Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-09-01
OVERLAND To ITALY.
Rev. George Hodges Entertainingly
Describes the Journey From
Munich 10 Venice,
THROUGH SNOW INTO SUNSHINE.
Some of the Delights and Annoyances Incl
dent 10 Railway Travel on
the Continent.
THROUGH SNOW INTO SUNSHINE.
A PLACE WHERE EVERYBODY SMOKES
Some cusums That Appear Tsry Queer in the Eyes Of
an American.
,co,nxspoSnrxcE OF THE DISPATCH.

tically after a seat. Forty or fifty doors
swing open, some into first class places,
some into second class, some into third, and
you have to choose the right division. Each
compartment holds from six to eight persons.
You look into door after door and every
place seems full. There is no such thing as
getting aboard the train and walking
through until you find seat. You have to
find your place first. If you have a good
sized bag in each hand, the interest OF the
thing is multiplied.
And then, when you are once safely In
your place, and the guard" (as they call
the conductor) has shut to the door, and
locked it according to the pleasant fashion
they have here, you look about upon your
fellow passengers, and the first discovery
that you are likely to make is that they
are all smokers-that is, the masculine
contingent of them are. The women
do not smoke in railway carriages over here,
as a general rule Some of them smoke
even smoke cigarettes-but not on journeys.
That is one thing 10 be thankful for. For
III the men smoke, and they smoke every
where and upon all occasions. believe
that the churches are the only places over
smoke in the street. and in the reading
rooms and parlors Of hotels, even in the din
ing room. In good many hotels, candles
are set alight upon the table at the last
course that cigars may be kipdled at them.
The presence OF ladies is no consideration
whatever. One man will sit in the COM
pany of half dozen ladies and make him
self odorous and odious,
WITHOUT AN APOLOGY,
The expectoration vice is remarked upon
IN Americans by foreigners with good deal
Of contempt, and the obtrusIveness of the
spittoon in the furnishing of public build
ings is very amusing to some foreign critics
OF our manners. But the nicotine vice
over on this side balances all that
People here have not even the
grace TO smoke good tobacco. Everywhere
you 60 you breathe the incense of burnt cab
bage leaves. 1t is the supreme nuisance of
railway travelling. On every train there are
half dozen or so compartments marked
''Nicht raucher" or mon fameur" In
every other compartment of the whole train
the smoker may have his will. Smoking is
allowed here wherever it is not forbidden
Well, you get your luggage stored away
and sit down amid the smoke, and the train
moves on. About every half hour-it seems
as often as that-everybodv has to get out.
You must change cars! Down comes the
luggage. ont you go, in at one door of sta
tion ana out at another blundering around
amid the uncertainties of directions given in
a language imperfectly comprehended, and
the search for seat begins over again in a
new train. You have crossed the boundaries
of new country and your baggage must be
looked into, or the train you were on goes no
further and you must take another, or there
: German Or 0r fali
reason for a change, and change you must.
For week or two this is quite interesting.
But as your luggage gets heavier and your
pilgrimage gets longer you weary of it.
NOISY LITTLE BELLS.
There are other peculiarities also about
railway travelling on the continent of Eu-
rope, some queer, some pleasant, some not
so pleasant They have a funny way of set
ting little bell to ringing in the stations
OF Austria and Italy when the train comes
In, and keeping it going till the train goes
cut. Jingle, jingle, tinkie, tinkle, chimes
7he bell, set in a little zinc rat-trap BY the
.tation door. 1t is rather agreeable for
minute or two, but when the train stops 25
minutes for table d'hote dinner, as it does
sometimes, and the bell makes no pause you
want to break it. At Ala, just at the
boundary between Austria and Italy, the
bell rang for two hours.
But the continental railways are we'll
managed for all that. Especially in Bel
gium and Germany, where they are un-
der Government control. There Is a neat
ness, and orderliness, and dispatch about
the conduct of things which is admirable
The guard appears at your window in gor-
geous uniform, with red and blue and
gold decidedly pronounced in it. and takes
your ticket before the train starts. You can
not well get into the wrong train. At every
cross-road an Official stands beside the bar,
and, with head erect and heels we'll to-
gether, presents arms. The station master
is clad in colors which would make a major
general in the United States army look in
significant in mparison, and his manners
have stateliness about them which would
become the President himself. The stations
are well arranged and are often handsome
buildings. They are always clean. When
the train stops there is a porter at your door
who will take your beg and baggage and
carry them for you to the ends of the earth
for few pfennigs or a few centimes. And
when you reflect that it takes 100 pfennigs
TO make % cents of our money, and 100 GEN.
times to make 20 cents, you are conscious of
combination of ease with economy which
is not unpleasing.
PITTsBURG BRAKES USED.
The slow trains here are the slowest which
drag their weary length over the surface of
this planet But the fast trains put a mile
into two minutes with quite a little time to
spare. The Oriental express, which rims
from the Mediterranean Sea to the English
Channel, making few stops, needs only
Pullman cars to make it quite comfortable
train. 1t tears along till the telegraph poles
fly past like the pickets of fence! One
good Pittsburg invention they have here In
the airbrake. 1t gives one bit of home
feeling to watch the cars away out in the
middle Of Germany marked "W estinghouse-
Bre- ise Leitungswagen." You can feel
sale in a car labeled with that Inscription.
or course the scenery helps the journey
out. The quaint towns, with their narrow
streets and queer roofs, are always interest
ing. The little houses standing IN the
helds, beside the brooks, along the hillsides,
are always a pleasant sight There are
rivers whose names we learned a good many
years ago in the geography; there
are great crucifxes set beside the track
where some county road crosses it, and mon
Asteries and ruined castles crowning the
heights, and miles and miles of terraced
vineyards; there are the people at the sta
lions, In their unfamiliar dresses. There are
priests and soldiers. These sights keep the
pilgrim from weariness.
So we go out of Munich-a city of broad
streets and handsome buildings and one of
the finest picture galleries in the vorld-up
70 Innsbruck in the Tyrol, among the East
ern Alps, where the snow-topped mountains
shut you in on every side. You can see the
snow, but that helps little. The sun beats
down till the white streets feel like the
burning fiery furnace. The only cool places
IN Innsbruck in July are the great stone