is anything you want and don’t know where it is, I am satisfied you will find it in Paris. In England it was customary to close up and go to bed sometime after midnight and to rest on Sunday. Nobody in Paris thinks of either proposition. The only difference between Paris at midnight and Paris at midday is that it is livelier at midnight. The performance is continuous and it is worth the price of admission.

Coming into a country where your language is not generally spoken is always a little trying on the nerves. The French people have made it as easy as possible, but the ways are strange and the helpless tourist can only do as others do and trust to Providence and the power of a little money distributed as well as possible. I do not know how much Providence has had to do with it, but I do believe there are mighty few doors in France which a piece of money will not unlock. When I came into France I knew only two French expressions, one meaning “How much?” and the other, “Thank you.” With that vocabulary we went through the custom-house examination, a five-hour railroad journey, landed in a big city station, got a carriage, reached the hotel and an interpreter without any more trouble than we would have in Sterling. Of course everybody from conductor to porter knew we were Americans and could not speak French, knew what we ought to do next and showed the way, and all we had to do was to look pleasant and hand out small change. And it doesn’t cost much to be liberal in France. I gave the conductor an equivalent to our 10 cents, and I know he thought I was rich. The porter who took my baggage through the custom-house and brought me a carriage was deeply impressed with my financial standing when I gave him 6 cents worth of French coppers. The coachman who brought Mrs. Morgan and myself with four big grips from the station to the hotel, two miles, charged me the full price, 30 cents for everything, and when I tossed him another dime like a millionaire he took his hat off three times. The French people I have met have been very polite. They always tip their hats and go out of their way to show me, and they are never so discourteous as to refuse 2 cents. Imagine giving a Santa Fe conductor 10 cents for showing you where to sit in the car!

As a lesson in political economy I will put in my observation so far as I have gone: Everything in Europe that is made or done by labor is cheap. I was offered a tailor-made suit of clothes in London for $18 that would cost $30 in Hutchinson. A farm laborer in England gets about 50 cents a day and boards himself. The barber shaves you for 2 or 3 cents. Bread and meat are higher than in the United States. You can see how the wage-earner gets it going and coming. I am learning a few things from experience that I had been told before, but I want to visit a few more places before I try to form my conclusions and put them into print.

Paris is a beautiful city. In spite of the great business houses, the manufactories and the banks which I have seen, it strikes me as a kind of play town. Every day in the week in Paris looks like an American town on the Fourth of July, and on Sunday it is Fourth of July and Christmas together and then some. The men who are working at wages that would make Americans vicious, are as light-hearted and pleasant appearing as a Sunday school picnic. The women are as vivacious as a lot of school ma’ams at institute. As soon as work is completed it seems as if every Parisian only goes home to put on his good clothes and then comes down town accompanied by his wife, or somebody’s wife. Half the places of business along the principal streets are restaurants and a good many of the others are also restaurants. The Frenchman sits at a little table on the sidewalk in front of the café and puts in the evening drinking one glass of wine or absinthe, chatting with his neighbor and watching the women go by with their good clothes and bright faces. Every French woman is an artist when it comes to clothes. The goods may not cost much, but the gown is tastefully made, and if the lady wants to she sticks on a bow or jabs a flower in her hat, regardless of every rule except that it looks pretty there—and it always does. Bright and light gowns, hats that are up-to-date or ahead, hair to match the hat and hose to match the dress—and the artist’s work is done. No wonder the men hurry down town and sit on the sidewalk!

In the afternoon and evening the Paris streets look like a spring millinery opening—also like a display of samples of fine hosiery. Perhaps I ought not to go into the subject, but it will not be a fair description of Paris if I leave it out, and I must warn any other Kansan who may venture this way. When a Parisian lady walks along a sidewalk that is perfectly clear and clean she daintily lifts her dress so as to display only the top of the shoe, maybe an inch or two more. Sometimes she thoughtlessly raises the gown a little higher. When she reaches the street-crossing—but I had better stop, for she doesn’t. I have always been of the opinion that under such circumstances a plain, respectful man should look the other way and I have a crick in my neck from looking—the other way—since I came to Paris. Remember this is in fine weather when the walks and crossings are clean. “They say” that when the walks are muddy the result is even more startling to a staid observer from Kansas. If the weather gets bad I don’t know what I will do.

