The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-10-05
days. in both places. the admission is

ranging TO cross to the continent. One
trunk had been stored by the steamer
people and now we expressed the other,
both were small. from London to Paris,
planning to take only our hand luggage
and swing around the circle with It To
the French capital. With the trunk
went the key to permit its examination
by tariff officers. The trunk wenL
through all right. but I permitted the
French government to confiscate one
package rather than pay the duty de-
n1anded, but of this later when it is
reached.
We called at the office of our friend,
Thomas Cook & Son. Ludgate circus,
clerk that there were three of US, that
we wanted TO get from London to Paris
IN SIX days by way of the North Sea,
rotterdam. The Hague, Amsterdam,
Cologne, up the Rhine to Mainz, thence
to Switzerland, touching Basic, Berne,
Interlaken, Lausanne, thence by Lake
OF Geneva to Geneva, then, by a railroad
jump of Just twelve hours of daylight
from Geneva to Paris
We had found the hotel coupons so
satisfactory in going up into Scotland
that L bought a six days supply of
these for the three of US, covering room.
breakfast and evening dinner, at a
choice of several of the best hotels at
each of the cities for which we had
booked ourselves. These Cook hotel
coupons, convenient in England, were
invaluable ON the continent, where with
IN a week We were obliged to famfliarize
ourselves with the customs costumes
charges and coinage of about one-half
dozen countries. In settling the motel
Dill at each place we merely gave up
the coupons instead of entering into a
complicated financial transaction COW
ering our meals and board, service,
lights and attendance. These coupons
covered most extras for which Euro
pean travellers are often charged, name
a nd
writing paper.
This visit to Cocks, while saving much
time, money and annoyance during the
forthcoming trip, gave me wide vari-
ETY. of Intricate transactions before I
simplif1ed matters into hotel and rail-
road tickets. and analyZed the time
cards to make everything fit with the
weeks schedule
The English sovereigns and five pound
notes were good at the hotels and large
stores everywhere we went. but some
small change of the different countries
was absolutely necessary for cab and
car fares, luncheons, souvenir spoons
and various purchases and the very inn
portant tips.
While one clerk was fixing up my
tickets, went over to the banking
department and exchanged eight or ten
beautiful English gold sovereigns and
several American bills into a motley of
gilders, marks, pfennigs, francs, CEN
times and Dutch cents for use in Hol-
land, Germany, Switzerland and France.
For $500 received eleven gilders and
ninety Dutch cents; the same additional
amount gave me twenty marks. For
francs and for ten dollars forty-fve
marks and twenty pfennigs.
We had not been in Holland day be-
fore I ran out of Dutch money. Things
were SO attractive and opportunities so
numerous for the disappearance of coin
md
and another was melted into gi1ders
generally moulding into twelve. A glider
is the denominaticnal base for the non
ey of Holland, Just as the dollar u fer
the United States. The glider is equal
to rorty cents in our money and one
hundred Dutch cents make glider.
This all means that a Dutch cent is only
worth four mills in our currency.
1t was two O'Clock. before all my trans
actions for the coming week were re-
duced to the simplest equation by Cook
and his associates. I had given them
two and one-half hours of time and
about as much hard work as ever
compressed into that period, but every
thing was beautifully fixed up. When
Mr.. Cook wish me bon voyage L left
happy but with an aching head and
decidedly lumpy appearance, pockets
bullying with small portfolios of railway
and hotel tickets and little paper sacks
of the gold. silver and copper coin OF
various nations. hope was SnOoI9-
er than I looked.
AS we journeyed along the next six
DAYS the protuberances about my coat.
vest and trousers gradually disap-
peared, so that when Paris was reached
I had resumed normal PROPORTIONS ana
in fact. was considerably attenuated,
but with large stock of experience and
information. neither of which made
much of show on the surface.
The three tickets to Paris cost twenty
fxxn Shjllin0S and SiXOence
that is. $10S.54. the steamer transporta-
ton being first class and the rail sec
ond class. Our water travel included
the crossing of the North Sea, an entire
day on the Rhine and boat ride about
half the length of Lake Geneva.
The six days hotel coupons cost
seven pounds seventeen shillings and
sixpence. that is. $3.50, or an equiva-
lent of eight shillings and ninepence for
each person each day, that is, $2.13.
At some of these hotels later ] found
a charge for the single evening dinner
was from one dollar to one dollar and
is known as the first class series. There
were several other series by which the
traveller could secure accommodations
at lesser cost.
That evening we left couple of
shillings for the room maid of our Lon
don hotel. gave a few pennies to the
elevator boy OH our last trip down. a
Sn1lllnE TO the porter WHO Carried our
hand luggage and extra shilling to
him for looking after the trunk, which
was to take the short cut across the
channel.
We left the Liverpool street station of
the Great Eastern railway at $50 that
night: by 10 we reached the docks at
Harwieh. on the east coast. immedi-
ately boarding the steamer Vienna,
which was to take US due east across
the North Sea This was called the
Hook of Holland boat. named after the
first port it touched in the Netherlands.
This trip over to the mainland of Eu-
rope had been looked upon with more or
less terror. Every one who has not e1-
perienced the rough seas across THESE
narrow waters has read about them.
Every morning the London papers tell
the condition of the North sea, the
Dover strait and the English channel,
saying whether the sea is moderate,
calm or rough. The papers daily had
given us the cherries Information that
boats crossing usually on an hour and