Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-09-12
CUSTOMS OF EFFETE EUROPE.
They Make Southern Woman Feel LdkS
Shouting Freedom from the Housetops

From the New Orleans Picayuns
In America we have district messenger boys,
electric lights in our houses, steam heaters,
gas, patent ice cream freezers, artificial fires,
imitation stained glass, evening newspapers,
ice, big bath tubs, dime museums, the thousand
and one amusements and conveniences de-
manded by our nervous and luxurious people.
In Europe You sit in your bed room by . wax
candle, you fasten your letter with wafer and
seal, you have next to no newspaper at all. you
must battle in q sugar bowl. and il you call for
ice at your hotel the proprietor comes in per-
son to make sure you mean what you say, and
it is ten chances to one il he does not formally
warn you you get the ice at your own risk and
thathe washes hands Of siiresponsibility in the
matter. 1t
In these European cities you hear no sounds
Of building, you see no derricks nor piles Of
mortar, you hear no busy whirr of factory
wheels, and as You &c on. on. from town to
town and city to city, you begin to feel the mel
low age of all this civilization of world in its
aftermath. The soil 10 titled for food and
patient human spiders sit in the sunshine in
for hundreds Of years. The beautiful and i'm
posing pageantries and ceremonies of the
church keep alive religion, and man works to
live, while with us he lives to work.
I am tempted to keep on in this train and tell
how variously and how curiously we are re-
garded as nation. It il more than true that
only a less than saving remnant Of the popu-
lation OF the old world know anything in fact
Of the United States. Schoolboys learn but
little OF our history, and ten-year-old Ameri-
can laddie might put a European statesman to
blush FOR his superior knowledge Of American
affairs.
The Picay,,se would lose its readers il it
failed to give daily its columns Of infinitely de-
tailed events in European current history. On
q lucky day find in the great London Tels-
graph ten lines devoted to the United States.
When tell over here that came from the
south they set me down for either Brazilian
or CHILEAN. A hard-working house servant "a
England gets $40 year, many laborers with
families to support earn no more than e6 q
month, and on the continent good carpenter
is well pleased if he gets go cents day, while
his average wages in many countries are not
more than 40 cents.
In Germany things are worse, where period
OF military life 10 compulsory. Seif-respect il
not taught in any Of these countries How can
1t be, where the creed 10 that one man is better
two and in more luxurious social station? No
one, or scarcely no one, 10 proof against taking
fee. You can fee, and the price IL not hiRh.
do not think the individual to blame for this.
but the whole trend Of life. It is q shame to
see the one man erect, wholesome, fne-minded,
whim Of q fool who simply owns by Inheritance
q coronet or Is down in the blue book.
II wish to travel undisturbed in Q railway
carriage give the guard tiny bit of silver
10 or 20 cents. Fancy bribing Pullman pal
ace car conductor with quarter. In the ma
jority of the restaurants walters pay for the
privilege Of serving and expect to make Q liv-
Ing out of their fees II Is system that en-
courages the moral deterioration Of the whole
nation, but unfortunately there seems no
remedy for it. Honest. pure women bob and
courtesy at their betters, brave men walk back
ward before their 'superiors"-it il all q varia-
ton Of slavery and as I see il feel like getting
upon the housetops and telling Of the freedom
Of free America.