The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-05
Famous English Author Gives His Impressions
 of Gotham
STRANGER IS ONLY
 MAN WHO HUSTLES
Americans Realize That Clock Is Made for Man and Not Man for Them. Keeping Ones Engage
 ments Difficult

Foreign travel has one great disad- vantage. writes George A. Brming ham, the famout author, in the London Daily Mail. Cherished beliefs disap- pear, and life Is sensibly poorer for the want of them.
 I have discovered. for instance, that
 the French are not any more immoral than anyone else. A delightful myth perished when I went to France. and I am almost sorry I did not stay at home.
 The Italian woman is not particular I lv beautiful. found that out by going to Italy, and nothing I saw there has quite made up for the loss of my illu-
 sion.
 l But no previous experience prepared
 me for the disappointment I suffered
 in America. I was quite certain before-
 hand that New York was city of
 hustle. I have seen the Belfast man going to business in the morning, and enjoyed the spectacle. I have seen the Strand and Fleet street at luncheon
 time, and enjoyed that, just as the | Latin poet enjoyed watching a sea tossed boat when he himself was safe on dry land. Here" I have said to myself, "is human energy working at high pressure. These men have not a
 moment to lose. They are hustling. and | it Is delightful to watch them. Some day I shall g6 to New York and stroll along Broadway at noon. There I shall
 see hustling compared with which all l I have seen before will seem like dig
 nified calm"
 l I went to New York and found 1t a I city of spacious leisure
 l My first experience of this strange
 fact was in a restaurant. I ordered
 lunch modest little lunch-some fried chicken, an ice and cup of coffee. | It took 10 minutes to get the chicken, seven more minutes intervened between | the removal of its bones and the com ing of the ice. Then I had six minutes
 in which To digest the ice before I got
 the coffee. This is the ordinary pro- cedure in American hotels and restau-
 rants. The Americans themselves like | it. They smoke cigarettes after order | ing their meals. and cigarette or two I between each course. Only people In ] love with leisure would eat in such l fashion.
 In England. and in Belfast if you go into a mans office to transact busi-
 ness you transact it and then go. Some
 thing very unpleasant would happen to Iyou if you stayed. In America you
 transact your business and then your ] host shows you round his premises, l takes you somewhere to lunch, exhibits
 the most interesting things in his
 neighborhood to you. and then presses | you to stay on with him and explain ] thoroughly the Irish question. with I special reference to Ulster and home rule. This is partly due to the fact that the Americans are a much more hos pitable and social people than the Eng l fish: but 1t Is also due to the Amer jeans contempt for time. He realizes. as the Englishman never does, that the clock and even the sun are made for man, not man for them.
 A Strangers Day in New York The only person who is ever hustled in New York is the stranger who has not yet aNapted himself to American ways. He makes. let us say, 10 en- agreements for a day. He gets up in the morning convinced that he can get through the whole 10 easily. Three of them are meals which he proposes to eat Five more are interviews with people of importance. The other two are what are called in America auto mobile rides" offered by kind million aires who wish to show off the beau ties of the city.
 The first shock is breakfast It lasts over into the time appointed for the first interview. He is late for that; but the other man is later still. At midday he Is, so to speak, overlapped by time. He has got a whole round of his course behind the hastening clock. Then he begins to hustle in good earnest; but the Americans,
 his fellow competitors in the race, do not hustle They too have their engagements, but kthey are quite .cheerfully late for them. They are in no way fused towards the end of the day, as the stranger 1. They are sustained by conviction that they have been living all the time at high pressure, and are sure that they are never late for anything. This is part of the American philosophy of life. According to the clock they are late continuously and regularly late for everything but the American realizes, as the Englishman does not. that man is the superior of the clock. What, after all, is a clock but machine? What is the sun itself but lifeless matter? Man, as living soul, ought to be and in America Is the superior of any machine? No self-respecting man would allow his typewriter to decide what letters he will write or let himself be dic- tated to by his piano as to what tunes he will play A clock is no more than a. typewriter. has hardly as much soul as a piano. Why should 1t decide how long man should spend at his lunch? The American-and this is a proof of the great ness of the nation-has asserted himself against the clock, has mastered the vile thing, and now goes through the world a free man, unhustled by the great im- postor Time.
 Why the Irish Get on in New York
 It is something to have grasped this philosophy and my understanding of it goes far to console me for the loss of my old illusion. I am also conforted by finding in the American contempt for time an an- swer to question which for many years troubled me. Why do we Irish get on so very we'll in New York, and compara- lively speaking. so badly in London?
 We govern New York. We have never done more than worry England.
 The answer is now plain to me. In America we have found a nation which takes a view of time similar to our own. The Belfast man cannot be regarded as Irish in this matter. Like the English man, he bows down and worships the idol which astronomers have set up.
 I suppose it is the astronomers who are responsible for the fetish. The rest of the Irish people are wiser. They are as wise as the Americans. We know, as they do, that the world goes on just the same if every meeting, every church serv- ice. every play starts late: that 1t makes no difference in the end whether you gobble your meals as quickly as the dishes'' are laid before you by perspiring walters or spend pleasant hours over them; that no man is any poorer at the end of year by regarding his office .as club in which he is always ready to enter tain his friends with easy courtesy.
 
 VOTE FOR LEN F. GREER, THE CHOCCOLOCCO VALLEY FARMBR.