Evening journal., 1892-09-03
GEORGE W. CURTIS LAST ARTICLE.
An Extract From His September Easy
Chair"-Last Words lie Wrote.


Zone Of the firm Of Harner Brothers said
yesterday that George William Cultis's last
article was the Easy Chair Tor September,
the principal part Of which follows,l
The part of the English speaking peo-
pie that inhabits the British Islands is
apt to show, among its more ignorant
classes, much more brutishness than is
shown by the American branch Of the
race. Seventy and eighty years ago,
when the American Englishman foolishly
permitted himself to be very much dis
turbed by the gibes of the British trav-
eler, who, seeing our sensitiveness, took
especial pleasure in pricking and prod
ding US with his pen, which, after all.
was more blunt than pointed,-in those
belligerent days our literary forefathers
angrily retorted with the tn quoque; and
there are pamphlets of the time which
are mainly catalogues of incidents Of
brutality and outrage culled from the
British papers.
These dreadful people, said the Bri-
ton, spit great deal and eat peas with
q knife, and sit in their shirt sleeves at
the theater and ask great many ques-
tions, and speak the language somewhat
differently from us. Pigs run at large in
the streets of New York city, and in gen
eral it is a vain. vulgar and boastful peo-
pie In the whole chorus of writers
who exasperated US by such comments
there was no one of ability, no one who
was worthy of attention, hardly one who
could be called clever. But the effect
upon our sensitiveness was undeniable,
and none of them was visited with more
wrath than a certain commonplace clergy
man named Fidler. who might been u
curate in one Of Miss Austen's novels,
and whose dullness was so dense as TO
be entertaining.
The rejoinder, however, was always
crushing If Americans eat peas with a
knife, Englishmen kicked their wives
and sold them in open market, and every
oieuse against social convention on our
p TT was set off by an ofIense against
common humanity on the part of John
Bull. The catalogue was long and pain
full, and in IL left the same impression Of
brutality among the lower English
classes that is derived from the English
novels of the last century, and from hints
in Hogarth's pictures and which is con
stantly confirmed by current reports.
The latest Of such stories is that OF the
missile thrown at Mr. Gladstone and the
riot at the speech of Mr., Stanley.
Our elections are excited, and there is
sometimes a quarrel at the polls. But
there is no breaking up the meetings OF
one party by the attacks Of the other.
Just after the adoption Of the constitu
ton Alexander Hamilton made a speech
in the open air in New York, and stones
were thrown at him. and in the hot cam
paigns that preceded the civil war there
were sometimes violent interruptions OF
political meetings But the custom OF
our campaigns is wholly different. EacI
side respects the meetings of the other
and a personal indignity from Demo
cratic opponent to Mr. Edmunds speak
ing upon the stump wonld be resented
upon all des as warmly as q Republican
assault upon Mr. Bayard
Such a scene as that at Lambeth in
London, where Mr. Stanley and his wife
were driven from.the platform by an angry
mob, which sought to tear them from
their carriage, and from which they es
capped only with great difficulty, is
wholly unknown in this part Of the Eng
| lish speaking world Yet it seems to be
very familiar in the British Islands 1t
/ springs from the same spirit that makes
prize fighting national institution, and
which made Tame feel that upon a Ger
tain kind of Englishmen the veneer Of
civilization is very thin.