Chapter XX: The English and Their Institutions 355 (9)

"Own a house?" he echoed in surprise at our ignorance. "Nobody owns a house here; the squire who lives in the big place on the hill yonder owns the town--and everybody in it. A common man hasn't any chance to own anything in England. It doesn't seem fair and I don't understand it--but we live by it in England--we live by it in England."

We divert his bitter reflections by asking him about the town.

"Don't forget the old Ship Inn," he said, "and the church--it has the tallest tower in Cornwall. You can see through the big castle on the hill if you get permission. Any famous people?--why, yes--Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch lives here. He's our only titled man and some of his books, they say, tell about Fowey."

We thank our sailor friend and repair to the Ship Inn, as he counseled us. They show us the "great Tudor room," the pride of the house--a large beamed and paneled apartment with many black-oak carvings. But the chief end of the Ship to-day appears to be liquor selling, and not being bibulously inclined, we depart for the church. It was built in the reign of Edward IV., just before that monarch dealt the town its death-blow as a port and marked the end of Fowey's prosperity. The timber roof, the carved-oak pulpit and stone baptismal font are all unusually fine and there are some elaborate monuments to old-time dignitaries of the town. Place House, the great castellated palace on the hill, with immense, elaborately carved bow-windows, is the dominating feature of the town. Inside there is some remarkable open timberwork roofing the great hall and much antique paneling and carving. There is also a valuable collection of furniture and objects of art which has accumulated in the four hundred years that the place has belonged to the Treffry family. It is more of a palatial residence than a fortress and it appears never to have suffered seriously from siege or warfare.

We are soon away on the highroad to Truro, which proves good though steep in places. There is a fine medieval church at St. Austell and another at Probus has one of the most striking towers we saw in England. It is of later origin than the main body of the church; some two hundred feet high, and is surmounted by Gothic pinnacles, with carved stone balustrades extending between them. Near the top it is pierced by eight large perpendicular windows, two to each side, and it is altogether a graceful and imposing edifice. Such churches in the poor little towns that cluster about them--no doubt poorer when the churches were built--go to show the store the Cornishmen of early days set by their religion, which led them out of their poverty to rear such stately structures; but it is quite likely that a goodly part of the profits of their old occupations--wrecking, smuggling and piracy--went into these churches as a salve to conscience. Nor is the church-building spirit entirely extinct, as proven by the magnificent towers of Truro Cathedral, of which I shall have more to say anon and which soon breaks into our view.

As a matter of variation we take the southern route by the way of Helston from Truro to Penzance. This is rougher and has more steep hills than the direct road through Rudruth. Helston is some ten miles north of the Lizard Peninsula, where there is much beautiful coast scenery--especially Kynance Cove. Coming up the road along the coast toward Marazion, one gets a perfect view of the castle-crowned bulk of the Cornish St. Michael's Mount, the seat of the St. Aubyns. In the distance it stands like an immense pyramid against a wide reach of sunset sky, but as we come nearer the towers and battlements of the castle come out weird and strange; in the purple shadows the whole vast pile savors of enchantment. Beyond it shimmers the wide calm of Penzance Harbor--as it chances, dotted with the dark forms of some fifty leviathans of the British navy. For there is to be a great naval review in Penzance the coming week; the king and queen and a host of celebrities are expected. The town is gay with decorations and delirious with expectancy of the big events to come. Graham-White, the famous aviator, is to appear and there are to be many thrilling evolutions and much powder-burning by the royal fleet. Hotels and lodging-houses are crowded to the limit and if we have ever been somewhat dubious whether to try the hospitality of Land's End for the night, it is settled now--we could hardly stay in Penzance unless we camp on the street. It was indeed a bitter disappointment to Penzance that the capricious Cornish weather completely ruined the expected fete. Furious winds and continual rain drove the fleet to the more sheltered Tor Bay and the programme, on a greatly reduced scale, took place there. Aside from the disappointment, the people of the town suffered a heavy loss in the large sums they had spent in anticipation of the event. But Penzance is all unconscious of the fate in store for it; its streets are thronged and it is fairly ablaze with the national colors and elaborate electrical decorations. We thread our way slowly through its streets into the lonely indifferent lane that winds over steep and barren hills to Land's End.

XIX

LAND'S END TO LONDON

The first sight of Land's End Hotel, a low, drab-colored building standing on the bleak headland, is apt to beget in the wayfarer who approaches it at sunset a feeling of regret that he passed through Penzance without stopping for the night. Nor does his regret grow less when he is assigned to ill-furnished rooms with uncomfortable-looking beds--which, I may say, do not belie their looks--or when he sits down to a dinner that is only a slight improvement upon our memorable banquet at John O'Groats. But we did not come to Land's End to find London hotel comforts and conveniences, but for purely sentimental reasons, which should preclude any fault-finding if accommodations are not just to our liking. It was our fancy to spend a night at both Land's End and John O'Groats--and it must be largely imagination that attracts so many tourists to these widely separated localities, since there are surely hundreds of bits of English and Scottish coast more picturesque or imposing than either.

