The weekly Shasta courier. [volume] (Shasta, Calif.) 1872-190?, 1873-06-28
The Raw American.

bOuuOu dI pIoSelb dUOuHuS Ill dlutIiCduo
ON their way to the Vienna Exposition.
Many of them are commissioners from varl-
GUS States. Some have lands to sell or
other financial axes to grind. Of such the
Langham Hotel is full. The Langham is
the nearest approach to an American hotel
in London. There. though not a guest,
you may pass in and out without explaining
to the hall-porter who you are, what you
are where you come from or what you
want you may there enter and retire with
out giving your pedigree, naturalization pa
pers, or a certificate of good character. At
other English hotels something. analogous
to this is commonly required. -3f
We, who have been in England full
year. look down with an air of superiority
on the raw, the newly arrived American.
We are quite English. We have worn out
our American clothes. We have on Eng
fish hats with tightly-curled rims and Eng
lish stub-tOed boots. We know the intri-
cacies of London street navigation, and Is
lington, Blackfriars Camden Town, Hack
ney, the I" Surrey Side," Piccadilly, Regent
and Oxford streets, the Strand and Fleet
street, are all mapped out distinctly in our
minds eye We are skilled in English
money, and no longer pass off half crowns
for two-shilling pieces. We are real An
|glo- Americans.
But the raw American, only arrived
week, is in a maze, a confusion, hurry
He is excited and mystifed. He tries to
appear cool and unconcerned, and is simply
ridiculous. His cards bearing his name, IT,
tle, and official status, he distributes as
freely as doth the winter wind the snow
flakes. Inquire at the Langham office for
Mr.. Smith, and you find he has blossomed
into General Smith.
E He is always partaking or about to par
take of official dinners. He feels that the
eyes of all England are upon him. He is
dressed q Ia bandbox-hat immaculate in
its pristine gloss, white cravat, umbrella of
the slimmest encased in silken wrapper "A
speck OF mud on his boots would tarnish the
national honor. - Commonly he is taken for
a head-butler. He drinks much stout. He
eats a whitehall dinner before being forty :.
eight hours in London. and tells of it. All
this makes him feel English ? ~T =
You meet him. He is overjoyed. he
would talk of everything-your mutual ex-
perience in America, his sensations and i'm
pressions since arriving in England. He
talks intellieiblyof nothing. His brain is a
mere rag-bag, 'shreddy, confused, parti-col-
ored. Thus he empties it :: Passage over
rough" London wonderful % sDined
with the Earl of - yesterday. "Dine
with Sir - to-day p ."To the Tower y
" Westminster New York growing :"
I" Saint Paul's"-going, going, gone and
he shakes. hands with you, and is off at
Broadway gait straight toward the East
End Of London for his hotel which lies at
the West End.
& In reality, the man is not in his right
mind. He is undergoing the mental accli-
matization fever. Should he stay in London
for three months, he might recover and be-
gin to findout wherehe is But six months.
hence he will haves ret6rned to America
fancyng he has seen London, Paris, Rome,
Geneva, Vienna, and whatever other places
his body has been hurried through, not his
mind for that, in the excitement and ra-
pidity of his fight, has streamed behind him
like the tail of comet, light, attenuated,
vapory, catching nothing, absorbing moth
ing. - ~, -
Occasionally this fever takes an abusive
phase. He finds in England nothing to
like, nothing to admire. SometilDes be
wishes Immediately to revolutionize the
government. He's incensed at the cost of
royalty. He sees on every side indications
of political upheaval Or he becomes Gull
narlly disguised. Because there are no
buckwheat cakes, no Goldfish cakes no hot
bread, no pork and beans, no mammoth oy-
sters, stewed, fried and roasted, he can find
nothing ht to eat. The English can not
cook. Because he can find no noisy, clat-
tering, dish-smashing restaurant, full of &C.
robatic walters racing and balancing under
immense piles of plates, and shouting jargon
untranslatabie, unintelligible and unpro-
nounceable down into the lower kitchen. be.
can not, can not eat Prentice Milford,
Lippincohs Magazine Il -. 8