The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-06

Copyright, 1905, by Joseph B. Bowles.)
 Paris, France.--My Dear Uncle Ezra: Dad is in an awful state here and do not know what to do with him. We struck this town all in heap. and the people seemed to be parslized so they couldn't speak, except to make motions and make noises that we could not interpret, This is the first time dad and I have been in a place where nobody understood our language. Or dinarily we would take pleasure in teaching people to speak the English language, but in coming across the En- glish channel dad and both got some thing we never got on the water be- fore. Ordinary seasickness is only an incident. that makes you wish you were dead--just temporary, but when it wears off you can enjoy your reiig- ion and victdals as well as ever. but the seasickness that the English chan mel givcs you is permanent invest men.. like government bonds that you cut coupons off of. I 'spect we shall be sick always now, and worse every other day, like chills and fever.
 Say, boat on the English channel does not roll, or pitch, at intervals, like a boat on ordinary water, but it does sunts like a broncho that has been poisoned by eating loco-weeds. and goes into the air and dives down under anG shakes itself like a black bass with hook in it's mouth, and walks or Its fore paws. and seems to jump through hoops, and dig for wood- ehrcks, and all the time the water !oils like pollinarius, fuii of bubbles. and 1t gives you the hiccups to look at it, and it flows every way at the same time. and the wind comes from the fourteen quarters at once. and blows hot If you are too hot and want a cool breeze, and if you are too cold. and want warm breeze to keep you alive, it comes right from the north pole, and you just perish in your tracks.
 Gee, but it is awful. When you get seasick on an ordinary ocean, you k,o~ where to locate the disease. ard you lS&ow where to go for relief, and when you have got relieved you know that you are alive, but an English channel seasickness is as different from any other as an alcohol jag is different from a champagne drunk. This English channel seasickness be- gins on your toes. and you feel as though the toenails were being pulled out with pinchers. and the veins in your legs seem to explode, your arms wilt like lettuce in front of a cheap grocery. your head seems to be struck with a pile-driver and telescoped down into your spine, and your stomach feels as though you had swallowed. a telephone pole with all of the cross arms and wires and glass insulators. and you wish Tightening would strike you. Gosh, but dad was hot when he found that he was sick that way, and rolls over like a trained dog. and sits up on it's hind legs and begs. and then when we got ashore he wanted to kill the first man he met.
 He thinks that 1t Is a crime for a man not to understand the English language, and when he tells what he wants, and the man he is talking to shrugs his shoulders and laughs, and bringe ehim-semethiAg~ else, he wants to pull ais gun and begin to shoot up the town, and only for me he would he takes it out in scowling at people who do not understand him. Dad seems to think that if he cannot make a man understand what he says, all he has to do Is to swear at the Slan. but there is no universal language of profanity. so the more dad swears the more the nervous Frenchnan smiles, and acts polite.
 I think the French people are the
 
 Frenchman had to kick a person out of doors. he would wear a felt slipper. and after he had kicked you he would place his hand on his heart, and bow. and look so sorry, and hurt, that you would want to give him a tip.
 O. but this tipping business is what Is breaking dads heart. I think if the servants would arrange a syndicate to rob dad of two or three dollars g. day, by pocket picking, or sneak thiev- ing, he would overlook it, and say that as long as 1t was one of the customs Of the country we should have to sub- init to it, but when he has paid his bill, with everything charged extra, and the servants line up and look ap- pealingly. or mad, as the case may be, dad Is the hardest man to loosen that ever was, but if theyp seem to look the other way. and not, apparently, care whether they get a cent or not, dad would go and hunt them up, and di- vide his roll with them. Dad is not what you would call tight wad," if you let him shed his money normally. when he feels the loosening coming on. but you try to work him by lowing and cringing, and his American spirit gets the better of him. and he looks upon the servants as pretty low down. have told him that the tipping habit Is just as bad in America as in France. but he says in America the servant acts as though he never had such a thought as getting a tip, and when you give him a quarter or ether tip he looks puzzled. as though he did not just recall what he had done to merit such treatment, but finally puts the money in his pocket with an air aS though he would accept 1t in trust, to be given to some deserving person at the first opportunity. and then he smiles. and gets away. and blows in the tip for something wet and strong.
 told dad if he would just ignore the servants, as though he did not un. derstand that they expected a tip, that he would be all right, so when we got ready to move from the hotel to pri- vate rooms dad never gave any serv- ant q tip. We'll, don't know what the servants did to our baggage, but they must have marked 1t with a smallpox sign. or something. for nobody would touch 1t for several hours, but finally a baggage man took it and started for our apartments, and got lost. and didn't show up for two days, and when it was finally landed on the sidewalk nobody would carry it up stairs, and dad and had to lug it up two flights and thought dad would have apo plexy.
 We found a guide who could talk New Orleans English and he said 1t would cost three dollars to square 1t with the servants at the hotel and have the boycott removed from our baggage, and dad paid 1t. and now he coughs up tip every time he sees a. af