The philosophy in the above is that it gives you an idea of Paris with its brilliantly lighted streets, the men eating and drinking, sitting at the little tables along the walks, the well-dressed people, the brilliant colors, the laughter, the bright and polite conduct of men and women, the holiday appearance, the pleasure that everyone is having, and the general gait at which Parisians travel. As another example let me add, fully one-third of that part of Paris which in any other city would be devoted to business, is given up to public gardens, playgrounds for children, parks and drives,—not out in the country or to one side, but right through the center of Paris. The houses, business and residence, are none of them more than six stories high, and I am told the law does not permit higher structures. It is a good idea, for you get air and sunlight, which you often do not in New York and Chicago, and you can occasionally see out over the city. About every so often is a circle or square from which radiate from six to a dozen avenues and boulevards. These streets divide into others which reach forward to other squares, and are intersected at every conceivable angle by cross-streets. The object of this plan was to place artillery in the square and thus command the streets and boulevards against the revolutionists, who have always been doing or about to do something in Paris. The houses, five or six stories high, are built right up from the sidewalk, and have inner courts. Usually there are stores or shops in the downstairs rooms facing the street and living-rooms back and above. And speaking of stores, most of them are about ten by twelve feet, one-half display window. The interior is lined with mirrors which make the room look large and two or three customers like a crowd. The French use mirrors every chance—there are three beautiful mirrors in our small bedroom. The shops are generally decorated with flowers, pictures and statuary and a sign “English spoken,” the latter being usually a delusion and a snare. Instead of naming a street or avenue and then sticking to it, the names of the streets frequently change. The boulevard our hotel is on begins as the Madeleine, runs two blocks and then becomes the Capoucins, two blocks more and it is the Italiens. We are on the Capoucins part, and besides the Boulevard des Capoucins, there is street “Rue des Capoucins,” and a square “Place des Capoucins,” each in a different section. The necessity of a stranger in Paris keeping sober is very apparent. The streets, squares and public buildings are adorned with frequent statues—good ones. Almost any way you turn there is something beautiful to look at. The French are artists and lovers of art. If there were such a thing as a Kansas joint in Paris it would be decorated like an art gallery. But the joints in Paris are open and run twenty-four hours a day, seven days in the week, and the police never interfere with anything that goes on except in case of a disturbance of the peace or abuse of the government.

The French like Americans and don’t like the English or the Germans. But that does not mean they refuse anybody’s money. In our country when a man gets a comfortable income he grows gray-haired and wrinkled trying to make more. A Frenchman spoke to me of this trait, and said that when one of his countrymen reached the point where he could live nicely on what he had accumulated or the salary he was receiving, he quit worrying and took to the cafés and boulevards to enjoy life. Perhaps the French way is the best, at least the French look happier over mighty little than we do over much more. They go in for “pleasure” and they enjoy it as do no other people I have seen.

PARIS AND PARISIANS.

PARIS, June 20, 1905.

Almost the first thing we did after we reached Paris was to go to the Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine did its bloody work during the French Revolution. It is now a beautiful square adorned with statues, and is the center of the pleasure-ground of Paris. After tightly shutting our eyes so as to avoid seeing the gay Parisians passing by, we recalled the terrible scenes which took place a little more than a hundred years ago. Here Louis XVI., the unfortunate king, paid the penalty for the crimes of his family and class. Here Marie Antoinette was executed, and scores and hundreds of the French nobility. Poor Marie Antoinette, who always did and said the wrong thing, has been the recipient of the sympathy of the world. But in addition to the sorrow for her I have never been able to get over my sympathy for the thousands of women who marched to Versailles and when the king and queen appeared to quiet them, cried, “Give us bread for our children!” For France at that time was suffering as no other nation has suffered from physical oppression and poverty resulting from misgovernment and utter disregard of the lives and property of the people. In order to carry on wars and build monuments and palaces and indulge in personal dissipation and pleasure, the rulers of France had sucked the life of the nation like the juice from an orange. The French still make a great fuss over Louis XIV., “The grand monarch,” who made France the leading nation of Europe. But it was the logical outcome of his methods and grinding government that resulted in the degradation of the people, their poverty and distress, and the revolution which sent his great grandson to the block.

