The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 2 10 – Furniss · Verses Across
Literature · Humor
The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 2 10Confessions of a Columbus (part 3)
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Literature · Humor
The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 2 10
Confessions of a Columbus (part 3)
FurnissEnglish
"Why, sir, guess you may order what you like, but you won't get it! I was caught once myself, fifteen years ago. Kean't buy liquor in this State we're strikin' now, stranger. I bring mine along with me now--enough for two, in case some green traveller crops up. You're heartily welcome, sir, and here's your health!"
This is the local legislation! My feeling of disgust for the arbitrary, narrow-minded, parochial parasite of the law-jobber was tempered by the generosity of the native, and this is only one instance out of hundreds I have experienced of the extreme kindness and courtesy of strangers in the States.
I could not resist this splendid opportunity to tantalise my Scotch friend and fellow traveller. He sat down beside me and I handed him the wine-card. He wiped his fevered brow and his parched lips parted in a smile as he ran his eager eye down the list. When he had scanned the names (and prices) I broke in with:
"I say, old fellow, champagne to-day; a magnum of the best--it's my birthday, so hang the expense! Oh, yes, I know it's a ten-pound note, but I do feel this infernal shaking, noise and heat, and when else would we feel better able to appreciate a good sparkling 'tall drink'? I pay, and I insist--you order it and see that we get it!"
My friendly stranger on the other side simply gazed at me without moving a muscle of his face, and said not a word, still I haven't the slightest doubt that he was thoroughly enjoying the joke in his American fashion. My Scotch friend's face brightened up at the prospect of refreshing his parched larynx with a long drink of champagne; but it was difficult to see whether he or the "coloured gentleman" looked the blacker when the latter informed him that the only beverage he could have was ginger ale! Verb. sap.: Never travel on an American railway without your own wine. Surely the railway companies, who justly pride themselves on the way they study the comfort of their travellers, should warn the unwary in time, for it is not everyone who is lucky enough to meet with a good Samaritan as I did.
A friend tells me that some of the "coloured gentlemen-in-waiting" on these cars have an eye for business, and when a stranger is victimised by these stupid and selfish laws, they serve up to him Rhine wine out of a teapot as weak tea!
If you doubt the truth of the following, ask any traveller who has rushed through the States at the rate of two hundred and fifty miles an hour to verify it.
You sit down to the principal meal of the day in the dining car at say six o'clock. Not happening to be an American, you intend to eat your meal in a reasonable time, say an hour, instead of five minutes. Why hurry? What is there to do before retiring to the sleeping car to be jolted sleeplessly about for seven or eight hours? Nothing; so take as long as possible over your meal. You leisurely order a wine from the list, and it is brought, uncorked and placed by your side. After the soup and fish you think you will take glass No. 1, but no, not a bit of it! You are now rushing through a proclaimed State, and your glass and bottle are promptly removed. Sancho Panza never looked so surprised as you do. To add insult to injury, or rather injury to insult, you are brought that frightful cause of indigestion, "iced water." I have been told "by one who knows" never to touch the ice on these railway cars; it is not safe, though for what reason I cannot at the moment recollect. It comes from some wayside cesspool or out of a rusty copper boiler, or is the refrigerated perspiration off the railway carriage windows, or something dreadful; anyway, it is unsafe. So you look at it and toy with the next course on the chance of flying quickly through this detestable state of narrow-mindedness and broad absurdity. Your patience is rewarded. You fly past some wooden houses and blazing factories and vulgar advertisements of quack medicines, the vendors of which forsooth are those who prohibit a weary traveller from aiding digestion by drinking an innocent and harmless beverage. The "coloured gentleman" returns smiling with the bottle and glass.
"Guess we've cut through that State; this isn't proclaimed."
You drink confusion to the priggish provincial faddist whose State we have just passed, and continue your dinner.
I am a slow drinker. During my late illness, the illness that caused my trip to America, I had to take all my meals dry--allowed to drink nothing whatever, not even a drop of water; so perhaps it is not unnatural that after months of this treatment I should find a difficulty in drinking before my meal is over. So when the above-mentioned incident occurred to me, it so happened that I was in no hurry to raise my glass to my lips. At last I took it up, but before I could transfer any of its contents to the interior of my throat a dusky hand was placed on mine and the glass was removed.
"Sorry, but we're in another proclaimed State now!"
I prayed that one of these fiendish faddists might enter the car at that moment. I passed a solemn resolution that I would pour all the contents of the cruets down his cursed throat and make hideous caricatures of him all over the wine list!
