The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1894-08-24
AMERICANS In LONDON.
AN ENGLISH VIEW OF THEIR AC-
TiONS AND MANNERS.


ways and customs would have been an
tiquated in the reign of Queen Anne and
are renowned for the observance of all
those petty rules which make the lives of
the English upper classes ridiculous in the
eyes of the rest of the world, but without
which there are some people who feryently
believe the nation would not be safe nor
the crown secure.
Why Americans should do this is past
comprehension, unless it be the result of
that blind infatuation for everything Eng
lish which is the controlling principle of
the Anglomaniac's existence. 1t can not
be because they like it-really like it. If
it be done for the qualification of curiosity
purely and only we might be able to under
stand it. If American ladies and gentle
men of large and unlimited means want to
see what a characteristic English hotel is
like, and so to it so to see, it is one thing.
But if they go because English people 90
to it, and that, therefore, it must be 'the
correct thing to do, don't you know" it is
quite another. am afraid the latter mo-
tive controls the whole business.
AMERICAN HOTELS IN LONDON.
All | can say is it is pitiful and enough
to bring blush Of shame to the faces of
real Americans 1t is not as if there were
no hotels in London conducted on the
American plan, and, us in the days when
George Wilkes wrote Europe in Hurry"
there were nothing but dark and dingy
little English hotels to 60 to. But there
are dozens of hotels such us are the rule in
America and under the roofs of which you
would be justified in supposing an Ameri-
can lady or gentleman would feel thor
oughly at home.
AT any one of the modern hotels any
American, with an American love of COM
fort, might be contented There they can
have hot and cold water, bathrooms,
billiard room, an elevator and n table
d'hote Everything with perhaps slight
English tinge) which they are accustomed
to in America they can have at these hotels.
Yet Americans seem to prefer the opposite.
Instead of going to the sort of hotels they
have been used to all their lives, and their
fathers before them-the sort of hotels
which even some openminded English
people are generous enough to admit are
the best hotels in the world-they turn
their backs upon them and rush to Longs,
Claridge's and Morley's, where they are no
more really at home than bird would be
in cage.
As rule, the better classes in England
do not stay at hotels in London. Some do,
of course, but the majority have town
residences of their own, and when in Lon
don during the season they live in them.
But sometimes, when obliged to be in town
when the season is over, they may go for a
night or two to hotel-and to hotels such
as Longs and Claridge's.
HOTELS ENGLIsHMEN PREFER.
But they go to hotels Of this kind simp-
ly because they prefer them, and they pre-
fer them because they have always been
accustomed to them. They would sooner
walk up stairs than be carried up by
"lift;" they would rather have their bath
in portable tub by their bedside than in
the most elaborately appointed bathroom
they would sooner shave themselves than
go down to the hotel barber shop, and are
decidedly happier with small can of hot
water, brought up by the chambermaid,
than they would be if drawing it them
selves from silver plated tap. The very
things they do not like in a hotel Ameri-
cans DO Tor ought toy; the very things they
do like Americans do not (or ought not toy.
Yet is all reversed directly Americans
come to London.
Another thing 1t costs a lot more
money to stay at Longs or Claridge's than
at the American hotels-or rather those
English hotels which are kept on the
American plan. Besides which, all and
every of the great swells of high life, when
ever they may be compelled to go to Lon
don hotel, always go to Longs or Clar-
idge's, or one Of the Other leading West
End family" hotels. In which case their
arrivals and departures are carefully
chronicled and published in the Fashion
able Intelligence" column Of The Morning
Post. The American plan hotels do not
soar to this height.
"swAGGER" PEOPLE ABROAD.
The great puzzle to Englishmen in this
respect is why Americans want to show off
in England. They can understand their
liking to live well and have nice things
and to live in good houses as they them
selves do; but what they do not compre-
hend is why they do not prefer America to
to swagger in. English "swagger," in its
truest sense and meaning, is INDUCED in
only in England. 1 allude, Of course, to
the best people. They swagger at home
because it is perfectly legitimate that they
should. 1t is their right and privilege and
habit to do swagger things and to be
thought very swagger by people beneath
them. 1t is the snobs who swagger when
they so abroad on the astonish-the-native
principle. They cannot swagger at home
and SO they go abroad.
On the other hand, the really swagger
people in England are quiet, unobtrusive
and simple when they travel, or go to stay
anywhere out of England. II you see
man travelling with half dozen servants,
showing up at every station and great
row and noise going on whenever he makes
his appearance, be sure he is retired
tailor or butter maker The dukes and
earls go about like other people. They
keep their swagger for their own country,
and do not assert themselves abroad.
Therefore, they cannot imagine why Ameri-
cans who have standing at home are not
content with it.
Isuppose you might talk and write till
doomsday, but you could not hope to i'm
press these American swaggerers abroad
with the utter "bad FORM" in English
eyes, of the things they do OF course,
they have right to do what they like, if
they can pay for it. But because n man is
able to pay for thing is not a justification
for his doing it or having it.-London Cor.
San Francisco Argonaut.
A Crown on a Tombstone.