Morning journal and courier., 1881-07-22
The American in Europe. EFro,17 tho Ton6Ay Oa.rrs

ltrom the London News.
 Perhaps no European can anywhere enjoy, not even in Egypt or Greece or Palestine, all that an American feels on the old soil of Flu rope. For we have always lived among things ancient, and eloquent with stories of the ear ly world. Even in England we have count less remains of the majesty of Rome her walls, her roads, the villas of her generals and ministers. Two thousand years of civil iZatlon are under our feet in London, and an Italian or a Frenchman is always still more closely in contact with a richer past But the American comes from @ country where the Puritans, our not so very distant fathers, are boar antiquity. The pages of his country's history are few and the scenes of her victories, however inspiring are easi- ly counted. Few are the graves of her inn mortals; her greatest poets are still among the living Her mountains have no memo ries, as the Alps and Apennines. The time has not yet come which will give the sacred ness of distant past to American battle-fields fraught at present with too keen an exulta- tion or too passionate regret. There is no Sempach, Marathon, no Thermopylse among her hills and passes, and her lakes she numbers none with memories like Regilus and Thrasymene. Thus the old world Is a haunted place for the American who has car ed for the past of his race, and for the ances- ters of his forefathers To visit it must be as great pleasure as life has in store for men worthy of the nobler enjoyments.
 How Japanese Fans are made.
 From Public Opinion.I
 As in many other branches of industry, the principle of division of labor is carried out in the making trade. The bamboo ribs are made in Osaka and Kioto by private individuals in their own houses, and con- binations of the various notches cut in the lower part are left to one of the finishing workmen, who forms the various patterns of kla1 IIa kO H-x the designer. In like manner the designer gives out to the engravers the patterns which his experience teaches him will be most like ly to be saleable during the ensuing season and when the different blocks have been cut it still rests with him to say what colors are to be used for the two sides of each fan. In fact, this official holds, if not the best paid, at any rate the most important, position on the staff in ordinary. When the printed sheets which are to form the two sides of the fans have been handed over to the workmen, together with the sets of bamboo slips which are to form the ribs, his first business is to fold the two sheets of which the fan is to be composed so that they will retain the crease, and this is done by putting them between two pieces of paper well saturated with oil and properly creased. The four are then folded together and placed under heavy weight When sufficient time has elapsed the sheets are taken out and the moulds used
  for at least twenty-four hours in their folds The next process is to take the ribs, which are temporarily arranged in order on wire, and ''set'' them in their places on one of the sheets, after it has been spread out on block and pasted. A dish of paste then gives the woodwork adhesive powers, and that part Of the process is finished by affixing the remain ing sheet of paper.
 The fan has to be folded up and opened three or four times before the folds take the proper shape; and by the time the fan is put up to dry it has received far more handling than any foreign paper could stand indeed foreign paper has been tried, and had to be given up as unsuitable for the work l; but with great care the Osaka fan-makers have been able to make some fans with printed pictures which have been sent over from America, though they were invariably obliged to use one face of Japanese paper. The quail ities of native paper now used are not nearly so good as those of which the old fans were made, and, in consequence, the style Of man. ufacture has had to be changed. Instead Of first pasting the two faces of the fan together and then running in pointed ribs, the ribs are souare. and arc pasted in their places in the manner described above. The outside lac ouered pieces and the fancy work are all done in Osaka and Kioto, and some ofthe de- sicns in lacquer on bone are really artistic but the demand for the highly ornamented description of fans is not sufficient to en- courage the production of large quantities of first-class work When the insides are dry, the riveting of the pieces together, including the outer covering, is rapidly done, and dash of varnish quickly finishes the fan. When a butcher plays whist, he generally