But here we are, in any event, and we go forth in the gray twilight to take note of our surroundings. An old fellow who has been watching us closely since our arrival follows us and in a language that puzzles us a little urges the necessity of his services as guide if we are to see the wonders of Land's End. We are glad enough to have his assistance and he leads us toward the broken cliffs, thrusting their rugged bulk far into the white-capped waves which come rolling landward. The sky and sea are still tinged with the hues of sunset and a faint glow touches the reddish rocks along the shores. It is too late for the inspiring effect shown in Mr. Moran's wonderful picture--had we been an hour earlier we might have beheld such a scene. Subdued purplish hues now prevail and a dark violet-colored sea thunders upon the coast. The wind is blowing--to our notion, a gale, though our old guide calls it a stiff breeze.

"A 'igh wind, sir? Wot would you call a wind that piles up the waves so you can't see yonder lighthouse, that's two hundred and fifty feet tall? That's wot I'd call a 'igh wind, sir. And you'd be drenched to the skin in a minute standing where you are."

We revise our ideas of high winds accordingly, but a stiff breeze is quite enough for us, especially when the old man urges us to come out upon what seems to us an exceedingly precarious perch--because it is the "last rock in England." It stands almost sheer as a chimney with the sea foaming in indescribable fury some fifty or sixty feet below, and we have to decline, despite our guide's insistence that we are missing the chief sensation of Land's End. It was no doubt this identical spot which so impressed John Wesley, who visited Land's End in 1743, when he made his famous preaching tour in Cornwall.

"It was an awful sight," he wrote. "But how will this melt away when God ariseth in judgment. The sea beneath doth indeed boil like a pot. One would indeed think the sea to be hoary! But though they swell, they cannot prevail. He shall set the bounds which they cannot pass!" But the great preacher did not say whether he stood on the "last rock" or not.

We follow our guide in a strenuous scramble over the huge rocks to reach particular viewpoints, and, indeed, there are many awe-inspiring vistas of roaring ocean and rock-bound coast. Everywhere the sea attacks the shore in seeming fury, the great foam-crested waves sweeping against the jagged edges and breaking into a deluge of salt spray.

"I've seen more than one ship go to pieces on these rocks in winter storms," says our guide. "At the last wreck twenty-seven lives were lost. I recovered one body myself--a fine Spanish-looking gentleman six feet three inches tall," he goes on, with an evident relish for gruesome details.

"The winter storms must be terrible, indeed," we venture.

"You can't imagine how dreadful," he answers. "I've seen the sea so rough that for three months no boat could reach yonder lighthouse a mile away; but the keeper was lucky to have food and he kept his light shining all the time. It's a dreary, lonely country in winter time, but more people would come if they only knew what an awful sight it is to see the sea washing over these headlands."

The same story is told--in more polished language--by a writer who spent the winter in Cornwall and often visited Land's End on stormy nights: "The raving of the wind among the rocks; the dark ocean--exceedingly dark except when the flying clouds were broken and the stars shining in the clear spaces touched the big black incoming waves with a steely gray light; the jagged isolated rocks, on which so many ships have been shattered, rising in awful blackness from the spectral foam that appeared and vanished and appeared again; the multitudinous hoarse sounds of the sea, with throbbing and hollow booming noises in the caverns beneath--all together served to bring back something of the old vanished picture or vision of Bolerium as we first imagine it. The glare from the various lighthouses visible at this point only served to heighten the inexpressibly sombre effect, since shining from a distance they make the gloomy world appear vaster. Down in the south, twenty-five miles away, the low clouds were lit up at short intervals by wide white flashes, as of sheet lightning, from the Lizard light, the most powerful of all lights, the reflection of which may be seen at a distance of sixty or seventy miles at sea. In front of the Land's End promontory, within five miles of it, was the angry red glare from the Longships tower, and further away to the left the white revolving light of the Wolf lighthouse."

Darkness has fallen and almost blotted out the wild surroundings save for the gleams which flash from the lighthouses across the somber waters. We wend our way back to our inn to rest as best we may in anything but comfortable beds after an unusually strenuous day; we have traveled but one hundred and twenty miles since leaving Plymouth in the morning, but we have seen so much and had such varied experiences that we have a dim feeling of having come many times as far.

A glorious morning gives us the opportunity of seeing the wild coast at its best. A dark blue sea is breaking on the reddish brown rocks and chafing into white foam at their feet. We wander out on the headland to get a farewell glimpse of the scene--for there is little to tempt one to linger at Land's End; you may see it all at a sunset and sunrise. There is no historic ruin on the spot, and surely any thought of the hotel will hasten your departure if you ever had any intention of lingering.

