Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1873-08-13
8)lpHrillF Stgeeklg Ghrpnitla.
AUGUST IS, 1873.
AMERICANS IN ENGLAND.

hCOtCU, leaulng EnBllSn journal, is what
we would call rather severe on the Ameri-
can tourist and we should think it would
damp the ardor of that immense crowd
that annually feel it incumbent upon
themselves to pay tribute in homage and
money to the British lion.
"All ways of speaking and acting which
strike us as being especially vulgar or disa-
greeable, we at once denounce as Ameri-
canisms, thereby showing the very low es-
timation in which we hold our transma-
rine cousins. This estimate, be it true or
false, is in most cases the result of personal
observation of the swarm of American
tourists, who year after year, by their very
presence take the bloom off our summer
holiday. They crowd upon us in our rail-
way carriages; they empty our favorite
dishes at tables d. hote, pouring into our
ears the while, bitter complaints of the
worthlessness of all they get, compared
with the comforts which they have at
home, where we devoutly wish they had
stayed to enjoy them.
The current British opinions of the
manners and customs of the jewellers in
the States might be summed up in the
words of the skipper who went to investi-
gate the social economy of certain savages
and sent home, as the result of his
voyage, the brief report: mo manners,
customs beastly.n
We cannot believe that these are the sem
timents of a majority, or even a respecta-
BILE minority of Englishmen, but only a
distorted image as produced by the spec
tacles on the nose of some bigoted marrow
minded John Bull who would be quite a
respectable man if his liberality were only
1.-THE of his self conceit. We in America
have become used TO this sort of thing and
laugh it off, quietly comforting ourselves
with the consoling thought that there may
be little spice of envy mixed up with it
all, and seldom through the presses do we
attack either the politics or customs of
our mother country who has not the prop
er parental affection for US on account of
slight family jar about a century since.
Occasionally, however, they get a Roland
for their Oliver, and just now the man who
is giving his views of men, matter and
things, is Henry Walterson of the Courier
Journal.
Though OFFICIALLY myopic his breadth of
observation is anything but limited, and
nothing escapes his scrutinizing gaze while
he has the Kentucky audacity to write
just what he thinks. He pitches into the
English newspapers, calls the Times dull
and accuses the whole lot of want of ener-
gy and enterprise. He says their BARRIERS
are barbarious set truly, and finds many
other of the elegancies and luXuries to
which he has been accustomed, wanting
among that supremely self-satisfied peo-
pie. He even gets so far as to pass COM
ments upon the fair sex. He does not
compare the English with the American
girl, for such thing no sane man would
do, but the English girl can be compared
with the French one, and this is the way
he does it:
"The English girls are strapping set,
beginning with the pink-faced lady and
going down to the yellow-haired harlot.
But when it comes down to the matter OF
cOuntenance their claims upon ones adj
miration are exceedingly indirect. The
girls of Paris, on the other hand, conceal
whatever deficiencies of figure they may
have inherited by costumes the most taste
full and naive, looking out at you in
sweet, bewitching way as if they mean
to have you believe that if Paris is HEAVIER
they are angels. The English girls higl
or low, remind you of the bayfield, an(
the cow-lot. There is in them and abou
them an offensive materialism redOlent o
the mould above the rose. The French
girls are etherealized. They call up vision!
of donce and Provincial song, of moon
light and banks of violets, and are redo
lent of the rose above the mould. Al
English girl will smirk before a lookins
glass until the very quicksilver giggles anC
grows dim, and come away drab for al
her finery. a French girl has only t.
clap on atig leaf and bit of ribbon to APP
pear dressed in the hight of fashion.
The advantage that Waterson and 9th
ers who tourist" have over the stay-at
home commentator is, that he studies hi
subjects on their own dung hill, while tn
latter has to make up his opinions fror
the class of shoddes who, having money
know of no other use TO put it to but to g
abroad, and make themselves and thei
country, of which they are not the fit rel
resentatives, appear ridiculous. Many, W
know, do this, but they should no more b
accepted as typical Americans than th
emigrant from the could Country
should be regarded as a representative {
the civilization and culture of the OIL
World
" ..