The Lake Charles echo. [volume] (Lake Charles, Parish of Calcasieu, La.) 1876-1898, 1879-07-05
NO FUN IN ENGLAND.
why Mark Twain Gonldn'f Make a Hook
Abous England.


day in Paris by a correspondent OF the
New York World. He was asked:
"Why have you never written book
about Englandf'
ct have spent great deal OF time In
England (yonr question is not new one
to mel and i made 8 world of notes, but
it was Of no use. j couldn't get any fun
out Of England. 1t is too grave a coun
try. And its gravity soaks into the
stranger and makes him as serious Of
everybody else. When / was there
couldn't seem to think of anything but
deep problems of government, taxes,
free trade, finance-and every night j
went to bed drunk with statistics. !
could have written million books, but
nv publisher would have hired the COM
mon hangman to bum them. One is
bound to respect Englana-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 good
text for hilarious literature. No, there
wasn't anything to satirize-what mean
is, you couldn't satirize any given thing
in England in any but balf-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? / don't mean the Lord of the
prayersbook, but the lord of the peer
age"
81 couldn't grid 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 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~and-so. But this
sham Hon has sine crept in, and now
it is unlawfully conferred upon members
of state legislatures and even upon the
mayors and city councillors of the pail
tr:est back settlements, Follow the
thing little further. In England ten.
pn7ary titles are dropped when their
time is up. The lord mayor of London
is addressed as my lord all through his
year o. 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. j know
people who were acknowledgements
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
answer for me to poke fun at titles
loving Englishmen-I should hear some-
body squeal behind me and find had
stepped on the tail of some exsoficial
monkey of our own. couldn't satirixe
the English civil service; it was exoels
lent and ours wasn't; it was open to
everybody, rich or poor, conspicuous or
obscure, whereas ours was only open to
scrubs who would do political dirty work
Tor public enemies like Mr.. Conkling-
Hon. Mr.. Conkling, to use the obse-
uuious illegal phrase of the day. ]
couldn't venture to be sarcastic about
the horrible corruption Of Engli,h Offs
cials, for how could j but know that
something of the same kind, in minor
degree. might be discovered among our
own officials at any moment? / scouId
not poke fun at the court column
which daily sets forth the walking and
driving and dining achievements of
kings and queens and dukes, while our
own papers have still longer court col
umn of personals wherein the move
ments Of half dozen permanent cele-
brities, dozen evanescents and two
dozen nextfto-nobodies are duly aud
daily recorded. couldn't satirizs Eng.
lish justice, for it was exactly like our
own and every ether country's. That ia
~, nn.r -fhaxn didu,t amman. 4<, L. -.