The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1882-04-01
Congressman Cox's Observations In For
eign Lands.

Hon. >. ,. COX passed me on the street
last night and stopped to talk minute,
asked him what it had cost him to see
Europe. ut cost just my Congressional
salary of $1,000 to pay mine and my
wife's expenses, and make journey of
eight months around the great circle of
Europe. We went to Constantinople, to
Egypt, to Palestine, to Russia, to Nor
way and Sweden, and, of course, went
where we liked in middle Europe. For
that amount of money we stopped at the
very best hotels, had the best rooms and
attendants, and had the best commission
aires to show us about"
Were you a good deal troubled with
yermin, bed-bugs, etc. ?"
"Well, some. All the south of Eu-
rope, the north of Africa, and Asia, of
course, have their pests. You begin to
feel it at Constantinople. 1 think we
were plagued more by a sand-fy along
the eastern coast of the Mediterranean
than by fleas. Those spiteful flies kept
my wife in as a great state of evaporation
as she ever shows"
Speaking of the mail service, Mr.. Cox
said: ~ wrote good many news
paper letters and all of them came
through safely but that one in which
describe my presentation to the Sultan.
1t was the most interesting that wrote.
That never came to hand, and never
could write it again. Lew Wallace, our
minister, obtained the presentation for
me, while my wife was allowed, without
my company, however. to go to the
L. r Al.
Sultan's household.
"How did you find the consular serv-
ice of the United States, Mr.. Cox?"
81 was very agreeably surprised at its
excellence. Our consuls all along that
coast, as far as / observed, were observ-
ing, shrewd, good fellows, many of
them badly underpaid. Gen. Lew Wal
lace is man of literary and worldly
talents, and makes very good minister.
/ could find nothing of our consulates in
St. Petersburg. One of the best fel-
lows found was at Christiana, Norway.
He was getting only 5000 year out of
his fees. Since came back have had
him raised to $1,000 year. We fin
ished the foreign service bill last Satur-
day. am on the appropriation COM
mittee, you know"
what do you think of Russia. Mr..
CoxP''
"Well, Russia is in very bad condition,
arising from want of an industrial and
self-supporting society. The govern
ment has picked out persons in every
province in Russia and educated them
thoroughly, given them fine technical
educations, for its war purposes, in the
engineering schools, in the languages,
so as to make them accomplished tools
of the Gar. Now these men have no
occupation in Russia after they are edu-
Gated. There is literally nothing to do
where they reside. They have no bus
mess experience. Consequently they
become nihilist. Nihilism in Russia is
the effervescence of the intellect de-
manding more and better institutions
than naked despotism, demanding ca
reer, congenial occupation, freedom of
speech and of action; in short, it is ed
ucation detesting absolutism and idle
ness. The common people of Russia
are devoted to the Gar. They call him
their father. The cabman that drove
us around, the laborers, all the bottom
stratum of society, are loyal to the soul,
and will kill man if he says anything
against their holy and dead master, the
Car. But these educated, unfinching
nibilists mean to transform that society
to the likeness of Europe and America,
or to perish with it."
Mr.. Cox, do any of them in Europe
live as well as we do in the United
States?"
mo; there is no country like this
anywhere, yet the wholly commercial
character of our life sometimes fatigue
the brain. "-Gath.