More wooden houses and their wooden-headed occupants were passed, and at last I was at liberty to have a drink.
Ice is not of necessity pure nor wine impure. If these ignorant fools are unable to drink without proving to the world that Nature intended them for beasts, it is no reason why they should make laws for their betters, particularly for the stranger flying through their country, which they misappropriately call free.
Again I hark back to the laying of railway lines, which I repeat we manage better in England than they do in the States. The sleeper in his berth in an American car is tossed up and down to such an extent that his vocabulary is exhausted in anathematising the sleepers under the rails. It doesn't seem as if the Transatlantic lines are ever going to adopt our thorough system of track-laying. I met a railway expert on the boat going out who had been to England to inspect officially the laying of a railway, and he assured me that if they were to take up all the tracks in America and relay them in our way it would financially break them, enormously rich as the railway kings of the States are.
I must candidly say I don't care about sleeping in those cars. The heat can be avoided by paying extra and having a coupe to yourself, or sharing it with a friend, as I did. My first experience was on that journey from Chicago which I mentioned before, and I shall never forget it. I had at the last moment to take the only berth left, and it happened to be a top one. I was the last to retire that night, and my struggles to climb to my perch were so ludicrous that I was glad there were no spectators. I placed my handbags, hat-boxes, &c., one on top of another, and mounted them as cautiously as an acrobat ascending a pyramid of decanters, and scrambled in. I then proceeded to divest myself of my articles of clothing. I noticed that the snoring of the gentleman in the berth underneath grew softer and somewhat stifled, and as I wound up my watch and placed it, as I thought, under the pillow, he jumped frantically out from behind his curtains and went head over heels amongst my improvised steps. Then I began to realise what had happened. I had not understood the mechanism of the arrangements, and under the impression that I was placing my clothes, &c., on the ledge, I was in reality dropping them on to the unfortunate occupant of the nether berth, hence the muffled snoring, and when my forty guinea repeater descended upon some unprotected portion of his cranium it put the closure on his dreams in a most abrupt manner.
When you are introduced to an Englishman he invariably invites you to eat something. "You must come and dine with us quietly at home, don't-cher-know," or "I must rig up a dinner for you at the club some night," &c. A Scotchman suggests your drinking something--urges upon you the claims of the Mountain Dew; a Frenchman wishes at once to show you something, the Bois de Boulogne or the Arc de Triomphe; a German desires you to smoke something; an Italian to buy something; and an Australian to kill something, but an American wants an opinion "right away."
"Waal, sur, what do you think of our gre--e--eat country? What do you think of this wonderful city? What do you think of the Amurrican gurl?"
This latter is a question which one is asked in the States morning, noon, and night.
To endeavour to effect a compromise by admitting that she is quite as charming as the English girl, as pretty--though of course of a different type--still equally charming, is a waste of time. You will be met with the commonplace "Get out!" and an added enquiry, "Now don't you think she's just the most fascinating and lovely creature on this earth, and by comparison with your English girls ain't she just sweet?"
My own tactics were simple--I hedged.
"Well, you see," I replied to a question similar to the above, "I have met but few as yet of your representative American girls. To be sure, I have seen your cosmopolitan New York beauty, your Washington diplomat, and your Chicago daughter of Boom, and so on; but there are yet many fields of beauty unexplored, and I prefer to withhold my opinion till I have had an opportunity of judging from further experience. I am quite prepared to admit, however, that the general impression made upon an observant Englishman is that American ladies dress better than does the average Englishwoman; or, at any rate, carry themselves with more grace, and thus show off their gowns to greater advantage."
"Correct! That is absolutely true," said a lady to me in Washington, after I had delivered myself of the above stereotyped remark. "Your English girls have awful figures, and they know absolutely nothing about putting on their gowns. Why, my dressmaker in London--the very best--made me laugh till I was nearly sick, by describing to me the stupidity of her English customers. She declares that she positively has to pin on a new dress when sending it home, a label stating: 'This is the front'; and one day, when she omitted this precaution, she had a riding-habit returned with the complaint that it did not 'set' correctly. The lady had put it on wrong side foremost." This was told me in all seriousness by one of the brightest and most intelligent ladies I met during my stay in America, who, I am quite sure, was firmly convinced of the truth of the statement made by the dressmaker.
It happened that one day I had been hard at work in my rooms at the hotel, and as the daylight failed, before turning on the unrestful electric light, I lit a cigarette and threw myself into the rocking-chair to enjoy a peaceful quarter of an hour, when a knock came to the door and a card was brought to me, "Miss Liza Prettyville Simmerman, the Examiner."