After the French Jacobins executed their king and queen they began to fall out and “revolute” against each other, and so nearly all the leaders of the revolution went to the guillotine and got it where Louis and Antoinette did—in the neck. In a little more than two years over 2,800 persons perished here by the guillotine, and the place is very appropriately called “de la Concorde.” Around the square are statues representing eight of the cities of France, the one for Strassburg still there, but draped in black and with emblems of mourning for the city and province taken from France by Germany at the end of the last war. Every Frenchman has in his heart the intent to lick the Germans and recover Alsace.

I will not attempt to describe in detail the great palaces of the Tuileries and the magnificent gardens, the Louvre with its acres of paintings and statuary, most of which I did not see because it was like eating pie—there is a limit. These are historic grounds, for back and forth among statues of peace and beautiful works of art the French people have fought each other time and again, sometimes destroying but always rebuilding. From Place de la Concorde extends the Champs-Elysées (pronounced Shame-on-Lizzy, as near as I can get it). This is a great avenue 400 yards wide and over a mile long, consisting of parallel boulevards running through trees and flowers, playgrounds and palaces here and there, and at all times of the day and night filled with people and carriages.

The Champs-Elysées and the Bois de Boulogne, a park of over 2,000 acres in which it terminates, are the fashionable drives of Paris. It cost only 40 cents an hour for Mrs. Morgan and I to drive with the Parisian élite, and we took advantage of the opportunity to see Paris society. The carriages in the early evening extend in procession over miles of boulevard, and are often six or eight abreast. The drives wind around through woods, by good-sized lakes, along sides of cascades, and the carriages are filled with the swellest lot of gowns and cutest little dogs I have ever seen. Nearly every woman has a dog on her string as well as a man. In all of this style there is a general lack of formality which is appropriate to the scenery. It is not an uncommon sight to see the ladies and gentlemen with their arms around each other. It isn’t so bad when you get used to it, and the fashion is considered strictly proper in France. I am no longer shocked when I see a young man just ahead of me in the street put his arm around his girl, and in the street cars and automobiles the sight is a frequent one and never attracts comment or disapproval. At first Mrs. Morgan and I nudged each other at such things, but in less than a week’s time the novelty has disappeared.

I like the Champs-Elysées, for it looks a good deal as First avenue in Hutchinson would if it were about ten times as wide and the city kept up the parking.

And that leads me to repeat an observation which I have made before. It takes a strong government to do big things. You couldn’t get the people in America to put up money to construct palaces, widen boulevards, set up statues in all directions and devote the main part of the city to trees, flowers, walks and drives, playgrounds and art galleries. But whether the government of France has been a monarchy or a republic has made no difference in the fact that it exercised nearly absolute power over such things. The government appoints the officials in all cities and provinces and the government has the army. We talk about “government ownership” as if it were something new. The government of France has been in business more than a century. For example, the government has the monopoly of the tobacco business—manufactures and sells all the tobacco used in France, charges what it pleases and puts out mighty poor stuff. The government has owned the Sèvres china decorating factory for over a century, and the Gobelin tapestry, and I don’t know how many more such things. Lack of knowledge of the language has kept me from finding out all on these subjects I am going to before I get home, but it seems to me that whenever the French government sees some exceptionally profitable business, it just takes hold of the proposition and passes a law forbidding anyone else competing. The French are used to this sort of thing and accept it as the inevitable. I wonder if Americans would stand for it and for all the petty regulations that go with it. An army of workingmen is required to maintain all these parks, palaces, art galleries, opera-houses and government institutions, and I suspect the number is never reduced. A friend was telling how in a short ride on a government railroad his ticket was examined by five conductors. We reached the conclusion that this work, which in America would have been done by one man, was strung out for the good political reason—more jobs. Of course nothing like that would happen in America.

