The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1884-02-01

porters and other predatory parasites of the
travelling public, who, in every other country
! have visited. regard every stranger as their
lawful prey, | have found to be as square
legal tariff regulates their charges. But that
is equally the case in London, Paris,
Milan, and everywhere else. l don't
think / ever rode in II hanson
in London that at the end of tine Jour
ley the driver did not demand more
than his legal fare. This was the case in my
brief stay ut Paris, when the concierge of my
hotel had a serious quarrel with Il tiacre
driver on our account. If you engage a
hanson in London by the hour the driver
will be sure to make the time as long as
possible by moving at u funeral pace. These
experiences have been repeated in every city
l nave been in on the continent, except in
Germany. should also except Switzerland,
where the carriage business, usually for long
journeys, belong to a different category. But
though l have employed a good many hacks
or droschkes, as they call them in Munich,
Berlin, and Dresden, in not a single instance
has the driver demanded more than his legal
fare. II you engage him by the hour he will
drive you Just as fast as if you had hired him
by the course. If you nave not the exact
change he will make it for you-a thing I'M
heard of in a hackman outside of Germany.
1t is the same with porters and others. This
prevailing honesty in a class which every
where is the terror of the travelling public
better illustrates the dominance of this trait
in the national character than examples from
higher strata
such a sense of absolute security
from the accidents of misplaced
confidence to which travellers are sub
iect, as in Germany. The other day,
Just after crossing the bohemian frontier. we
exchanged cars froIntlle German train, which
brought us there, to the Austrian one, which
was to take us to Prague, While waiting in
the custom house one of the guards of the
German train came rushing in with a purse
which a lady of our party had dropped in the
car we had left, then Just moving OFF. That
incident might have happened in England or
America once in a great while, but it would
have been in any case AZ agreeable surprise.
Iuti II was so purely a matter OF course with
this humble German that he didn't wait even
to be thanked This sense of security
which one feels in Germany from any
sort of human depreciation is luxury which
one learns to appreciate at its full value
who has travelled in Italy. I suppose there
must be thieves in Germany, such extraordi-
nary pains are taken to Jock the doors and
gates of all the street entrances after S or 9
O'Clock at night. Blu they are not the sort
of thieves which abound i'll some other coun-
tries i'll every regular avocation.
1t seems to me that this integrity and YER
acity of word and deed which The German
people exhibit in all the small details of So
clal and commercial intercourse is the out
cropping on the surface of q conscientious
HNSS ihS - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, cuiN ~ bLltl
moral but to their intellectual character.
They deal as squarely with themselves as
with their neighbors. They are us loyal to
the truth as they see it, wherever its
logic may lead them, as to the
word they have passed and the
engagements they have made. 1t is notpos-
sible to overestiInate the value of this in
grained honesty and sincerity of the Ger
mans as an element of the national charac-
ter. For this is the solid base OF all character
That is worth ANYTHING. Hnt / am NOT poinD
OFF into another dissertation
am reminded by the multitude of beggars
one meets in Vienna 1--WE struck a heap of
them at Prague) that l did not see a beggar,
barring one or two decrepit old women,
during my two months stay In Germany. Sc
far as police regulations are re,
sponsible for this happy exemption from
the worst nuisance the tourist Ia called upor
to endure in Europe, it is to be regretted tina,
equally efficacious regulations are not put ir
force in certain places l know of which have
not the Excuse of being overcrowded Europe
j. A. w,