The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-12

station. The conversation cOnciuded, he looked out of dne window. Dear stopped three miles back. Likely lkere was no one to get out
 She had heard that much profanity was used in the United States, but this was never so in the presence of ladies, uR ike the practice in Europe-and final ly summing up on the matter of gal lantry
 ''I suppose there is no country in the world where the presence of lady is such a restraint upon manners and con- gersation. A female. whatever her age or rank may be. is invariably treated with deferential respect. and if this 5eference may occasionally trespass upon The limits of absurdity, or if the extinct shivalry of the past ages of Europe meets with a partial revival upon the shores of America. this extreme is vast ly preferable to the brusquerie, if not incivility which ladies too often meet with in England"
 She was astounded when her coastwise steamer from St John N. B., put in at Portland, to find that the Maine prohi- Dition law was in dire effect. She had been in terrible storm at sea her clothing was wet her head injured-she required a stimulant. She was brusque-
 v informed by enlightened citizens of the greatest nation eon the face of the earth''-she delighted in mocking the Americans with this repetition of ''Yan- kee conceits that alcoholic drinks were contrary to law, but that she might go down in the basement and ask to see the
 striped pig" or to converse with Dusty
 Ben or to order a sarsaparilla with a smile, and she would get full satisfac
 ton.
 But she blamed this Iaxity in the law
 ,At on laat sno ,F t0l1f fx- able state" but on the thousands of English and Irish emigrants who annual ly landed at Portland" In several chap
 ters in the book she berated the English she found in America for their drunk enness. superciliousness or impoHteness. The Scotch, she thought, had their minds
 only gain. The Irish were dirty and quarrelsome, continually complaining that
 they did not want to wear shoes, and
 were able to fill only the very lowest
 positions. The Germans, "as at home, are a thinking, scepticali theorizing peo-
 pie; in politics, socialists-in religion, atheists" Some reader of a past gen.
 eration has written marginaily in the book beside this appraisal of the Ger mans, Not quite so badi"
 She found what so many people are
 finding in America today. "The Irish Are
 noisy enemies" and that their motto seemed to be 'Wherever England pos sesses an interest, there an American
 wrong exists" But she found that out side offthe Irish, there was neither hatred nor fear of England.
 The apparently temperate habits of the United States (she writes) form a very pleasing feature to dwell upon. It
 is to be feared that there is consid- erable amount of drunkenness among the English, Irish and Germans; but the tea
 irinking water-drirking habits of the
 Dlp.
 In>the west, more especially in the rude hotels where I stopped, I never saw
 wine beer or spirits upon the table; and the spectacle gratified me exceedingly of
 seeing ferce-lookihg. armed and bearded
 men drinking frequently in the day of
 that cup which cheers but not inebri- ates' Water is a beverage which never
 enjoyed in purity and projection before visited America. It is provided in abun- dance in the cars. the hotels. the wait
 ing rooms, the steamers, and even the stores. in crystal jugs or stone filters, and it is always iced. Ancient history tells of a people who used to intoxicate
 their slaves, and while they were in that condition, display them to their sons to
 disgust them early with the degrading vice of drunkenness. The emigrants, who
 have left our shoes, more particularly the Irish, have voluntarily enacted the part formerly assigned to the slaves of the Spartans. Certain it is that their in- temperance, with the evils of which the 1 Americans are only too well acquainted, has produced 8 beneficial result, by causing a strong reaction in favor of temperance principles
 In those days the chief agony of life, at any rate to the type of observer of our l voyager was the scarcity and high wages of servants Hotel servants were helpful but not a bit deferental, and a waitress who was offered a generous tip 1 by a man flung it back on the table and declared haughtily that ladies were mot in the habit of accepting money from strangers
 The exchange was webbing then, but always in favor of England much to the delight and mental ease of the author, who had come armed with English pcundsf There were many luggage sneak thieves and swindlers in railway stations, particularly in the west, where every station was plastered with warning signs And while steamboat boilers did blow up occasionally. the English lady found the European rumor of daily railway wrecks l iE America a base slander. She declared the truth to be that there were many, many times the railway mileage in Amer l ica that Europe could boast of, and there l fore there naturally would be more ac- cidents, though she believed them to be proportionally fewer
 The trans were terribly crowded, but ! it was the men who suffered, for never l was lady allowed to stand American politics were disgraceful. Only the low l est creatures ran for office The police i of New York would do anything, for a bribe. Hotel rates and restaurant meals were cheaper than in London, quantity and quality considered There were more I beautifully dressed women to be seen on l single street in New York in an after noon than in all Hyde Park, London, in l a week She found as much of an 'in- l tellectual aristocracy' in New York as 1 in London. The hotels were larger a>d more gorgeous than anything in Europe; and the factories she visited in Cincinnati, particularly one furniture factory, was \ one of the Seven Wonders of the uni- verse for size and marvellous efficiency. Cincinnati was then the largest city in ' the west, though Chicago was growing 1 faster The lady devoted as much space l to the beauties of Cincinnati and its cem- 1 eteries as she did to New York or Boston. 1 And she finally arrived back in Liver pool in 'palatiaf' side wheeler, driven both by steam and sails and making the crossing in nine days and few hours which is as good time as many Atlantic liners make today!
 1 A dmiraI RanS0n knighfpd