Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1897-11-20
THE CHECK SYSTEM.
An English Visitor Tells the People About
the American Way.


An EnglisE, Visitor Tells the People About
the American Way.
The American constitution has been
called a system of checks. So in Ameri-
can life. When you want to travel, you
give your baggage to the porter of your
hotel, and he gives you a check i'll re-
turn. At the station you reclaim it
with the check and pass it in at a coun,
ter and receive another check. AS you
approach your destination another func-
tionary comes along the train, takes
your check and gives you another check
in its place. He fishes out your baggage
and conveys it to your hotel-for a con-
sideration. You have left your third
and last check at the office of the hotel
when you enter it, and thence it is de-
livered up on receipt of the baggage.
At first you bless this arrangement as
the salvation of the traveller. After a
few weeks of it the tyranny of the check
becomes so CALLING that you begin to
long for the fine old English method of
dumping down your goods in front of a
porter and leaving them to find the way
themselves. You would even hail it as
a personal triumph if some of your bag
gage would get lost. But it never does.
Sometimes it arrives late, but it always
arrives.
Yet it seldom arrives in the shape in
which it started, if that is any consola-
ton. They who have to do with bag
gage see to that. You very soon discover
why Americans carry their goods in
ironclad trunks, and why it is madness
for anybody to do anything else. l
started out, like an idiot, with new
leather portmanteau. They ripped the
stout brass lock off the first week
not for plumber, apparently, but simply
because it is the tradition of the service.
They punched it and kicked and danced
on it. In softer hours, when literary
inspiration came, they wrote on it. My
portmanteau today is an epitome of the
political sentiment of the United States
from New York to San Francisco. As
historical document it is beyond
price, and l am contemplating the gift
of it to the library of congress at Wash
ington. AS a portmanteau it has both
feet in the grave.
The system of checks is not confined
to travellers luggage. The conductor of
the train passes carelessly to and fro
asking for your ticket and giving you a
check i'll return, or asking for your
check and returning your ticket. If you
hand your stick to a boy in a hotel
while you write your name in the reg
lister, he dashes off to stow it away in
some secret place and returns triumphant
with a check. In the very hotel bar,
when you buy sevenpence ha'porth of
whisky you get check and walk two
yards across the bar to pay at desk.
But the apotheosis of the check is at
Niagara. When you go down to the
Gave of the Winds, you strip Off al!
your clothes and leave them, as we'll as
your valuables, in "a tin box with the
attendant. Then you go down to battle
with the cataract attired only in suit
of pyjamas, suit of oilskins and q
check dashed around your neck and ris-
ing and falling with the beating of
your heart. No wonder the American
speaks of death as "handing in his
checks" 1t is only by death that he can
rid himself of them. London Mail,