Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1866-06-02
American Travellers Abroad.

n VlVaclOuS correspondent OF the Buf- /
falo Courier writes from the ancient city
of Rome as follows. Rome, he says, is
u perfect hive of tourists:
Three-fourths Of this travelling public |
are Americans. / am always interested
to observe how these look and behave,
and Twill give you the result of some of
my observations. In the first place,
they spend twice as much money, man
for man, as the people of any other ma
tionality; secondly, they bring abroad
with them by far the handsomest young
ladies. ''The Americans are not out to-
day, L heard a gentleman say on the
Champs Elysees; 81 have not seen a
pretty woman on the promenade. Ger
tainly the American girls show finer
! types of beauty than any / have seen
native to Europe. i remember a pure
Saxon head at Convent Garden, a queen
| ly English woman or two riding on Rot
ton Row, and very few splendid bru-
nettes of France in the Bots de Bou-
logne, whose beauty might lord it over
! anything transatlantic; but, aside from
these, there is scarcely a comparison in
my mind. With its well filled purse and
handsome women, America, as might be
supposed, is not slow to cut stylish
figure, socially, wherever, it can, in Eu-
rope. There are many Americans in
Paris who entertain dukes and marquis
es at their dinner tables, and of some OF
whose daughters land doweries) even
princes are not too proud to take pos
session. In Rome the American circle
is confessedly at the head of everything
foreign in the social way. Before Lent
its costly entertainments were the talk OF
the city, and made the cinerary urns oil
the ancient Romans rattle with the tread
of festivity. We have some Americans
J in Europe who seem to have come hith
er for no other purpose than thus Il
take up their accustomed fashionable
pursuits In new fields and with unique
surroundings. "There is nothing a
} Rome except its society,"" said dandy
, New Yorker to me the other day in per
feet good faith. Fortunately this clas
of intelligent travellers is not very large
It's members, when you meet them
profess to be exclusively bored by sight
seeing; they find nothing worthy thei
y enthusiasm except the garments of tn,
) nobility which may chance to havu
! brushed them in some accidental meet
ing, and in general they wish to be con
D sidered as a well dressed congregation
. of martyrs. We have another small ant
. select class of young men principally
who have been so sDitten of Englau,
+ and everything English that Americ
will not know them when they get back
If indeed they go back, for L donb
whether country so common, so un
. refined, so lacking in everything Eng
lish, or even French, is worthy to re
. ceive again the exiled Chestertields.-
Only a little more contemplate thai
these is the more numerous variety O
American youth, of the violent English
hating school. This order may b
: heard loudly Boosting its nationality il
: the Paris bar rooms, and declaiming i
{ terms of choicest American profanit
Y against a country and people who's
greatness it has only observed on tn
, Liverpool docks and from the windoy
q of a railway carriage. Young American
= of this stripe attest the superiority O
. democratic institutions by devotion T.
= the tine arts of billiards and cards, AM
= by their easy grace in the consumption
: of tobacco and spirits. But these ar
= exceptional characters in the American
! multitude abroad. By far the creates
, number of our country people here be
have like ladies and gentlemen, and d.
, not suffer by comparison with any,
They have their little oddities to b
: sure, but these are only amusing at tn
: worst. For instance, there are som
who ''do" the sights, the ruins, tn
churches, the galleries, &C., with yea
. not altogether according to knowledg
! or appreciation, and who check off tn
respective objects as they progress, witt
droll satisfaction as if they kept tally o
cotton bales or loads OF wheat.