Sennan, a forlorn collection of stone huts about a mile from Land's End, is worth noting only as a type of the few tiny villages in the bit of barren country beyond Penzance and St. Ives. There is nothing to catch the artistic eye in these bleak little places; they lack the quaintness of Polperro or St. Ives and the coziness and color of the flower-embowered cottages of Somerset and Hampshire. The isolated farmhouses show the same characteristics and a description by a writer who lived in one of these during the winter months is full of interest:

"Life on these small farms is incredibly rough. One may guess what it is like from the outward aspect of such places. Each, it is true, has its own individual character, but they are all pretty much alike in their dreary, naked and almost squalid appearance. Each, too, has its own ancient Cornish name, some of these very fine or very pretty, but you are tempted to rename them in your own mind Desolation Farm, Dreary Farm, Stony Farm, Bleak Farm and Hungry Farm. The farmhouse is a small, low place and invariably built of granite, with no garden or bush or flower about it. The one I stayed at was a couple of centuries old, but no one had ever thought of growing anything, even a marigold, to soften its bare, harsh aspect. The house itself could hardly be distinguished from the outhouses clustered round it. Several times on coming back to the house in a hurry and not exercising proper care I found I had made for the wrong door and got into the cow-house, or pig-house, or a shed of some sort, instead of into the human habitation. The cows and other animals were all about and you came through deep mud into the living-room. The pigs and fowls did not come in but were otherwise free to go where they liked. The rooms were very low; my hair, when I stood erect, just brushed the beams; but the living-room or kitchen was spacious for so small a house, and had the wide old open fireplace still common in this part of the country. Any other form of fireplace would not be suitable when the fuel consists of furze and turf."

Such are the towns and farmhouses of this farthest Cornwall to-day--a country once prosperous on account of tin and copper mines which are all now abandoned. I doubt if there is a more poverty-stricken rural section in the Kingdom than Cornwall. I noted in a paper edited by a socialist candidate for the House of Commons a curious outburst over a donation made by the king to the poor of Cornwall, which was accompanied by a little homily from His Majesty on the necessity of the beneficiaries helping themselves. The article is so significant in the light it throws on certain social conditions and as illustrating a greater degree of freedom of speech than is generally supposed to exist in England that I feel it worth quoting:

"Although we do not doubt the King's longing to help all his people, we must be forgiven if we refuse to be impressed by his apparent intensity of feeling. Not that we blame the King. In order to feel decently about the poor, one must have 'had some,' so to speak. And we can hardly imagine that King George knows much concerning the objects of his sympathy, when we consider the annual financial circumstances of his own compact little family. In the year that is ending they will have drawn between them the helpful pittance of six hundred thirty-four thousand pounds. This is exclusive of the income of the Prince of Wales, derived from the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall. And even if this sum has been badly drained by Yuletide beneficence (as faintly threatened in the Church Army donation) the New Year will bring sure replenishment of the royal purse.

"We should not have felt called upon to mention these little details were it not for the offensive phrase--'may they show their gratitude by industry and vigorous efforts to help themselves.' How can the poor devils who live in the foetid hovels which dot the Duchy of Cornwall 'help themselves?' Out of their shameful earnings--when they have any earnings--they must first pay toll to the bloated rent-roll of the King's infant son. Out of their constant penury they must help to provide an extravagant Civil List, to enable their Monarch to lecture on self-help at the end of a donation of twenty-five pounds. Help themselves? Show their gratitude? How can they help themselves when the earth was stolen from them before their birth, when their tools of production are owned and controlled by a group of moneyed parasites, when their laws are made and administered by the class which lives on their labours and fattens on their helplessness? Show their gratitude? Heaven have mercy upon us! What have they to be grateful for--these squalid, dependent, but always necessary outcasts of our civilization?"

I fear this is pretty much of a digression, though I think an interesting one. Not all of Cornwall shows evidence of such poverty--the country steadily improves as we hasten to the fine old town of Truro and there is much good country beyond. Though we have come but thirty-six miles from Land's End, the indisposition of one of our party makes it advisable to pause in the old Cornish capital, where we may be sure of comfortable quarters at the Red Lion.

We find this a commodious, substantial structure, built about two and a half centuries ago, with a fine entrance hall from which a black-oak stairway leads to the upper floors. Its accommodations and service seem to average with the best provincial hotels in towns the size of Truro, and, altogether, the Red Lion is perhaps as good a place to spend a day of enforced idleness as one is likely to come across.

The town itself has little enough to interest the stranger, as I found in wandering about for some hours. Even the splendid cathedral lacks antiquity and historic association, for it still wants a few finishing touches. It has been about thirty years in building and more than a million dollars has been expended in the work. The exterior conforms to the best early English traditions, the most striking feature being the three splendid towers--the central one rising to a height of two hundred and fifty feet. The interior is somewhat glaring and bare, owing largely to the absence of stained-glass windows, of which there are only a few. A portion of the old parish church is included in the building and contains a few ancient monuments of little importance. On the whole, Truro Cathedral is a fine example of modern church architecture and proves that the art is not a lost one by any means. I was fortunate in happening to be inside during an organ rehearsal and more majestic and inspiring music I never heard than the solemn melodies which filled the vast vacant building.

