St. Landry democrat., 1879-07-12
NO FUN IN ENGLAND.
why Mark Twain Couldn't Make a Bo0E
AbOyf England,

| About England.
Mark Twain was interviewed the othel
day in Paris by a correspondent OF tht
New York World. He was asked:
"Why have you never written bool
about England p
"I have spent a great deal of time il
England (your question is not a new one
to me) and I made q world of notes, bnt
it was OF no use. I couldn't get any fur
out of England. 1t is too grave coun
try. And its gravity soaks into the
stranger and makes him as serious as
everybody else. When I was there
couldn't seem to think of anything but
deep problems of government, taxes,
free trade, finance-and every night !
went to bed drunk with statistics. [
could have written million books, but
my publisher would have hired the com,
mon hangman to bum them. One is
bound to respect England-she is one OF
the three great republics of the world
in some respects she is the most real
republic of the three, too, and in other
respects she isn't, but she is not a good
text for hilarious literature. No, there
wasn't anything to satirize-what l mean
is, you couldn't satirize any given thing
in England in any but half-hearted
way, because your conscience told you
to look nearer home and you would find
that very thing at your own door. A
man with humpbacked uncle mustn't
make fun of another mans cross eyed
aunt"
"The English love for the lord, for
instance? I don't mean the Lord of the
prayersbook, but the lord of the peer
age"
II couldn't gird at the English love
for titles while our own love for titles
was still more open to sarcasm. Take
our Hon for instance. Unless my
memory has gone wholly astray, no man
in America has any right to stick that
word before his name; to do it is a shame
and very poor shame at that. At the
beginning of this century members OF
the two houses of congress were referred
to simply as Mr. so>snd-so. But this
sham Hon has sincs crept in, and now
it is unlawfully conferred upon members
of state legislatures and even upon the
mayors and city councillors of the pal.
tr:est back settlements. Follow the
thing little further. In England tenn.
porary titles are dropped when their
time is up. The lord mayor of London
is addressed as my lord all through his
year of Office, but the moment he is out
he becomes plain Mr. again. But with
us, once Hon always Hon. once
governor always Governor know
men who were members of legislatures,
OR mayors of villages twenty years ago,
and they are always mentioned in the
papers as the Hon to this day, / know
people who were lieutenant-governors
years ago and they are called governor
to this day--yet the highest title they
have ever had any right to, in office or
out Of it, was plain Mr. You
see, yourself, it wouldn't quite
for me to poke fun at titles
loving Euglishmen-I should hear some>
body squeal behind me and find I had |
stepped On the tail of some ex~ofcial
monkey of our own. I couldn't satirize
The English civil service: it was excelo
lent and ours wasn't; it was open to
verybody, rich or poor, conspicuous or
obscure, whereas ours was only open to
.crubs who would do political dirty work
or public enemies like Mr.. Conkling-
Hon. Mr.. Conkling, to use the obse>
luious illegal phrase of the day. I
couldn't venture to be sarcastic about
;he horrible corruption of English offs
,ials, for how could | but know .that
omething of the same kind, in a minor
legree: might be discovered smong our
'wn officials at any. moment? I could
lot poke fun at the court column
which daily sets forth the walking and
Irving and dining achievements of
;ings and queens and dukes, while our
wn papers have still longer court col
lmn of personals wherein the move~
nents Of half dozen permanent cele-
rites, a dozen evanescents aud two
ozen next to-nobodies are duly and
ally recorded. I couldn't satirize Eng.
ish justice, for it was exactly like our
wn and every ether country's. That is
0 say, there didn't appear to be any
articular rule in the matter of penal>
les. In New York I have known an
rishman to be sentenced to a months
onfnement for nearly killing his wife,
nd another man to be jailed for a
reary long terna for stealing blanket.
low here is some English justice-these
NO paragraphs are from yesterdays
ondon Standard
HANLEY.
A strange case of C. uelty came before
le stipendiary magistrate this morning.
a elderly woman was charged with
her niece. The allegations
ere THAT the child had been beaten l.,
ith undue severity until she was much
ruised, and she was then washed i'm tur-
sntine and salt, causing great agony" :
he defense was denial, and that the
lild was incorrigible. The bench. com. t