Litchfield enquirer., 1876-12-28

tlnkilng or one Of those same bells But have been playing too long what Balzac calls solo de scorbittard. I once asked an American friend. who
 had spent many years in foreign travel, to tell me what one thing most impressed him in his various wanderings I snp-
 posed he was golng to say. the Pyramids. His reply was, ssThe politeness and con sidrration have met with from every one except travelling Englishmen and Ameri- cans.
 I was afterwards told, by an impolite person. that this politeness was merely Q surface polish, but it is asingularly agree able sort of veneer, and much better worth bsinging home than bronzes and specimens of the old masters. Specimens of the old masters you can get painted | to order--in this country, but tue veneer
 is a more difficult affair. What if the smoothness is all on the | surface? Some one says if any of us were
 peeled. Q savage would be found at the
 core. It Is 8 very great merit, then, to
 have this savage wrapped in numerous | solds and rendered as hard to peel as pos | sible. For the most part, the pilgrim
 abroad comes in contact with only the
 outside of men and. things. The main | point is gained if that outside is pleasant.
 Likely enough your concierge at Paris | was petroLeuSe in the days of the Con- mune; bat does she not smile upon you ] with the brightness of two franc candle
 when she sees you coming in at ever so
 much o'clock at night?
 | The American at home enjoys hun | dred conveniences which he finds want | S.>A AL oR .;~.:l Many matters which we consider as ne- cessities here are regarded as luxuries l there. A yell appointed private house in an American city has perfections in the | way of light, heat, water, ventilation.
 drainage, etc that are not to be obtained even in palaces abroad. The traveller is
 constantly amused by the primitive agri- cultural implements which he sees em. ployed in some parts of France, Italy, and Germany, by the ingenious devices they
 have for watering the streets of their
 grand capitals, and strange disregard of
 economy in man power in everything. A
 water cart in Berlin, for illustration, re- quires three men to manage it; one to
 drive, and two on foot behind to tAitch
 right and left, by means of ropes, short
 hose with a sprinkler at the end. "I wondered what they would be at Under the lndens,"
 This painful hose, attached to Q chubby
 Teutonic looking barrel, has the appear
 ance of being the tail of some Vretched
 nondescript animal whose sufferings
 would. in onr own land, invoke the swift
 interpositlon of MT. Bergh. That this
 machine is wholly inadequate to the sim. pie duty of sprinkling the street is fact not, ,Ah
 mary utensils of Central Germany are, I
 venture to say, of nearly the same pat
 tern as those used by Eve, judging by some earthenware and iron-mongery I caught glimpse of in the kitchen of the
 Rothe Ross at Nuremberg. l saw in Ita-
 ly wheelbarrow that must have been an infringement of an Egyptian patent of 800 B. 0. I forgot in what imperial city it was beheld tin bath tub shamelessly
 allowing itself to be borne from door to door and let out by the job. In several
 respects the United States are one or two centuries in advance of Europe; but in that little matter of veneering have men
 toned, we are very far behind her.
 The incivility which greets the Ameri- can traveller at every stage in his own do- mains is so rare an accomplishment among foreign railway, steamboat, and hotel officials, that it is possible to jour- ney from Dan to Beersheba-c certainly from Ponkapog to Pesth-without meet ing a single notable instance of it. I think that the gentleman of the Dogana at Ven timiglia were selected expressly on acc count of their high breeding to examine luggage at that point. In France by France we mean Paris-even the drivers of the public carriages are civil. Civili- zation can go no further. If Darwin is correct in his theory of the survival of the tittest, there will ultimately not be sln. gle New York hackman left on the face of the earth. We shall have to import Parislans. Tam not positive but we shall run short of railway conductors and tick ct sellers. We have persons occupying these posts here who could not hold simi- lar positions in Europe fifteen minutes.
 The guard who has charge of your car- riage on a continental railway, so far from being the naughty autocrat who on our own cars too often snatches your ticket from you and snnbs you at a word, is the most thoughtful and considerate of men he looks after the welfere and comfort of your party as if that were the speciality for which he was created; he never loses countenance at your daring French or German, or the graceful New England accent you throw upon your Italian; he is ready with the name of that ruined castle which stands like jagged tooth in the mouth of the mountain gorge; he does not neglect to tell you at what sta tion you may find an excellent buffet; you cannot weary him with questions; he will smillngly answer the same one a hundred times; and when he is killed ina collision with the branch train, you are not afraid to think where he will go, with all this kindness. ..t-. .-....
 am convinced that it is the same per son, thinly disguised as the proprietor of a hotel, who receives you at the foot of the staircase as you step down from the omnibus, and Is again the lndefatigable chamberlain to your earthly comfort. It is an old friend who has been waiting for you these many years To be sure, as the proprietor of @ hotel the old friend makes you pay roundly for all this; but do you not pay roundly for food and shell ter in taverns on your native heath, and get no civility whatever, unless the hotel clerk has lost his mind? Your continent al inn-keeper, of whatever nationality, keeps paternal eye on you and does not allow you to be imposed upon by out sideis. If you are to be imposed, he at- tends to that trihing formality himself, and always graciously. Across three thousand miles of sea and 1 know not how many miles of land. touch my hat at this moment to the landlord of that snuffy little hostelry at Witienberg, who awoke me at midnight to excuse himself for not having waited upon us in person when we arrived by the ten o'clock tram. He had had card party-the Herr Pro. lessor Sometbing.splatz and few friends in the coffee room, and really, etc. etc. He couldn't sleep, and didn't let me, until he had made his excuses. It was downright charming in you, mine host of the Goldner Adler; I thank you not to do it again
 Every American who has passed a week in rural England must have carried away, even if he ,iid not bring it with him, a fondness for our former possessions. The solid hospitality he has received ct the