The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-11-23
EURoPE'S EYES ARE ON US.
AMERICA REDIsCOvERED DURING
THE PAST YEAR.

Observations by an English Journa..
list of Life Here-Vicws of Our
Cities, Power and FoOd-PracticnI
Jokes by Fate Upon Robert barr.
American Singers Abroad.
London Letter in New York Sun.
More has been printed in the newspapers
of England and Europe about America
and American affairs during the past year
than during the preceding forty. This as
sanlt upon European ignorance is one of
the eonpeIsations for the trials of the re-
cent campaign which the people of the
United States should not fail to appre-
ciate. Europe has practically rediscov-
cred America. 1t will prove good thing
for Europe undoubtedly 1t can hardly
fail to be better thing for America than
the aborigines found it half a millennium
ago.
The name of the new Columbus is C.
W. Stevens. Although many explorers
from the old world have been penetrating
the unknown mysteries of the new, Mr.
Stevens easily takes rank as their chief
Everything about Mr. Stevens is new
hts point of view, his candor, his style,
his lack of prejudice, even the newspaper
in which he records his discoveries. lie
is neither fiatterlng nor hypercritical. He
seems to be the first Englishman who
ever went to the United States without
his binoculars-some look at America
through ono end and some through the
NJ la ne
has sent home to the Daily Mail some
cameo like sketches of American life
which have attracted more attention taan
any travellers letters which have appear
ed in the English press in recent years.
1t is said that a correspondent here
cabled to his PAPER in the west the other
day that Mr.. Stevens had described Chi
cago as "the gutter-snipe of Cities" and
that the town on Lake Michigan is, there
fore, us indignant with him as it is over
John Burns and his pocket edition of
hell" observation. If this is the fact, then
the sensitive citizens of Cook county are
uniustly angry This Is what Mr..
Stevens actually said about their ambi-
tiOus village:
Chicago! Chicago, queen and gutter
snpe of cities; cynosure and cesspool of
the world Not If l had a hundred
tongues, every one shouting different
language in a different key, could l do
justice to her splendid chaos!
The most beautiful and the most
squalid, girdled with a two-fold zone OF
parks and slums; where the keen air from
lake and prairie is ever In the nostrils,
and the stencil Of foul smoke is never out
of the throat; the great port a thousand
miles from the sea; the great mart which
gathers UP with one hand the corn and
cattle of the west and distributes with
the other the merchandise of the east;
widely and generously planned with
streets of twenty miles, where 1t is not
safe to walk al night; where women ride
straddlewise and millionaires dine at mid
day on the Sabbath; the chosen seat of
public spirit and municipal Doodle, of cut
throat commerce and munihcent patron
age of art; the most American of Ameri-
can cities and yet the most mongrel; the
second American city of the globe, the fifth
German city, the third Swedish the Sec
ond Polish. the first and only veritable
Babel of the age; all of which twenty.
| five years ago next Friday was a heap OF
smoking ashes. Where in all the world
can words be found for this miracle OF
paradox and incongruityl"
If Chicagoans find fault with that, they
are ready to quarrel with incarnate Truth
itself. AS for New York, Mr. Stevens
saw it first from his window at the WAL
dorf the morning after he landed, and
| he was so impressed by ii that he sai
down instantly and wrote this:
New York was spread out In bright sun.
| shine below. Never have l seen a city
more hideous or more splendid. Uncouth
| formless, parti-colored, chaotic, IL ye
stamps Itself upon you as the most magnif.
| cent embodiment of Titanic energy anG
| force.
1.-THE foreground of my picture was q
| lightning conductor, swooping down from
some dizzy, unimaginable hight aslant t.
the street below. Beneath was a wing Of
| the Waldorf on the left a deep, silent
| courtyard, whence some pittance of all
and light filtered into the lower floors; or
the right a huge skeleton of iron girderi
! that is to fill out into yet another gigantic
branch of this gigantic hotel. Beyond lay
| the red, nat, sloplng roofs Of two street.
| of houses, four or five stored, with tree.
struggling up to the light between them
/ this might have been a bit of Bloomsbury
! Beyond, shutting out the direct front
rose to double their hight the great
square, dirty whlte-and-yellow back of q
huge Broadway store; the blind-Iookins
contradicted the comfortable Blooms
! bury streets with suggestion
| of overcrowding and squalor. tt
the right of this, half covered with
creepers, a little church cooked a squa
Gothic spire to heaven. To the left wal
peep Of Broadway with cable carr
| ceaselessly gliding to and fro right on TOT
of them. as it seemed. the trains of Tn,
elevated road pulled and ratified in endless
succession.
Hardly topping this was a little blu
shop and little red shop side by side; ell
bowling them, a big greenish theater, ant
beyond that again great white block o
business houses with a broad blue bant
of advertisements across its dead side
Peeping over that, another street; beyond
| that, another square block of windows;
clock tower; then in a shapeess brown
| tumble the city stretches away out to tn
steely band of the Hudson and the pal
green hills of New Jersey beyond.
walk down town toward the bushes
quarter-if one part can be called the bus
mess quarter more than another--and tn
impression is everywhere the same. Th
very buildings cry aloud OF struggling, al
most savage, unregulated strength NJ
street is laid out as part of q system, NJ