Another interviewer! Had the card been Patrick McKee O'Fleister, the Examiner might disappear with the setting sun for aught I cared, but the name struck me as being pretty (lady interviewers generally have pretty names). It occurred to me that it would be interesting to see if the name fitted the owner, so I said I would see her.
It fitted. "Sorry to disturb you," with a delightful accent and musical voice. A pretty interviewer! A pretty American girl with a musical voice! A rara avis.
I ordered up tea for two.
"You know, sir, what I am going to ask you. What do you think of the American girl?"
"That," I said, "I'll tell you on one condition, Miss Simmerman, that you first tell me what you think of her yourself."
"Ah!" she replied, with a laugh, "that is not so easy a task--we do not see ourselves as others see us."
"No, Miss Simmerman, and even when one listens to strangers, or reads their impressions, one is apt to form a wrong estimate of oneself. Let me therefore change the question, and ask, what do you think of the English girl?"
"Oh! I think she is delightful."
"How would you describe the typical English girl?"
"Well, she is very tall and thin, and quiet, and has a nice voice, lots of hair, and walks well."
"And talks seldom?"
"Yes, she is not as vivacious as the American girl, but she is more sincere and thorough, and a deeper thinker, and not so much merely on the surface as our girls are."
"But," I put in, "you say, do you not, that she does not know how to dress her hair or wear her clothes properly?"
"Yes, that is so, and it is noticeable more particularly in her headgear, which she wears well over her eyes; in fact the higher she is in the social scale, the more tilted is her hat. One thing the American girls do envy is the healthy, fresh, clear complexion of the English girl. The green of the grass and the splendid complexion of your girls are the two things which first strike the American visiting England. Both of these, we are told, are due to the climate, and this doubtless is a fact, for when an American girl has been in England a short time the colour comes to her cheeks, only to disappear on her return to her native land. Another thing we admire is the English girl's figure. American girls are either slim as compared with English girls, or else very stout. We have not the happy medium of the daughters of England."
"Pardon me, but is not the pale-faced daughter of America a little spoilt?"
"From an English point of view, yes. American men's one idea besides work is the worship of American women. You say anything you like about America or Americans to Jonathan, but you must give nothing but praise to the American woman."
"But we in England love our women folk also."
"Ah! yes, but there is not such a contrast between an Englishman and an English lady as there is between an American and his wife. Our 'Qui Vive' women are so much superior to the men."
"I will admit that."
"Very well, then, I will admit that American girls are somewhat awkward with their arms, and have no idea what to do with them. As they walk they stick their elbows out, and when they stand still they hold their arms exactly the way the dressmakers pose when having a dress tried on."
"I suppose they have little use for their arms?"
"Well, as a fact, American girls do not busy themselves or enjoy work as English girls do. Their fathers, husbands, and brothers work, and they look on."
"Yes, I have noticed that all over the States. Women talk, men listen, but when men talk it is dollars, dollars, dollars. The girl is bored, and sighs for London or Paris, until she is old enough to talk dollars herself."
In face, I notice, the American girl is quite distinct from her English sister. I notice a difference in the way the upper lip sweeps down from the outer edge of the nostril; but more noticeable still is the fact that the cheek-bones of the American girls are not so prominent, and the smooth curve down the cheek to the chin is less broken by smaller curves. In social life the American girl charms an Englishman by her natural and unaffected manner. Our English girls are very carefully brought up, and are continually warned that this thing or that is "bad form." As a result, when they enter Society they are more or less in fear of saying or doing something that will not be considered suitable. As a matter of fact they are not lacking in energy or vivacity, but these qualities are suppressed in public, and only come to the surface in the society of intimates. American girls from childhood upwards are much more independent; they have much more freedom and encouragement in coming forward than ours. The vivacity and liberty expected of an American girl in social intercourse are considered--as I say--bad form for our girls.
The observant stranger will, if an artist, also be struck by the fact that the face of an American girl, as well as the voice, is often that of a child; in fact, if one were not afraid of being misunderstood, and therefore thought rude, one could describe the American girl better by saying that she has a baby's face on a woman's body than by any word-painting or brush-painting either. The large forehead, round eyes, round cheeks, and round lips of the baby remain; and, as the present fashion is to dress the hair ornamentally after the fashion of a doll, the picture is complete.
The eyes of an American girl are closer together than those of her English cousin, and are smaller; her hands are smaller, too, and so are her feet, but neither are so well-shaped as the English girls.