The workingmen still wear the long blouse outside the trousers, which looks like a heavy night-shirt and reaches below the knees. At the time of the great revolution the workingmen were so poor that they could not afford to wear trousers and the long blouses were all that covered them. Hence came the nickname “sanscullottes,” meaning “without breeches,” and as all who have read the story of the revolution or Victor Hugo’s books will remember, the Sansculottes, the men without breeches, made up the mob which upset the throne and established the republic.

The French still worship Napoleon. They have forgiven the sacrifice of blood and treasure which he forced from them, and remember the glory and the greatness of the empire. And in spite of the fact that Napoleon III. quit the emperor business under a cloud, having been removed from office after his surrender to the Germans in 1870, he is well thought of, for during his reign France and Paris prospered and times were good. There is a large party in France that favors the return of the present representative of the Napoleon family, Prince Victor, to the throne. We went to the Church of Madeleine, the most beautiful and fashionable church in Paris, and over the altar is a beautiful painting of Napoleon receiving the crown from the pope, with Christ in the background of the picture. That is just like the French.

I made an effort to get into the meeting of the Chamber of Deputies, the French congress, but failed. You have to have a ticket of admission, and it must be applied for several days in advance. They tell me the session is a good deal like an old-time Kansas Populist convention, where everybody said what he wanted to and then everybody was of the same opinion still. The meeting often gets so tumultuous that the president of the body adjourns it. Such an assembly must be guarded by careful and tactful leadership or it will end in a row. I can’t understand French politics. There are really no parties such as we have. A large majority favor the republic. The minority is composed of Clericals, Bonapartists, Radicals, and Socialists. The government party is divided into factions, and the issues are personal rather than on economic questions. The minority is of course divided, and the result is that the government wins somehow or other nearly every time. If it should lose, a new cabinet would be formed; but that would be taken from the same party as the old, and would be merely a different lot of statesmen. The French republic is all right so long as there is no serious trouble, but a Dreyfus incident, or a war, or hard times might overturn the government, and nobody knows whether the monarchists might not get on top again. The church is opposed to the policy of the republic, which has been to decrease the power of the church, cut off the parochial schools, and take education out of the hands of the religious bodies. The men in France are not very religious, leaving that part of life to the women and children. But a large and respectable party is in opposition to the government on account of the way it has confiscated church property and driven out the religious orders.

There are only a few electric lines in Paris, and they are not in the main part of the city. The people use carriages a great deal, for they are so cheap; and also omnibuses. The usual means of traveling in the city, aside from the cab, is the omnibus, which is double-decked, carrying as many people on top as inside. This seems a trifle slow to Americans, but it works all right in Paris. The ’buses make regular processions up and down the principal streets, and as they are nearly always filled inside and outside, they add immensely to the Parisian picture. There is an underground railroad and there are dummy lines in the suburbs, but I think the people of Paris like to travel where they can see and be seen. The cabs are victorias. Automobiles are everywhere, and if you go to Paris to live and want to cut any ice you must get one.

I saw a little scene which seemed to show up Parisian character. A cab collided slightly with another. Immediately both drivers were off their vehicles, gesticulating and talking about 300 words a minute. As they shook their fists and grew red in the face with the words that came so fast they interfered with each other, I thought somebody would surely be killed. Nobody noticed them. No one paid any attention. And finally the two exhausted men climbed back to their places and drove on. I know they used French words to each other that in America would have ensured a police court trial for disturbance of the peace. A French friend to whom I mentioned the matter said it was the invariable way, and he thought the French method of taking out their wrath in words was better than the American way of fighting it out. Perhaps he was right, but as I afterward saw the scene repeated in different forms it always occurred to me that it was childish. And that reminds me to say that the Frenchman is in the habit of playing with his children, taking part in their games as excitedly as they do.

The French people are industrious and they save their money. France is really a rich nation. Most of the money is made in what seem small ways to Americans. The French are what we call “thrifty.” No matter how little they earn they save something, and the whole family works,—men, women and children. When their day’s labor is ended the whole family goes out for a good time—cheap, or within their means. Their natural temperaments and the beautiful surroundings make it easy for them to do this, and it is very seldom a Frenchman leaves his native land. He doesn’t travel much, but he believes in other people traveling and coming to France to spend their money. He is willing to help in the good work of separating foreigners from their cash, but he is gentlemanly about it. I like the French people even though I can’t understand some of the ways their minds work.