We are ready for the road after a day's sojourn in Truro, and depart in a steady rain which continues until nightfall. Our road--which we have traversed before--by way of St. Columb Major and Camelford to Launceston, is hilly and heavy and in the pouring rain we make only slow progress. The gray mist envelops the landscape; but it matters little, for the greater part of our road runs between the dirt fences I have described heretofore, which shut out much of the country, even on fine days. St. Columb and Camelford are dreary, angular little towns stretching closely along the highroad, quite unattractive in fine weather and under present conditions positively ugly. Camelford, some say, is the Camelot of the Arthurian romances, but surely no vestige of romance lingers about it to-day. From here we make a wild dash across the moor to Launceston--the rain is falling more heavily and the wind blowing a gale. Our meter seldom registers under forty miles, a pace that lands us quickly at the door of the White Hart; we are damp and cold and the old inn seems a timely haven, indeed. A change of raiment and warm luncheon makes us feel more at peace with the world, but we do not muster courage to venture out in the storm again. Perhaps if we could have foreseen that the following day would be no better, we should have resumed our journey. Indeed, the next morning the storm that drove the fleet away from Penzance was in full sway over Cornwall and a dreary, rain-swept country it was. The road northward to Holsworthy and Great Torrington is little else but a narrow and hilly lane, though as dreary a section as one will find in Cornwall or Devon, and here, also, the hedges intercept our view much of the way. The towns, too, are quite devoid of interest save the fine Perpendicular church which towers over Holsworthy. Bideford, famous in Kingsley's "Westward Ho!" and Barnstaple, with its potteries which produce the cheap but not inartistic "Barum ware," we have visited before and both have much worth seeing. We are now out of the zone of the storm and the weather is more tolerable; we have really been suffering from the cold in midsummer--not an uncommon thing in Britain.

There are two first-class old inns at Taunton--on different occasions people of the town had assured us that each was the best--and though Baedeker gives the London the preference and honors it with the much coveted star, we thought the Castle equally good. It is a gray-stone, ivy-covered building near the castle and if our luncheon may be taken as an index, its service is all that can be desired.

A little way out of Taunton we notice a monument a short distance from the roadside and easily identify it from pictures which we have seen as the memorial erected to commemorate the victory of King Alfred over the Danes at Sedgemoor. In olden times this whole section was a vast marsh in which was the Isle of Athelney, surrounded by an almost impenetrable morass. The king and a band of faithful followers built a causeway to the island, which served as a retreat while marshalling sufficient force to cope with the invaders. The rally of the Saxons around the intrepid king finally resulted in a signal victory, which broke the Danish power in England. Alfred built an abbey near the spot as a mark of pious gratitude for his success, but scarcely a trace remains of the structure to-day. In the same vicinity is supposed to have occurred the famous incident of King Alfred and the cakes, which he allowed to burn while watching them. Alfred was then in hiding, disguised as a farm laborer, and received a severe berating from the angry housewife for his carelessness.

But Sedgemoor is historic in a double sense, for here the conflict occurred between the forces of James II. and the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth, to which we have previously referred. The rebels planned a night attack on the royal army, and, knowing that carelessness and debauchery would prevail in the king's camp on Sunday, they chose that day for the assault. The accidental discharge of a pistol gave warning of the approach of the assailants and they had the farther misfortune to be hopelessly entangled in the deep drainage ditches which then (as now) intersected the valley. The result was a disastrous defeat for the Duke's followers, of whom a thousand were slain. Monmouth himself was discovered by his enemies after two days' search, hiding in a ditch, and was duly executed in London Tower. Some five hundred of his followers--mostly ignorant peasants--were hanged at Taunton and Dorchester by orders of the infamous Jeffreys. This battle, which took place on Sunday, July 5, 1685, was the last of any consequence to be fought on English soil. The historic field to-day is green and prosperous-looking and the only indication that it was once a marshy fen is the ditches which drain its surplus waters.

We pass Glastonbury and Wells, which might well detain us had we not visited them previously, for in all England there are few towns richer in tradition and history than the former; and the latter's cathedral no well-informed traveler would wish to miss. Bath, we know from several previous sojourns, affords an unequalled stopping-place for the night and we soon renew acquaintance at the Empire Hotel, where we are now fairly well known. Our odometer shows an unusually long day's run, much of which was under trying conditions of road and weather. This hotel belongs to a syndicate which owns several others, in London and at various resorts throughout the country. A guest who enters into a contract may stay the year round at these hotels for a surprisingly low figure, going from one to the other according to his pleasure--to Folkestone, for instance, if he wishes the seaside, or to London if he inclines towards the metropolis. Many English people of leisure avail themselves of this plan, which, it would seem, has its advantages in somewhat relieving the monotony of life in a single hotel.

