The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-04
IN THIS WORLD OF NOISE
EXAMINATIONS OF THE ARTISTIC
 TEMPERAMENT
Seeking Quist by Day and Sleep b&
 Night-A Plague of Whistling i'm
 America-Paderewsk Longing. "

l Ntght-A Plague of Whfstitng In
 America-Paderewslsi Longing. V
 One thing never could understand
 how Wagner could find here ( Ven
 ice) place quiet enough to allow him | to write such music Venice is one of
 the noisiest cities in Europe, and that
 Is the grudge I bear it. It seems funny,
 too when you first think of it, for the | great noise-makers are usually horses and wagons, and Venice has no horses | and wagons-no one. But the streets are nrroow, and the natives, like all | Italians, have habit of always speak | ing fostssimo-at least ten times as loud as Is necessary. Ignorant persons who do not know that malaria is propa-
 gated by mosquitoes, and not by night air. and who therefore, keep their win dows closed, may be able to sleep un-
 disturbed, though their sleep can hard
 ly be refershing; but if you keep your
 windows open, you must be prepared to
 be awakened at any hour of the night
 by the stentorian voices of men who
 seem to be about to engage in battle
 for life, but who probably are only say-
 ing, Good evening" or How do you
 do?" co each other, after the passionate
 Italian fashion.
 However, it will hardly do for us who
 live in glass houses to throw stones at
 the Italians; for although we do not
 utter the commonplaces of smart talk
 in such furious tones and bellicose ac-
 cents as they do, we are, as a nation,
 anything but gentle and refined in our
 mode of speech, or considerate of our
 neighbors. In the daytime one may grin and bear 1t, but at night 1t often becomes sore trial. Pullman sleepers afford an excellent test of manners up the road" and the results are any thing but f1attering to our national van ity I have slept--or tried to sleep--at least hundred nights in Pullman cars, and I do not remember one in which was not awkenead once orroftener by persons coming in late at this or that station, and bawlng away at each oth- ! CT at the top of their voices, just as if they were in their private bedrooms; utterly regardless of the two dozen ! persons whom they disturbed. Women, I regret to add, are usually the worst | offenders, and I have often wished the porter would hand to each of them, as she enters the sleeper, card with King Lear's tribute to Cordelia.
 Her voice was ever soft, Gentle and low, an excellent thing in
 women"
 To sensitive persons, there is how ever, something even worse than the small talk by which nine per- sons out of ten usually betray their lack of manners and refinement I have kown women who claimed the. privilege of voting as right, yet who had so little consideration for the rights and of other people that they allow ed their boys to make a perpetual nuis- ance of themselves, by their shrill, loud whistling, with out ever word of pro- test. But 1t Is not only the boys who whistle; grown men are constantly whistling all about me, and nearly ev- ,ry day have to go from one car to the elevated railway into another because some fellow is entertaining himself at he expense of all the other passengers America has been called country of vhistlers, and nothing worse has even been said of US by our btterest enemies. 7,ropeans do not whistle. Boys may, put wel-dressed adults do not and, as rule, it is only cobblers' boys and ;treet Arabs who indulge in this vice. During my recent trip in Europe which overed parts of ten countries, I always to my wife, when We heard any one vhistling: "There's an American" and learly always I found I was right.
 There are doubtless a number of per- ons who cannot understand why yhistling should be considered offensive nd vulgar. 1t is offensive and vulgar or the same reason that the use of lusk and other villanous "perfumes" is onsidered offensive and vulgar. When
 was a boy, in the days when Dick ms planted American manner in such npleasant colors, no objection was lade to the use of these vile and ob- rusive smells. But we have progressed , refinement, and to-day it is consid- red very bad manners to use louo" erfumes in public The time will come ,hen loud whistling-from which it is $ impossible to escape as from the odor f musk--will also be frowned on. It
 in the hope of accelerating the advent that time that l am writing this ,remiad.
 What aggravates the offense is that
 the vast majority of cases the whist IFS do not even give us tune, but lst maunder along in chaotic; idiotic recession of tones. l suppose this sort
 inane noise gives one good idea of hat goes on in the brains of persons ho never think To musically refined ,rsons it is a torture that might have en used during the Inquisition, Pad