RURAL FRANCE.

MARSEILLES, FRANCE, June 23, 1905.

Rural France is a picture. Seen from a car-window it is a succession of fields and villages, at this time of year a continuous combination of greens and white. French farms are small. I suppose twenty or thirty acres is a big place, and many are much less than that. But the land is fertilized, drained, irrigated and worked to the limit. The people live in villages and not much on their own farms. Each village has a common pasture. During the day the farmers go out onto their little places and in the evening they return to town to spend the hours with their neighbors and friends. The houses are all white stone with red tiled roofs and the villages are numerous, one every two or three miles in every direction. A farm of twenty acres is divided into strips for various crops, so that the landscape is striped with the fields of wheat, alfalfa, potatoes and grass, which seem to be the popular products. Cattle are not so numerous, but sheep are plentiful, goats abound and hogs (always white that I have seen) are on every place. A strip of land a hundred yards wide in wheat will run across the twenty acres, and the next strip will be some other crop, making the hues of green vary. The most extensive crop besides grass is grapes, and hillsides which in our country would be considered too steep and too stony for cultivation are covered with vines. Nature is like the French, artistic when she has a chance, and the combination produces a beautiful effect. Coming from Paris to Marseilles through the valleys of the Seine and the Rhone, it was 500 miles of continuous agriculture and pretty towns. Do you wonder it looks like a picture, with the villages of white houses and red tops, the fields and hills of green, and the rivers like ribbons running here and there?

France is ahead of England and Ireland in this point: Nearly every French farmer owns his own place, even if it is small. In Great Britain the big landlords own the land and rent it to tenants. In France the farmers, or peasants, as they are called, are landlords of their own if it is small. The French nobility lost their possessions and they were bought up by the people. A French farmer does not have the opportunity to make himself a large land proprietor. He can work all his days and only hope to accumulate a little place and enough to take care of him in his last days. But he is able to do that, and it has been almost impossible to do so in Great Britain.

The farms are separated from one another by high stone walls. In driving along the highway these walls shut off the view of the fields and you have to get up above the walls to see the picture. The stone walls are the evidence that the place is the exclusive property of the owner. The grass field is inclosed by these high fences, and the gates are locked at night as if they were afraid somebody would steal the land. It looks strange indeed to a tourist from the land of quarter-sections and barb wires.

Every Frenchman has to serve in the army three years. This is not militia service, but regular soldiery. It takes three of the best years out of a young man’s life. Of course it gives some compensation in the way of discipline, and in continental Europe every nation has to keep its pockets full of rocks and its people ready for war with the neighbors. A republic cannot neglect this matter any more than a monarchy, and France loses a great deal by the withdrawal of its young men from the producing class during a time when they could be very useful.

In the fields men and women work side by side. The women of France have plenty of rights. They can plow or rake hay all day long, and then they can indulge in the recreation of housework in the evening. This is harvest-time, and on nearly every farm I saw the whole family at work, not with reapers and mowers, but with good sickles and hand-rakes. The women seem to age earlier than in America, but this fact is true wherever I have been outside of the United States.

That reminds me of a mistaken notion I had before coming here. I thought the women of the United States were more active in a business way than the women of other countries, and had progressed in taking hold of what is generally called “men’s work” more than the women of Europe. That is a mistake. Proportionately women have more to do with business in England and France than they do in America. Nearly all the hotels in Great Britain are managed by women. Shops, stores and offices are filled with women. The fact is, the combined labor of husband and wife is necessary among “the great plain people,” to get enough to support the family, and in Ireland, England and France this is taken as a matter of course. Especially in France do I find women managing business, and doing so with the skill and success which shows that it is neither a new thing nor a side occupation. In America it is generally accepted that a man who can do so will take the brunt of the work and a woman will find her time fully occupied with housekeeping. And there is also a widespread practice of raising the girls to sit in the parlor while their mother washes the dishes. That is not the way they do in France. A young woman is brought up to expect what she will get—a young man whom she will have to help, or they will go hungry. There are not many chances for a young man to get ahead fast. He has no reason to believe that he will be better fixed than his father or than his grandfather. In fact, in France a boy usually follows the occupation of his father, so that a family for generations will be farmers, shoemakers, shopkeepers, etc. In America a farmer usually wants his son to study law, while a lawyer hopes his son will be a business man, and a merchant sees the advantage of rural life. Our people change around from generation to generation, and I doubt on that account if we make as good workmen as the French do, who are brought up in their occupation. Of course our people would be discontented with the French way, but the Frenchmen seem to be satisfied and they get a good many compensating advantages to offset the opportunities which young Americans have, but of which young Frenchmen never dream.