Though we have been in Bath several times, something has always interfered with our plan to visit the abbey church and we resolve to make amends before we set out Londonward. There are few statelier church edifices in the island--the "Lantern of England," as the guide-books style it, on account of its magnificent windows. These are mainly modern and prove that the art of making stained glass is far from lost, as has sometimes been insisted. So predominating are the windows, in fact, that one writer declares, "It is the beauty of a flower a little overblown, though it has its charms just the same." The most remarkable of all is the great western group of seven splendid windows illustrating biblical subjects in wonderfully harmonious colors. As may be imagined, the interior is unusually well lighted, though the soft color tones prevent any garish effect. The intricate tracery of the fine fan vaulted ceiling is clearly brought out and also the delicate carving on the screen--a modern restoration, by the way. The monuments are tasteless and, in the main, of little importance, though our attention is naturally arrested by a memorial to "William Bingham, Senator of the United States of America," who died at Bath in 1804.

The exterior of the abbey--they tell us--has many architectural defects, though these are not apparent to the layman. The walls are supported by flying buttresses and the west front shows curious sculptures representing the angels upon Jacob's ladder. The tower, one hundred and sixty-five feet in height, is a pure example of English Perpendicular and is rather peculiar in that it is oblong rather than square.

As we leave the town we cannot but admire its cleanliness and beautiful location. It skirts both banks of the River Avon and is surrounded by an amphitheater of wooded hills. To our notion it is the finest of inland English resort towns and certainly none has a more varied past, nor has any other figured so extensively in literature. It is about one hundred miles from London by road, and is a favorite goal for the motorist from that city.

The road to London is a fine broad highway leading through Marlborough and Reading. It proves a splendid farewell run to our third long motor tour through Britain; we have covered in all nearly twenty thousand miles of highways and byways during varying weather. If there has been much sunshine, there have also been weeks of rain and many lowering gloomy days. There is scarce an historic shrine of importance in the Kingdom that has escaped us and we have visited hundreds of odd corners not even mentioned in the guide-books. And, best of all, we have come to know the people and have gained considerable familiarity with their institutions, which has not lessened our respect and admiration for the Motherland. Indeed, I feel that our experience sufficiently warrants a chapter on the English at home--as we saw them--and I make no apology for concluding this book with such. It is not free from criticism, I know, but could an honest observer write more favorably of our own country--if conditions were such that he might tour our populous states as thoroughly as we have done Britain?

Our last day on the road fulfills the ideal of English midsummer; the storm has passed, leaving the country fresh and bright; green fields alternate with the waving gold of the ripening harvest, and here and there we pass an old village or a solitary cottage by the roadside--all typical of the rural England we have come to love so much. We drive leisurely over the fine road and linger an hour or two in Marlborough after luncheon at the Ailesbury Arms, whose excellence we have proven on previous occasions. We find an antique-shop here with a store of old silver that rivals our discovery in Largo, and the prices asked are no higher.

From Reading we follow the Thames River road, which for some miles skirts the very shore of the historic stream and passes within a distant view of the towers of Windsor, rising in all their romantic majesty against the sunset sky. From Windsor we follow the familiar road to the heart of the teeming metropolis and our third long motor pilgrimage in Summer Britain is at its close.

XX

THE ENGLISH AND THEIR INSTITUTIONS

One who has spent many months in the United Kingdom, traveling about twenty thousand miles by motor and considerably by train, and who has met and conversed with the common people of every section of the country in the most retired nooks and in metropolitan cities, may, I hope without undue assumption, venture a few remarks on the English people and their institutions. One would be a dull observer indeed if he did not, with the opportunities which we had, see and learn many things concerning present-day Britain.

It is the custom of some American writers, even of recent date, to allege that a general dislike of Americans exists in the Kingdom; and it would not be very strange if this should be true, considering the manner in which many Americans conduct themselves while abroad. Our own experience was that such an idea is not well founded. In all our wanderings we saw no evidence whatever of such dislike. In England everyone knows an American at sight and had there been the slightest unfriendliness towards Americans as a class, it would certainly have been apparent to us during such a tour as our own. I think many incidents cited in this as well as in my former books go to prove that the reverse is true, but these incidents are only a fraction of what I might have given. That a certain uncongeniality, due to a difference in temperament and lack of mutual understanding, exists between the average American and the average Englishman, we may freely admit, but it would be wrong to view this as personal dislike of each other. I have no doubt that even this barrier will disappear in time, just as the dislike and jealousy which really did exist a quarter of a century ago have disappeared. Who could now conceive of the situation that moved Nathaniel Hawthorne to write in "Our Old Home" fifty years ago:

"An American is not apt to love the English people, on whatever length of acquaintance. I fancy they would value our regard and even reciprocate it in their ungracious way if we could give it to them, in spite of all rebuffs; but they are beset by a curious and inevitable infelicity which compels them, as it were, to keep up what they consider a wholesome feeling of bitterness between themselves and all other nations, especially Americans."

