Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-03-09
A CONGRESSMAN ABROAD.


Gath. in Cincinnati Enquirer.
S. S. Cox passed me on the street last
night, and stopping to talk minute,
asked what it had cost him to see Eu-
rope. at cost just my congressional
salary of $4,000 to pay mine and my
wife's-expenses, and make journey of
eight months around the great circle
of Europe. We went to Constantine
pie. to Egypt, to Palestine, to Russia,
to Norway 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 commissiOnaires to show us about"
"Were you good deal troubled with
vermin. 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-hy
along the eastern coast of the Mediter-
ranean than by fleas. Those spiteful
flies kept my wife in as great state of
evaporation as she ever shows"
Speaking of the mail-service, Mr.. Cox
said: 81 wrote good many newcpa-
per letters, and all of them came
through safely but that one in which
described my presentation to the sultan.
1t was the most interesting that
wrote. That never came to hand, and
i never could write it again. Lew Wal
lace, our minister, obtained the presen-
tatiOn for me. while my ife was al.
lowed, without my company, however,
to go to the seragliO, and to see the fe-
male life of the sultan's household"
"How did you find the consular SER
vice of the United States. Mr.. Cox?"
al was very agreeably surprised at
its excellence. Our cOnsuls all along
that coast, AZ far as / observed, were
observing, shIewd, good fellows, many
of them badly underpaid. Gen. Lew
Wallace is man of both literary and
worldly talents, and makes a very
good minister. 1 could find nothing
of consulates in st. Petersburg. One
of the best fellows L found was at
Christiana, Norway. He was getting
only 5000 year out of his fees.
Since 1 came back L have had him
raised to $1,000 year. We finished
the foreign service last Saturday.
am on the appropriation committee,
you know"
what do you think of Russia, Mr..
Cox?'
swell, Russia is in a very bad con-
dition, arising from the want of an in
dustrial and self supporting society.
The government has picked out per-
sons in every province in Russia and
educated them thoroughly, given them
fine technical educatiOns, for its war
purposes, in the engineering, in the
languages, so as to make them accom-
plished tools Of the car. Now, these
men have no occupation i'm Russia af.
ter they are educated. There is literal
ly nothing to do where they reside.
They have had no business experience,
Consequently, they become nihilists.
Nihilism in Russia is the effervescence
of the intellect demanding more and
better institutions than naked despot-
ism; demanding n career, congenial oc-
cupation, freedom of speech and Of &C
ton; in short, it is education detest-
ing absOlutlsm and idleness. The COM
mon people of Russia are devoted to
the car. They call him their faith
or. 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 dread master, the car.
But these educated, unflinching nihil-
lists mean to transform that society to
the likeness of Europe and America,
or To perish with it,"
"Nr. Cox, do any Of them in Europe
live ~ we'll "a we do in the United
Statesl'
mo; there is no country like this
anywhere. yet the wholly commercial
character of our life sometimes IA
tigues the brain"
The same evening talked to an ac-
complished American lady who has
just returned from several years alb
sence in Europe. Said /: "Are you
not glad IN get hack to Washington %
81 was glad to get back to America"
she said; "but / do not know that l
can say the same about Washington.
This Is pleasant cline, and a stranger
to political society is for a while enter
tanned here until she has seen some
thing larger and more real. This
country gives no rest to the sole of the
feet To person in pursuit of rest. 1t
is one eternal tramp, tramp, tramp.
But In Washington, where there is,
perhaps, more repOse than in any other
American society, one is struck after a
return from study and quiet in Europe,
with the unsubsiantiality of the polit-
ical society. 1t seems that everybody
is waiting for somebody else to die and
get his Office. The restlessness of &C.
ton here becomes the restlessness
Of dependence and of small of
fetal ambition There are no peculi-
arities in American society of repose-
full kind. As soon as people make
money in America they rush into fine
clothes and grow more particular about
their society You take an italian