Let me follow the American girl from her babyhood upwards. The first is the baby, plump, bright-eyed, and with more expression than the average English child; a little older, see her still plump, short-legged, made to look stout by the double covering of the leg bulging over the boots; older, but still some years from her teens, she is still plump from the tip of her toe to her eyebrow, with an expression and a manner ten years in advance of her years, and you may take it from this age onwards the American girl is always ten years in advance of an English girl; next the school-girl; then that ungainly age "sweet seventeen." She seems twenty-seven, and thenceforwards her plumpness disappears generally, but remains in her face, and the cheeks and chin of the baby are still with her.
Suddenly, ten years before the time, and in one season, happens what in the life of an English matron would take ten. The bubble bursts, the baby face collapses, just as if you pricked it with a pin, and she is left sans teeth, sans eyes, sans beauty, sans everything. This is the American girl in a hurry, and these remarks only apply to the exhausted New York, the sensational Chicago, the anxious Washington, and the over-strained child of that portion of America in a hurry.
I have not quite made up my mind as to whether I like the American girl or her mother the better. They are both vivacious and charming, but of course the younger is the prettier, and in point of attractiveness scores more than her mother.
It is true, as I have said, that American girls do "go off" very soon. I must confess that one evening at dinner, surrounded by charming young Americans, I was bold enough to say so. It was a very inopportune moment to have made the remark, for seated next to me was a remarkably fine and handsome young lady, who informed me that she had five sisters--I think it was five--and I was assured by our host that they were all of them as "elegant" as my fair neighbour, and that the mother looked as young as the daughters.
At the reception, after dinner, I was introduced to the mother, and found the exception that proved the rule. We had quite a discussion upon the staying powers of the American beauty; but despite all arguments I am convinced, through my own observations in England and America, that American ladies do not wear so well as English. No doubt this is due, in some measure, to the climate, and in a greater degree to the mode of living. However, before dealing with this rather ticklish subject, I had better finish what I had to say about the evening in question, or this particular young lady may take my remarks as personal.
We discussed age and wear and tear ad nauseam. I felt rather aggrieved by being put down by those members of the Press who had discussed my personal failings for the benefit of their readers, as several years older than I really am (all due, no doubt, to my premature baldness). So I asked for the secret of the American hair-preserving elixir, and my charming companion assured me that she had really and truly discovered an infallible composition for producing hair! This she promised to send to me, and upon my return to England I received the following charming letter, which I publish for the benefit of all those whose hair, like my own, is becoming, to quote an American paper, "a little depleted on the top of the dome of thought." I have not yet tried the remedy, but I intend to do so, and when I appear again on the American platforms I shall probably rival Paderewski, who owes a great deal of his success and fortune to his "thatch."
The following is copyright: "LIKA JOKO HAIR RESTORER."
"MY DEAR Mr. Furnace,
"Fearing you would think me lacking in a sense of humor I have hesitated to send you the receipt you asked for, but, being an American, I fear it would not be true to my country's principles to allow such an opportunity for promoting growth to pass unheeded.
Two tablespoonsful alcohol,
Two tablespoonsful flour of sulphur,
Two tablespoonsful castor oil,
One pint boiling water.
"Put in bottle, shake well and allow it to stand three days before using. Rub well into the scalp every night.
"Here it is, and I trust soon to receive the pen and ink sketch in proof of its unrivalled success.
I suppose my benefactress, if I disclosed her name, would be worried to death by the multitudinous proprietors of shiny-surfaced "domes of thought." Notice she calls me a furnace! Too suggestive of the sulphur! alcohol!! boiling water!!!
I must confess that it was with some trepidation I accepted an invitation to a reception of the Twelfth Night Club of New York--a club for ladies only, which invites one guest, a man, once a month--no other member of male sex is allowed within the precincts of the club. I survived. Next day the papers announced the fact under the following characteristic American headlines:--
TWELFTH NIGHT GIRLS REJOICE.
FURNISS GETS A WARM GREETING.
CARICATURIST TALKS TO TWELFTH NIGHT WOMEN.
ROTUND ENGLISHMAN TELLS HIS EXPERIENCES IN
HIS BREEZY WAY.
I was pleased to read that the lady reporter considered that I "bore the courtesies with the grace of a well-bred Englishman and with less embarrassment than the average man evinces at being the only one of his sex present upon these occasions(!). According to one of the iron bound rules of this club the guest of honour is the only man admitted, and as such Mr. Furniss was received with enthusiasm. If he could have projected his astral body to the other end of the room, and from there have sketched himself as he turned off autographs to the pleading group of women, it would not have made the least funny picture in his collection."