Of our own experience, at least, we may speak with authority. As a result of our several sojourns in Britain and extensive journeyings in every part of the Kingdom, we came to have only the kindest regard for the people and greater appreciation of their apparent good will. As we became better informed we were only the more interested in the history and traditions of the Motherland, and we almost came to feel something of the pride and satisfaction that must fill the breast of the patriotic Englishman himself. Nothing will serve more to impress on one the close connection between the two countries than the common literature which one finds everywhere in both; and you will pass scarce a town or village on all the highways and byways of the Old Country that has not its namesake in America.

Our impressions as to the fairness and honesty of the English people generally were most favorable. First of all, our dealings with hotels were perhaps the most numerous of our business transactions. Never to my recollection did we inquire in advance the price of accommodations, and I recall scarcely a single instance where we had reason to believe this had been taken advantage of. This was indeed in striking contrast to our experience with innkeepers on the Continent. For an American in possession of a motor to take up quarters in the average French or German hotel without close bargaining and an exact understanding as to charges would soon mean financial ruin to the tourist of moderate means. We could give almost as good report of the many English shopkeepers with whom we dealt--there was no evidence of any attempt to overcharge us on account of being tourists. Nor did I ever have a cab or carriage-driver try to exact more than was coming to him--though of course a small extra fee is always expected--certainly a contrast with New York City, for instance, where it is always hazardous to get into a cab without an iron-clad agreement with the driver. Perhaps the credit for this state of affairs may be due not so much to the honesty of the English Jehus as to a public sentiment which will not tolerate robbery. Nor should I fail to mention that in twenty thousand miles of touring our car was left unguarded hundreds of times with much movable property in it, and during our whole journey we never lost the value of a farthing from theft.

It is no new thing to say that the average Englishman is insular--but this became much more to us than mere hearsay before we left the country. The vision of few of the people extends beyond the Island, and we might almost say, beyond an immediate neighborhood. There is a great disinclination to get out of an established groove; outside of certain classes there appears to be little ambition to travel. I know of one intelligent young man of thirty who had never seen salt water--nowhere in England more than a hundred miles distant. I was told that a journey from a country town in Scotland or North England to London is an event in a lifetime with almost any one of the natives. The world beyond the confines of England is vague indeed; Germany, the universal bugbear, is best known and cordially hated, but of America only the haziest notions prevail. Not one in a thousand has any conception of our distances and excepting possibly a dozen cities, one town in America is quite as unknown as another.

Akin to this insularity is the lack of enterprise and adaptability everywhere noticeable--a clinging to outworn customs and methods. Since the English vision does not extend to the outer world, but little seems to be expected or even desired of it. There is not the constant desire for improvement, and the eager seeking after some way to do things quicker and better--so characteristic of America--is usually wanting. An American manufacturer will discard even new machinery if something more efficient comes out, but an Englishman only thinks of making his present machine last to the very limit of endurance. A friend told me of a relative of his who boasted that in his mill a steam engine had been running fifty years; it never occurred to the mill-owner that the old engine almost yearly ate up the cost of a new one on account of inefficiency and wasted fuel.

Often in garages where I took my car to have it cleaned and oiled, I could not help noting the inefficiency of the workmen. At times I had the engine crank case removed and cleaned and this one little thing gave a painful insight into the methods of the English workman. Nothing could be simpler than removing and replacing the dust shield under the engine--simply snapping six spring catches out of and into position. Yet I have seen one or even two men crawl around under the car for a half hour or more in performing this simple operation. In replacing the oil reservoir and pump I found that nothing would take the place of personal supervision--a cotter pin, gasket or what not would surely be left out to give further trouble. Repairing an American car in a provincial town would be a serious job unless the owner or his driver were able to oversee and direct the work.

As I have stated, we left England with decidedly favorable impressions of the country and people; so much so that I doubt not many of our fellow-countrymen would think us unduly prejudiced. But all this did not blind us to the fact that England in many regards is in a distinctly bad way and that a thorough awakening must come if she is to avoid sure decadence. Indeed, there are many, chief among them distinguished Englishmen and colonials, who aver that such decadence has already begun, but there is much difference of opinion as to its cause and as to what may best check its progress.

If I were to give my own humble opinion as to the chief disadvantage from which the country suffers and the most depressing influence on national character, I should place feudalism first of all and by this I mean the system of inherited titles, offices and entailed estates. I know that the government of the Kingdom is regarded as one of great efficiency and stability, and I think justly so; and this is often urged by apologists for the feudal system. But the Englishman is slow to learn that just as stable and quite as efficient government may be had without the handicap of outworn medievalism. That the present system seems to work well in England is not due to any inherent merit it may possess, but to the homogeneity of the nation, and to a universal spirit of law-abiding that would insure success for almost any respectable type of government. It does not work well in Ireland and never has; and it has substantially been abandoned in the self-governing colonies.

