The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1909-02-27
Special 10 The Union.
LETTER FROM ABROAD.
America the Greatest of Them ALA
Marked Difference in the People
and Their Mode of Living
Incidents That I'm
pressed the Cor
respondent.

MessTS. Editors America Is the greatest and
happiest country in the world. The contented
citizen, who has lived his whole life through
beneath the protecting shadow of the Stars and
Stripes, though he be the keenest observer and
most ardent patriot, can never appreciate the
full measure of his blessings. He cannot COM
prehend the value of his heritage because he
sees it at too close range. Distance Is the prime
essential of just perspective. All truth is rela-
tive and the simplest fact can be understood
only by comparison with other facts. America
is one fact. Europe is another, the two are sepa-
rated by an ocean. separated 6guratively as well
as literally.
The real American is the workingman, the
sturdy, honest laborer, the producer. The real
European is the peasant; he also labors and pro-
duces, but his labor is rendered bitter, often
hopeless by the weight of two terrible burdens,
the tradition of feudalism and the insuffciency
of land area. From purely practical, personal
standpoint, the questions of political and social
liberty are vital only for the lower classes, and
today differences of country and government
exist only for them. The rich are safe under
any government. A millionaire In Russia or
Turkey enjoys the same liberty, the same
privileges, the same luxuries, the same exemp-
lions as a millionaire in New York. Further
more, as every tourist knows, the daily life of
the upper classes has become, generally speak
ing the same everywhere. Every first class
hotel in cosmopolitan, the Waldorf at New York.
the Imperial at London, the Regius at Paris, are
alike as three peas of the same pod. The Prince
of Muscovy, the French Vicomte and the Wall
street broker wear the same correctly tailored
broadcloth, the same patent leather shoes and
the same stove-pipe hat.
With the peasant it is different; he has inheri-
ted the characteristic dress, the customs, the
heavy wooden shoes and the still heavier taxes
of his ancestors. For the past week have been
sitting quietly in the chimney corner of an
humble little Provencal inn watching the fire.
light flicker upon the wrinkled faces of these
unhappy toilers Of the globe as they drag out
their pitiful and uneventful lives from day to
day. ] want to describe. very briefly, three or
four incidents which have impressed me most
deeply.
This morning, shortly before noon, was at
tracted by commotion not far from the door
way of my auberge. An old man had slipped
upon the icy pavement and lay face downward
in the slush and snow, A gendarme quickly
pushed his way through the crowd OF gaping
women and children, and not without difficulty
aided the victim of the accident to rise; his face
and beard were covered with blood. his thread
bare garments were wet and muddy, his sabcts
had fallen from his chilled feet and he stood
breathing heavily. bewildered, shivering, anna
ciated, half naked in the street. He seemed to
be at least rs or 80 years old and was very feeble.
Turning toward the officer who had assisted
him he articulated in tone of mingled petu-
lance and resignation:
You are very kind, monsieur-but it was not
worth the trouble thought had reached the
end of my journey" And without gasp he
sank lifeless to the ground. In truth he had
reached his journeys end.
The body was dumped into cart and trans
ported to the town hall, witnesses were sought
| to establish the identity of the deceased. and
| this afternoon a coroner's inquest was held
The process was public and the facts established
were as follows:
Pierre Gebhart was the old mans name. He
| had lived with an only son in a howell on the
border of the Plain of Crau, miles from Mira
| mas. The son, fisherman in the summer and
hunter in the winter, had been his sole support.
Now, five or six days prior to the accident rela-
| ted above, this son had been seized by the
mounted police and carried of to prison, charged
| with the crime of having killed rabbit upon
land belonging to the Count de Barth. The land
| was posted but not surrounded by walls and the
| prisoner pleaded that he did not know he had
overstepped the boundary. Nevertheless, he
| was condemned to year of hard convict labor.
| Since that time the feeble and aged father had
| been without food No one knew exactly why
| he had tottered miles to Miramas, thinly clad
| and in freezing weather, but that didn't much
| matter anyway.
death from senility and indiscreet exposure"
was the verdict. Death from starvation was
| the fact.
| Another day it was cattle driver from the
| lake country who entered the auberge to sacri-
fee his last sous for bowl of milk and ask his
way to the hospital. He was burning with fever.
| his cheeks were infamed, his eyes were unnatur-
| ally bright and he was unsteady on his feet.
France is justly proud of her hospitals. and the
poor unfortunate, who had come long way on
| foot, felt sure that he would be received and
| cared for He was refused admittance. Whyf
| Because his mother was an italian! They told
him 1t was strictly against the rules to receive
| foreigner in the free ward of communal hos
pital but assured him that he need only go to
| Marseilles where the departmental hospital
| would certainly take care of him. He protested
| that Marseilles was so miles distant and that he
was without money walk" said the inferno.
God only knows what became of that Italian.
He left our inn the same night on foot but
| AnOW HS ACtCA ACdOAC0 AhoAcSAAACSs
Less lugubrious but equally pitiful is our
scullion maid, Josephine. droll and homely
creature of uncertain age, whose life consists of
scrubbing floors and scaling fish. She is not
| altogether unhappy, however, for she is the
possessor of two priceless treasures, a case of
chronic gastritis and an uncle in Naples who has
promised to leave her couple of hundred francs
when he dies.
When an occasional customer, observing jose
phine prepare her eternal bowl of Cruel, instead
of sharing the food of the common board, asks If
she is i'll, she always draws herself up proudly
and responds
"J'ai une gastrite ~
The effect is as if she had said, II have dia-
mond sunburst," or ~ have a gilded coach and
four white horses with silver mounted brides"
It is sort of honor, title to distinction. which
renders her different from a common. ordinary
servant. (Also it is economically. She often
suffers from her ailment, suffers horribly, but
know she would regard cure as a calamity.
Poor SOUL her gastritis is her only possession in
the world.
This very evening tattered little ragamuffin,
with fearful blne eyes and pretty golden curls,
crept into the auberge and plaintively begged
permission to sing carol. Having concluded
her little ballad, she hoped to receive few PEN
MES. but only three people in the company paid
the slightest attention to the child. When she
comprehended that she was to receive practi-
cally nothing she burst into tears, and, when
Josephine, with a woman's natural tenderness.
dried the little ones eyes upon the corner of her
dirty apron, sobbed that her mother was watt
ing outside and would whip her cruelty If she
did not succeed in gaining certain number Of
pennies. Her shoulders were already covered
with bruises. Sounds like passage from cheap
melodrama, doesn't il? Almost as trite and
puerile as a scene from THE Two Orphans" or
"Teu Nights in a Bar-room ~ Reminds you.
doubtless, of one of those sickening, sentimen-
tai ballads which always begin ION dark and
stormy night, when the snow was falling fast ~
Well, my only apology for describing the scene
is the fact that it is true. SEABROOK.