Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-02-13
SCRAPES LABELS OFF

Always, upon returning from abroad.
spend busy haf-hour or SO in moistening
and then rubbing off, with iack-knife. all
Of the railroad and steamship and express
and hotel labels that have been slapped
onto my suit cases, bags and trunks during
my prowhngs about on the other side,' said
Washington nan who spends good deal
of his time overseas. Il do this because
don't like to be regarded as vain and
fiippant fraud by strangers in this coun-
try.
There are Just two views which the av-
erage American takes of a man who pub
hcy displays. say, suit case plastered
over with foreign travel labels. The first
Is that the man with the plastered suit
case is an ostentatious sort of a chap, with
the swelled head, who wants everybody to
know that he has done a bit OF going over
the water. The second is that he's a
fakir who's never been beyond Sandy Hook
In his life, but who has got hold or lot
OF those labels and pasted them on his
travelling gear for the purpose of leading
strangers seeing him with the suit case to
suppose that he's real devil Of fellow
for travelling
Il don't want to be viewed in either of
these uncanny lights, and that's why am
at great pains, as soon as 1 get back to
this country, to remove from my travelling
gear all vestiges of the labels. Such work
OF removal makes my bags and suit cases
look nightly seedy. too. and I've rubbed
some OF them thin in spots in my eager,
ness to square myself with the cynical
strangers Of my country, but can't help
that feature of it. l can't abide the idea
of being looked upon either as a swelled-
head or a fakir.
81 had pretty good chance to observe.
at first hand. how this labe1s-on-the.s u1t-
case business works out in New York
few years ago.
with friend I boarded an uptown 9th
avenue elevated train at Cortlandt. street.
small, somewhat retiring-looking man
was Immediately ahead of me on the sta
ton steps. and it happened that he got into
the same car that l took He had brown
mustaehe and mild Hooking eyes, and he
was distinctly not man Of a consequential
bearing. He took one of the side seats.
and l, with my friend, took sitting space
directly across the aisle from him.
This small Observation-Disclosures man
with the mild eyes. had two very large suit
cases with him, which he did his best to
stow out of sight under the seat when he
sat down. But they were too large to be
showed under the seat and he had to some
what clutter the aisle with them. which did
not increase the good nature of the per-
sons entering the car who had to step over
the pair of suit cases. l never saw travel
ing gear so Uttered up with labels as those
two were. They had pastors on them all
the way from Cape Town to Hong Kong.
There wasn't square inch on either of
them that didn't have some sort of paSter
proclaiming the fact that the owner of the
pair of grips had been in Florence or
Vienna, or Port Said, or Calcutta, or Sing
apore, or Ceylon or Honolulu, or all sorts
of other places equally wide apart.
1.-The people sitting across the way from
the mild-lOoking little man no sooner got
the focus ON those two suit cases than they
began to sheer and make audible remarks,
after the manner of those polite New York
ers in such circumstances. Even my COM
ION afr h.
rather annoyed me by the character of the
remarks he made about those plastered-
over suit cases. so that l made him pretty
brusque answers, in an effort to show him
that l didn't share in the general skeptic-
ism. =
=" That feller's had a Cooks tour-'bout
thirty days. probably--over the way said a
chap sitting a couple of seats away from
me- and l guess maybe he isn't the gay
dog now, from the looks of those grips
Tour, nothing commented the man sit
ting alongside of him. why, those posters
slapped onto the grips don't necessarily
prove that the alleged Willie-o off the-big
boat has ever been anywhere in his life
farther than Coney Island. Don't you know
that there are several places down on Bowl
ing Green nowadays where you can get
punches of these labels from all sections
of the world for half dollar? They do a
regular and thriving =, business, at those
places, selling labels OF, that kind to shines
that want to make folks believe that
IN he
go all the time
Even a number of women sitting across
the way from the mild-looking little man
got to giggling over the sight of those
label-pia stored bags, and they weren't any
more dainty about expressing themselves
aloud than the men who allowed their
minds to dwell sneeringly the subject of
fake travellers and 50 on.
Now, | had myself, even at that time
been through the embarrassing experience
of having skeptfcal and bad-naannered min
heads make remarks about the labels on
my travelling gear-that was before | got
into the excellent habit of removing them
as soon as | returned to the United States
and | felt bit sorry for the mild-lookinp
little man, although he appeared to be bliss.
fuily unconscious of the fact that any-
pody had SO much as noticed him. much
less those offending suit cases He was &C.
cupying his time in looking out of the T.
car windows with the curiosity as 7 couId
easily see, of stranger, and so the chean
sneers OF the other passengers never reach
ed him. He was, as I afterward found a
whole lot too much of man and gentle
man to suspect that his fellow passenpers
on any sort OF train, elevated or other
wise, could make such vulgar and hoorisb
exhibitions Of themselves
My companion, not underst "a di,e NV
state or mind on the subject went on talk.
ing about those labels
It's wonder to me- he said, that
man VINO pretends to possess as nnucb men
tally as mollusk would try to pet NOV
with such cheap game as the eyhihition
OF those idiotic labels. Does the chan s,,ni
pose for minute that people of averara
Intelligence really believe that he's hae,,
tanning around at all of those nIacasS
hate piker. But I despise a counterfsJtr
That was about as much as | cared 70
listen to. e"ieo 10 ]
49, Look here said to the man with ma
L IL tell you what III do. I'll go Won a him,
cred dollars even that that little man over
yonder has visited every blamed place that
ms suit case labels calls for / don't know
ihm from Adam. but 1 hate cynicism. es
racially audible eynicism. that has abso-
iutely no basis upon which to go
How are you going to find out whore
he's been% my friend asked me.
III find out, all right L replied. do
you want to take the bet?
Take 1t? Sure thing I'll take IT no
replied, but it's like stealing your hun
dred.'
All right-you're on for the hundred
and If I don't succeed in proving to yor,
that that little man has been to eyery
place that he has a paster for, why.
lose said I.
When the small man reached down fo-
his suit case. preparatory TO getting of
the train. as it, neared' the 3Sd street sta
ton. l nudged my friend. and he followed
after me when-1 fell INTO the footsteps of