It seems to me, however, that the question as to how the feudal system works in government is of little consequence as compared with its ultimate effect on national character under modern conditions; for it is all out of accord with the spirit of modern progress, and if it ever served a useful purpose, it has well outlived it. One may justly claim that the king and the nobility have really little to do with governing, especially since the abolition of the veto of the House of Lords; that the will of the people finds expression in England quite as strongly as anywhere; but even if we admit this, I cannot see that it offers any argument in favor of feudalism. No one can make a tour of England such as ours and not observe the spirit of servility among the common people due to the inbred reverence for a title. Indeed, there is no feeling in England that all men are born free and equal, or that one man is quite as good as another so long as he behaves himself. A mere title, Sir, Duke, Earl, Lord or what-not, creates at once a different order of being and the toadyism to such titular distinctions is plainly noticeable everywhere. An earl or a duke is at our hotel; he may be a bankrupt, inconsequential fellow, it is true; he may not have a single personal trait to command respect and he may not be engaged in any useful industry. But there is much salaaming and everyone about the place assumes an awe-stricken, menial attitude, merely because the gentleman has the prefix Earl or Duke--there can be no other reason. Is it strange that such a spirit causes the common people to lose self-reliance and yield up their ambition to be anything more than their fathers before them? A proportion of the nobility may be composed of men of character and ability, fitted to occupy positions of authority and public responsibility and the present king may be all that a king should be; but the system is wrong and its effect on English character can hardly fail to have an untoward influence on the nation.

I find this view borne out in a guarded way in a book recently published by a prominent colonial official who spent some time in England. He insists that the lack of patriotism, which one can hardly fail to observe, is due to the present social system. He declares that the common people take little interest in national affairs and make no study of problems confronting the government. They expect the so-called "upper classes" to do the governing for them; there is no need to concern themselves over matters that must be settled by a House of Lords in whose choosing they can have no voice.

The recruits to the nobility now come almost exclusively from the wealthy class; we often have flung in our faces in England the taunt that there is an aristocracy of wealth in America, and that the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar is the all-prevailing passion. It may be just, in the same general way that I intend these remarks to apply to England, but we can at least retort that our oil, beef, mining and railway magnates cannot purchase a title and found a "family," thus becoming in the public eye a superior class of beings and established as our hereditary rulers. A wealthy brewer may not become "my lord" for a consideration, in any event.

A recent American writer makes the curious apology for the House of Lords as a legislative body that it affords the English people the services of the most successful moneyed men in framing laws and that the sons of such men are pretty sure to be practical, well-trained fellows themselves. He also argues that the families usually die out in a few generations, thus introducing new blood continually and forming, in his estimation, a most capable legislative body. The preposterous nature of such statements can best be shown by trying to apply such a system to the United States Senate. If our senators, for instance, were hereditary lords, recruited from the oil, beef, brewing, mining or railway magnates aforementioned, what might the American people expect from them? We complain vigorously if any senator is shown to be influenced by such interests and more than one legislator has found out to his grief that such a connection will not be tolerated. Suppose we had a system that put the principals themselves in a permanent legislative body and invested them with all the glamour of "his grace" or "my lord?" Quite unthinkable--and yet such is the system in Britain.

And these self-sacrificing hereditary legislators are no fonder of bearing the real burdens of the country than our own plutocrats are. There is much complaint in England that in the ranks of the nobility are to be found the most flagrant tax dodgers in the Kingdom. Nor does this complaint lack for vigorous utterance--a most hopeful sign of the times, to my notion. But recently a London paper exploited the case of the Marquis of Bute, owner of Cardiff Castle--and most of Cardiff, for that matter--who returned his personal tax at less than a thousand pounds, and that included Cardiff Castle and grounds, which represent literally millions! Yet no man in the Kingdom is better able to afford payment of his just tax than this nobleman. To show the gross injustice of his tax, a comparison was made of the castle with a humble tailor shop in Cardiff, ninety by one hundred and twenty feet, which was taxed at a higher figure! The newspaper in question also declared that this case was typical of tax-dodging lords all over the country.

That there is a strong under-current against the feudal system cannot be doubted; we found it everywhere, though at times but half expressed and again only to be inferred, but it exists none the less. Indeed, more recent developments have shown the extent of such sentiment in the overthrow of the veto power of the Lords. This is a great step in advance, though England would be infinitely the gainer if the feudal system were abolished and not merely modified. This antagonism does not extend to royalty--that institution escapes through the popularity of the present king and queen. But the time may come when a weak and unpopular king will turn public sentiment against the very keystone of feudalism and the whole structure is likely to fall. When one recollects the furore that prevailed in England when the former king as Prince of Wales was mixed up with the Baccarat scandals, it is easy to see how much royalty owes its existence to good behavior. At that time doubt was freely expressed as to whether the prince would ever be king of England, but he lived it all down by his subsequent good record. I had many intelligent men admit that "your system of government is right; we shall come to it some time," or words to that effect, and we heard many ill-concealed flings at the nobility. "We are all the property of the nobility," said one intelligent young shopman of whom in the course of conversation we inquired if he owned his home. "No one has any chance to own anything or be anything in England." And in a prayer-book at Stratford Church we found the petition "for the nobility" erased with heavy pencil lines.