There are some disadvantages under which these Europeans labor which they should remove. They never get any pie. Here in a land where the cherries grow big and red and juicy, a Frenchman will grow to manhood and old age without knowing the taste of cherry pie. It is a great misfortune. Since landing in Europe I have never seen a piece of pie of any description, from Queenstown to Marseilles. They have “tarts” and “sweetmeats,” but these can’t approach pie any more than Cow creek can be compared to the Mississippi river. Even in the best hotels and restaurants of London there is no sign of pie on the bill of fare, and the French cooks, who can make old hash taste like choice bits of fresh meat or better, have not learned the science of constructing pie, mince, apple, pumpkin, cherry or any kind of pie. I do not know how they do it, but the railroad restaurants are run without pie. Even the crowned heads go through life without knowing the taste of pumpkin pie, and one of my ideas of royalty in my early days was that a king or prince could have custard pie with flaky brown crust three times a day. No wonder the rulers of Europe are afraid of revolution. If they would see that their subjects had square meals and pie at least for dinner, the heads that wear the crowns need not be so uneasy.

And the Europeans are trying to live without hot cakes for breakfast. I suppose there is not a man or woman in Europe who would recognize by experience the rich and regal buckwheat cake, or the corn cake, or the pancake. I can’t understand why the reformers in this country do not get to the point, and see that the people have flapjacks for breakfast as well as pie for dinner, and then let the disbanding of the armies proceed.

Every American citizen who is sane and patriotic believes that he is a fisherman, and tries to prove it whenever he gets near a creek or river. Whether he actually catches any fish or not, he “goes fishing.” I was somewhat worked up in Ireland and England because the streams were nearly all private property and the ordinary citizen had no chance to fish any more than he did to attend the wedding of the prince. I was glad to know that it is different in France. Last Sunday in Paris we walked along the banks of the Seine as it runs through the city between the stone walls and under the stone bridges. The stream was lined with fishermen. One of the privileges the citizens of Paris enjoy is to fish in the Seine, and I was told that there were at least 10,000 Frenchmen watching the corks on the river that afternoon. I waited for a long time to see them catch a French fish. Occasionally one of the men or women would pull up a line, but the bait was never missing. Finally I asked a friend who has been in Paris some time if anybody ever caught a fish. He said he had never really heard of anyone but there was a tradition that along about the time of Napoleon III. somebody did catch a fish in the Seine. He doubted the story, but said I could believe it if I wanted to. And yet there are theologians and doctors of divinity who say the French people are losing in faith, when these thousands were demonstrating to the contrary and were heartily enjoying the privilege the government gives and for which the Parisians would doubtless fight, the right to fish in the river.

This city of Marseilles, in which we are spending a couple of days, is the principal seaport of France. It was established by the Phœnicians, and was an important town when Julius Cæsar was setting up the primaries in Rome. It is the port from which France does business with southern Europe, Africa, Asia, and even America. Consequently the harbor is full of all kinds of shipping, the streets are crowded with Arabs, Greeks, Spaniards, Turks, Italians, and representatives of all nations which use the sea, and the town has the largest collection of odors and smells that I have met. As a strange fact I will add that Marseilles is the first large city I have visited in Europe with a good up-to-date electric railway system. Americans do not come here very much. So far as I know, Mrs. Morgan and I are the only Americans in the city, and there is not a soul at our hotel who can speak English. So you see we are running up against a little real foreign experience.

ITALY.

GETTING INTO ITALY.

ROME, June 27, 1905.

