Blackfoot news. (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1891-1902, 1896-09-26
AMERICANS In LONDON.
Thousands of Tourists Thronging
the English Capital
What an American Sees In His Trips
About the Great City-it Il Easy
to Distinguish the People
a from This Side

The world will surely turn upside
down If the English begin to change
their ways. 1t looks rs if this We're go
ing TO happen They are showing an
intelligent acquaintance with our ge-
opraphy and our public men. for one
rnheard-of thing. The prince Of Wales
has had electric lights put in his town
house; the suffocating. sulphurous I'M
foreground railway is experimenting
with electric motors, and the newspa-
pers are printing pictures. Vesthuled
trains with saloon cars are appearing on
the railways and the theaters are Begin
ming to give away programmes TO the
audiences. But the most surprising,
rock-shiycring revolution makes the
latest news OF the week-the city mer-
chants have formally agreed 10 let their
clerks wear straw hats. 1t has been as
hot as Chicago during q national con-
vention, so something had TO be done
for the clerks, but who would have
dreamed that the traditional dress of
tens of thousands of clerks who have
gone about sweltering in their hats was
thus suddenly TO be changed? 1t prob
ably has taken ever since the French
revolution for them to get their high
hats and no one supposed they would
lose them inside of another century
This change makes it bothersome for
me to pick out the Americans in the
streets. For weeks have been riding
about on the tops of buses 1.-THE eharicts
Of the masses) and picking out Amer
leans BY their derby hats and straw
tiles. Fancy my surprise, then, when
l see on the Strand my cigar counter
clerk in straw hat, and Bob Fitzsim-
mons, the champion of the world, in
silk tile. BY the way, stepped down
from my chariot when ! saw the pugi-
list and said: 'Hellol are you over here
TO fght?r NO." said he, and his an
swer was such as Alexander might have
made when he had rounded up the
world. There's nobody here to fight.
can stop them al in four rounds"
There are about $4,000 of US here, and
part of this huge burg has become al
most homelike in consequence. West
minister Abbey is as American q resorta
the Fifth Avenue hotel, and you could
not go amiss in ST. Paul's or the Tower
if you went up to the first man or wom-
an in the crowd and said: ~Hurrah
for Old Glory!"
Some of the American men who come
here are terror to their countrymen
They seem to have had enough money
%1enr
borrow to get back. They catch US who
are rooted here and cannot get away
One American resident, well-knowr
novelist, got card from hartl-up the
other day, and asked him in. The Wis
itor began to tell him how much he ad
mired the novelist's work, how he ha(
read every line he had ever written AMI
there the novelist stopped him. "Se
here" said he, you have run short o
money and are 5000 miles iron
home, and want a slight favor o
u and so forth, and so forth.
understand; you needn't say wore
Now. don't you think you ar
wasting your time with me? am onl
a novelist, and have a family. l coul
not possibly loan you more than fiv
shillings, but if you would 20 to AstC
and spend the same time and hone
on him, telling him how fond you al
of his books, he could give you hui
bred dollars"
The visitor rose to his feet. "You al
brick" said he. THANK you yer
much. I'll go and see Astor at once"
There is another way of telling Anne
leans without looking at their hats.
is by their quick, alert, nervous NOV,
ments, their bright, wide-awake face
and their conscious independence an
pride. You thought was going to sa
by their speech, but that is not so. I'll
sharp, nasal speech that the Englis
ascribe to us is only the heritage Of
few of us, and we got it from the En-
lish. Down in Cornwall and up
Yorkshire they have the same shal
"a" that we use. Here in London ii
cockneys all say "caow," and "raound
and "naow." just as our Philadelphia
and some Yankees do. No; there is I
sense in that old gibe about o.
speech. We got it from these folks, al
we left it here besides.-N. Y. journal