New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-07-30
U1YSIDE HINTS.

travelling through the States in this month of
July can if he is quick of eye and wit, get
clearer idea of some CT the most characteristic
traits of the country and of the people by way
side hints than by a formal inspection OF our
institutions or by any amount OF dining with
our public men. An English or French man,
for instance, can have no conception, unless
he has visited this country, of the enormous
extent of land in it waiting for occupancy;
and this not only in the vast unopened tracts
of the West but iii the older States. In some
even of the original thirteen States there are
stretches of absolutely virgin land still covered
with the primitive forest rs large in extent as
Wales or Ireland, and this forest does not
hide sterile soil, but mountains rich III mill
erals, with intcrvales of succulent alluyal
bottoms, watered by navigable streams Even
in those parts of the country longest under Gull
tivation any European used to the garden till
age of every foot of available ground at home
would be struck by the deliberate waste of soil,
the bare gaps of commons around every
town surrendered to goats and Unison weed,
and the blots in every farm of vacant fence
corners and weedy stretches neither cultivated
nor bcautifed. Even the hedges and bitches in
England are made picturesque feature OF the
landscape.
This waste of land is probably the first
proof which thrusts itself upon the traveller
of the enormous resources of unused wealth
and consequent reckless prodigallty OF the
American. AS he goes through the States this
universal extravaganza is shown in other ways
and at every turn. He who runs, even at the
headlong pace of a railway train, may read 1t
in the tasteless fnery heaped on children, the
silks and diamonds and gaudy bracelets worn
by women even when travelling, the costly and
unsuitable decorations of hotels, steam cars
and railway stations, and the parade, glass ana
Glitter everywhere The travelling American,
it is evident, must rest his weary body on
velvet and gaze on gilded ceilings or he does
not think he has had his moneys worth.
Meanwhile the same hotel which gives his soul
the refreshmcnt Of this unlimited pOmp feeds
his body often on ill-coOked and ill-seryed
fare. and he has not "A word of complaint to
utter. The same railway corporations which
provide gorgeous cars leave the sides OF the
track dreary waste of clay and broken stone.
We know of only one such corporation in the
country that has followed the foreign custom
of sodding and identifying the banks on either
side of its roadway, thus giving the eye ot the
traveller in the car real beauty without to rest
upon instead of tawdry display within. 1t Is
this universal and costly sham display every
where that must convince a foreigner OF the
existence of a large class among us who have
amasscd wealth. but whose culture and tastes
have not kept pace with their pecuniary sue
cess. The men vino prefer wel-cO0ked plain
chop in a quiet 'coi1ee-room to the glories of a
brand-aew restaurant and the women who shun
notice while in public, not likely to attract
the attention of an nquistive traveller.
That lack of training in perception of form
and color which undenably is deficiency of
the average American is glaringy apparent
to the traveller who crosses the continent
|. EVERYWHERE, from Maine to Oregon, the same
stole-box shaped brick house obtrudes itself on
the view, except where it is relieved by paste
board villas with plank towers and barbicans.
| These were all usually painted yellow or white
until the late agitation OF the subject OF color,
| when they have yielded to the prevailing taste
and appear in coats OF army blue, sicky green, or
| crimson. These papable evidences of our raw
| ncwness, our want of taste, our love of vulgar
| display, force themselves upon every passenger
| on the great trunk lines. But if he leaves the
| common thOroughfares and penetrates the
quiet by-roads in the recesses Of New England,
PENNSYLVANIA or the South, he will find other
| suggestive hints of a national character less
| known than the former but as emDhatically
| true. In sleepy villages and quiet hillsides
| there are still old little churches built we-nigh
two centuries ago, which on every Sunday in
| that time have been filled with single minded,
| God fearing folk, who ploughed their fields,
and loved, and reared children to fill their
places and died, with none OF the faint which
is supposed to be specifically American coming
into their lives-neither political corruption
nor divorce nor religious doubt There are,
too. solid substantial hvmesteads where the
same families have lived for generations, giving
out an influence OF quiet Tepose, intelligence
and simple goodness. We are not so migratory
n nation as Europeans or ourselves imagine.
The man, it is true, who goes West is apt To be
bitten. As it were, by a mental tarantula, and
can never keep quiet thereafter. lie migrates
as necessarily and frequently as the grass
hopper. Bat in the Middle and Southern
States there is n vast, unmovng, tranquil
population which serves rs su0stratum OF
sound common sense and virtue for the snowy
building atop. This is the silent unpublished
public, which comes forward very seldom, and
then only IN great national emergencies, OuC
always with tremendous effect and invariably
on the side of right and truth.
This, in fact, is the American people. To
find it as 1t is we must penetrate to It's homes in
farms and sov- going inland towns, and not
trust to the brief glimpses which few lines OF
railway travel give of our national life.
PALMTSTRY and THOUGHTREADING.
London society can never exist long without
some new craze Sometimes the fancy involves the