One can hardly realize until he has had some experience how quick and how decided is the transition from one country to another, and especially the change in language. At 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon we were in France, everybody around us and on the train talking French. At 6 o’clock we were in Italy: everybody was talking Italian, and the French language had disappeared as quickly as did the English when we landed at Calais. You know when you are going from one country to the next, also, because the custom-house is on the line and you have to haul out all your dirty clothes and souvenirs for the officials to examine to see if you are a smuggler. Let me tell how we came into Italy.

We boarded the train on the French railroad at Monte Carlo and had an hour’s ride to the frontier. By this time I had picked up enough French so I could get along reasonably well with the help of the sign language and a little money. But neither of us knew a word of Italian, and there was no one with us that day who could talk English. At Vintimille, where we crossed the line, we had to change trains, have our tickets signed and our baggage examined in forty minutes. With a full realization that nobody could understand me and I could understand no one, I tackled the job, putting my trust in Providence and a pocketful of small Italian coins which I had secured at Monte Carlo. When the train stopped in the Vintimille station a porter came alongside and according to the custom of the country I handed the four “bags” which constitute our baggage to him through the car-window. Then we got out and I told him in English what I wanted. He reeled off a lot of Italian and two or three bystanders chipped in, and a hotel runner attempted to capture us. But I took out my through ticket, pointed to it, jingled the coins in my pocket, and the porter understood. Of course I did not know at first whether he did or not, but we followed him and he led us into the custom-house and put our grips on a big table. Up came an inspector and jabbered Italian and I jabbered back in English. We both laughed, and of course neither understood what the other wanted. He asked me several questions, to all of which I said, “Can’t understand,” and then he gave me a final grin and said, “Tobac?” To that I said “No,” and shook my head. Without looking into the grips at all he chalked something on them which I suppose corresponds to our “O. K.,” threw up his hands and said something to the porter which made him and the surrounding onlookers burst forth in a loud guffaw. I felt as I suppose a poor Dago does when he strikes America. I again showed my ticket to the porter and pointed to the place where it must be signed. He puzzled over that a while and then took it and went away for a few minutes and came back with the work properly done. Then he took us to the Italian train the other side of the station, put our bags in the racks and we hoped we were on the right train—we were. I gave that porter a lot of Italian money, aggregating about 20 cents American, and he saluted me as if I were a duke or a saint. Mrs. Morgan says I spoiled him with my extravagant tip. But I felt so grateful to him that I didn’t care if I did make him proud with all that money at once. Let him swell up inside and parade the avenue all the evening and take his family out to dinner if he wants to. Let him take that 20 cents and pose as an Italian Rockefeller.

Then we were in Italy and couldn’t even read the signs. It makes you foolish to look over the door of your car and see the words which mean “Smoking permitted,” or “Smoking forbidden” and not know which. We were the only people in the compartment, and the conductor took a great deal of interest in us. He tried to tell us something and I tried to tell him something, but when we got through neither of us had added to our stock of knowledge. After the train had been going for a while he came to us and began to make signs and chatter. He held up both hands with the fingers extended. Mrs. Morgan was quite sure he meant $10 fine for smoking in that compartment, so I threw away my cigar, but he didn’t stop. At last I realized that he was making the signs of a man eating and drinking. I guessed he meant by both hands that the train would stop ten minutes for lunch, or that we wouldn’t get anything to eat until 10 o’clock. When the train stopped at the next station it turned out that the first of these two was right.

The road from Vintimille to Genoa is a branch, and the ticket had to be signed and trains changed again at Genoa, and we also wanted to get a sleeping-car on to Rome. We had twenty-seven minutes at the station in Genoa, which is bigger than the Union Depot at Kansas City. Again I threw the grips out of the window and followed the porter. Then I left Mrs. Morgan with the baggage while the porter led me a merry chase around the block to the office where the ticket was to be signed or “viséd.” It was 11 o’clock at night, and you can imagine how it felt to be guided around among those Italians wondering all the while if the porter knew what I wanted. But he did and I returned in safety, and then I tried to find out about the sleeping-car. In French this is called a “Litts-salon,” and in German a “Schlaf-wagen,” literally a sleep-wagon. I tried English, French and German, but finally found the sleeper by examining the train,—next to the engine, of course, just where I wasn’t expecting it. We got on board safely, and after distributing a lot more Italian coppers I found we had transacted the business and had five minutes to spare,—as good time as I could have made in America to do all those things. All I then had to do was to hand out the required sleeper fare, $7.50 to Rome, 300 miles, three times what Mr. Pullman would have charged. But I reserve my comments on European sleeping-cars until I get a little more experience for a letter on railroads in the Old World.