I give these as typical of many similar instances, but I have no space in this book for discussion of the impressions I record. A volume would be required should I attempt this. I can only set down these random notes without elaborate argument. And yet, what could be more convincing that the social system of England is wrong than the hopelessness we found everywhere and the refrain that we heard oftener than any other, "A common man has no chance in England?" If he is not fortunate or a genius, there is nothing for him. He must either succumb to inevitable mediocrity and poverty or get away to some new country to gain the opportunity of competence and social promotion in any degree.

It is to the feudal system that can be charged the astonishing state of affairs in England that makes a gentleman of a person with no occupation--a loafer, we would style him in America--and socially degrades the useful citizen engaged in trade. On this particular phase I will not pass my own comment, but quote from a book, "Wake Up, England," by P. A. Vaile, Premier of New Zealand, lately issued by a London publisher:

"There is perhaps nothing in English life so disgusting to a man who has not the scales upon his eyes as the loathsome snobbery of those who profess to despise a man because his income is derived from a trade or business. It is wholly inexcusable and contemptible. Trade, instead of being considered honourable and dignified, is, in the eyes of every snob, a degradation. Unfortunately, snobs in England are not scarce.

"The tradesman is himself in a great measure to blame for this, for he accepts humbly as his due the contempt that is meted out to him. Most of those who so freely despise the poor necessary man of trade, have a portion of their savings, when they are lucky enough to have any, invested in some large millinery or pork-butcher's business that has been floated into a limited liability company--yet to them the man who earns their dividends is absolutely outside the pale.

"If there is any nation that I know that is hopelessly bourgeois, it is England. Why can we not be manly enough to recognize the fact, to acknowledge and freely admit to ourselves that we are a nation of very commonplace individuals, mostly shopkeepers, that it is the shopkeepers who have made the nation what she is, and that commerce is an occupation worthy of any gentleman instead of being a calling which merits the contempt of the idle, the rich and the foolish?"

If such a condition prevails in England, it can surely be chargeable to nothing else than a system which places the stamp of superiority on the idler and puts him in a position where he can assume a patronizing air towards those who are the backbone and mainstay of the nation.

Hand in hand with outworn feudalism goes the established church, of which it is really a part and parcel. A state religion of which a none too religious king may be the head, and whose control may fall into the hands of politicians who are frequently without the first qualification of churchmen, is an incongruity at best. If America has proven anything, she has demonstrated that absolute separation is best for both church and state; that true religious freedom and amity can best be conserved by it. But in England the established church is a constant bone of contention; its supercilious, holier-than-thou attitude toward the other churches is the cause of much heart-burning and friction. It has the sanction of the state, the social rank, the great church buildings and the traditions, and forces other Christian denominations into the attitude of the poor and rather shabby relation of a wealthy aristocrat--the wealth in this case not measured merely in money. Class distinction, the curse of England everywhere, is only fomented by the attitude of the established church. In religious matters it is not human nature to concede to anyone else superiority, and not until the Church of England places itself on common ground with its contemporaries, will true fraternity among the different denominations be possible in England as it is rapidly becoming in America. I remember a kindly old gentleman who showed us much courtesy in the English Boston in pointing out to us the places of interest, but who did not fall in with our enthusiasm over the great church.

"Ah, yes," he said. "It once belonged to Rome, who grew arrogant and oppressive--and fell; it now belongs to a church that is just as arrogant and would be as much of an oppressor if she dared--and her downfall is just as sure." And the enthusiasm with which he pointed out the plain Wesleyan chapel betrayed his own predilections.

That the educational system of England is faulty and inefficient we have the testimony of many leading English educators themselves. The constant interference of the Church of England and the Catholics with the public schools is greatly responsible for the chaos of the educational situation of the country. Conditions in England are such that a most excellent public school system might easily be maintained. The density of population and the perfect roads would make every rural school easily accessible, and there would be distinct advantages not enjoyed by many American communities which have far better schools. But church jealousy, hidebound tradition, and the almost universal inefficiency of English school-teachers, are obstacles hard to overcome. I cannot discuss so great a question in the limits of a short chapter, but the testimony of the most representative English educators may be found in the report of the commission which visited American schools under the guidance of Mr. Alfred Mosely.

That England, generally speaking, is better and more efficiently governed than the United States is no proof that its system is as good as our own, or that its possibilities equal ours. It is rather due to the homogeneity of the masses and to a more prevalent respect for law and authority among the people. Justice is surer and swifter when the criminal's offense is once proven in the courts; but the many technicalities and the positive nature of proof required enables a large number of swindlers and rascals to keep at large. Dead-beats will evade debts, irresponsible tenants refuse payment of rents for indefinite periods, and petty swindlers go quite free--all of whom would be given short shrift in America--simply because it is a dangerous matter to risk infringing the "rights of the subject" and thus lay oneself liable to heavy damages should charges fail of proof.