And this is an old world. When I was in Boston I looked with awe upon the churches and monuments of 1776. In England these years seemed recent, and it took a cathedral or a castle of Elizabeth’s time or back to William the Conqueror. But here in Rome the very latest and newest buildings that we look at are those of the early Christians, and to get a real thrill they have to show me something B. C. It is really a good deal like living back in those times. I can’t read the newspapers and don’t know what has happened since I left Paris nearly a week ago. At that time the Russians and Japs were either going to have a conference or a fight, or both. Sometimes I wonder what has occurred, but generally I am concerning myself with what Julius Cæsar did, standing by the old forum and imagining Mark Antony denouncing the boss-busters, or wondering if Cicero’s speech against Catiline was not a political blunder which would make the old man trouble at the next city election. The only difficulty is to make the modern Italians fit in with the old Romans. Somehow or other it is hard to imagine the lazy gents who hold out their hands for coppers as real Romans who ruled the world.

The first real striking feature of Italy we noticed at Vintimille was the policemen. They wear handsome full-dress uniforms with red braid down the trousers, gilt lace and epaulets on the coats, tri-cornered hat with an immense plume, and carry in sight a sword and revolver. An Italian policeman walking his beat makes a gorgeous Knight Templar uniform look cheap. You never see one policeman—there are always two together. The police of the whole country are appointed by the royal government, not by local officials, and are selected from the army. They are good-looking fellows, and wear their tight, heavy coats buttoned up in front regardless of the fact that it is Italy and the climate is not better than Kansas the last of June. One of the troubles with Italy is that it is really a second-class power, but it tries to keep up an army and navy in rivalry with Germany, Russia, and France. Every Italian must put in three years in active service. Take a country about the size of Kansas, fill it up with an army of 300,000 men and you see soldiers in every direction. Immense cathedrals and palaces filled with valuable gems and works of art, an army of expensive uniforms, and a poverty-stricken people,—that is Italy. The tourist hurries along and shuts his eyes to the distress as much as he can, visits the galleries and the churches, the ruins and the historic spots. He tries to see only the Italy of 2,000 years ago. He is fortunate if he can keep himself worked up in an ecstasy over the Cæsars and the old masters, so that the half-clothed children, the broken-down women and the men working without hope, do not leave an impression on his heart. I can’t shut my eyes tight enough to avoid seeing those things and sympathizing with the poor Italian people who have no show.

But here we are in Italy, not the Italy of to-day, but the Italy of Cæsar and Cicero, Nero and Constantine, the Italy where Paul and Peter planted the Christian religion and where they died the death of martyrs; the Italy of temples and colosseums, cathedrals and catacombs,—the Italy we read about, if you please, and not the Italy now on the map.

ROME AND ROMANS.

ROME, June 29, 1905.

There is so much in the point of view. Here are things which I have studied about, read about, wondered about. Some of them on close inspection are impressive yet. Others are commonplace. And there are even some which are ridiculous. On approaching Rome I had tried to take an inventory of the things I most wanted to see first: The Forum, St. Peter’s, the Appian Way, the Coliseum, the Sistine Chapel, the Tarpeian Rock, the Vatican, and the list was as long as I could set down. But really the words that kept haunting me and which were always in my mind were “the yellow Tiber.” Like every other school-boy of my time, I had learned and recited “Horatius at the Bridge,” and I wanted to see the raging torrent which saved Rome when Horatius held back the foe until the Romans had cut down the only bridge. I kept saying to myself:

“Then up spake brave Horatius,
The captain of the gate:
‘To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better
Than when facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods?’”

Accordingly the first observation I made in Rome was of the Tiber. It is yellow, all right, and about as wide as the Cottonwood river. It seemed impossible to associate that stream with the Tiber of which historians had told and poets sung. But it was the Tiber, all right—from another view-point.