I agree in this latter part, for the whole affair struck me as intensely funny, and not at all appalling--in fact, I spent a very delightful afternoon. A lady whose dress the papers described as "a costume of brown brocade and lace" played beautifully. Another "dressed in grey satin and chiffon" sang charmingly. A third who wore "a skirt of black and a primrose bodice trimmed with lace" recited with much talent, and a galaxy of the belles of New York, ladies of society, and professional stars of the pen, the platform and the stage combined to make feel at home. I had to acknowledge in thanking them that although I perhaps failed to draw American women, American women had certainly succeeded in drawing me.
After this pleasant experience it was with a light heart I accepted a similar invitation when shortly afterwards I visited another city. Again I was to be entertained at a Ladies' Club, but to my surprise I found it, not as I did the New York Club, modestly accommodated in a large flat, but a club having its own imposing building--as important as any in the West End of London. Carriages lined the street, and a crowd surrounded the entrance. Still, I was not unhappy. The entertainment would surely be proportionately long, and I would have less to say. I was, as at the other club, unprepared, preferring to pick up some idea for a reply during the entertainment prepared to honour me. The hall and staircases were crowded with a most fashionable gathering; two large reception-rooms--with open folding doors--were well filled with ladies seated. The President met me at the door and escorted me to a small platform in the centre of the rooms, on which were a reading-desk and a glass of water! After formally and briefly introducing me, she asked if any man was present. It so happened that in a corner behind the piano one was found and immediately ejected, and I was left alone to begin! My first impulse was to make a rush for that corner behind the piano, but rows and rows of seated dazzling beauty formed a barricade I could not negotiate. I had in the few words of introduction caught the name of Sir Edwin Arnold and others who had stood where I did at that moment. Yes,--but they were doubtless warned beforehand of what was expected of them, and therefore came prepared. I, on the other hand, stood there "flabbergasted"! I confess I never felt so cornered. No, if I had been cornered--but there on a platform to face the music! No, not the music, there was none! I had to speak--about what? for how long? to whom?
I made a plunge. I confessed honestly I was unprepared. I explained that I had accepted the invitation on my arrival--believing I was to be entertained, not to be the entertainer. That I had none of the flattering phrases ready of those who had stood before them on similar occasions, and furthermore I did not believe in such platitudes. This I quickly saw was my key.
"Now, ladies, as I am face to face with this unique gathering of American women--and alone--I have at last a chance I have long waited for. I want to tell what I really think of you. I respect you for your cleverness. To roll off empty compliments and--if I could--poetical platitudes also with my tongue in my cheek, as others have done, would be to insult your intelligence. You only want to hear me speak on one subject, yourselves, the American woman, and compare her with the English woman. Let me first speak as an artist.
"Now, if there is one thing I have heard repeatedly from the lips of American women it is that the English man is superior to the English girl. You, in fact, look upon the English girl with contempt. You certainly admire and emulate to a certain extent the fashionable Society women of England, but the ordinary English girl you treat with indifference, and speak of with contumely. You look upon her as a badly-dressed idiot. That may strike your ears as a sweeping assertion, but my ears have tingled over and over again by hearing that very sentiment coming from your own pretty mouths. Now, as we are alone, let me say a word or two on that point. You say the English woman is a fool. You say that the English man is bright, clever and brave. One has only to look round the world to realise that your opinion of the English man is right. That one little dot on the map, England, predominates the greater portion of the globe. That is the result of the plucky and accomplished English man you so much admire. Now, I will ask you one question. Did you ever hear of a clever man who had a stupid mother? The history of the world shows that all great men had mothers with brains. In considering this recollect that we are agreed that the English man is superior to the American man. Does that show that the American mothers are cleverer than the English mothers? No,--it points to the reverse, that the English girl you look down upon, under her soft, gentle manner has something superior to you American women--she has solidity and brain-power. That is why the English man is superior to the American. Now, ladies, you, with your pretty faces, your charming manners, your vitality, and shall I say it? your worldliness, have boys who are--well, equal to what you consider the English girl to be. Of course it is always unsafe to generalise, but as you generalise yourselves and sweepingly assert that the English girls are born idiots, I want you to understand from a man who has not come here to tell you lies, but to tell you the truth, that if America is really to be the great country of the future, the sooner you begin to model yourselves on the English girls the better."
I said a great deal more, but I shall not confess anything further about the charming American ladies just now.
We English have an impression that all American men, women, and children are politicians, and it is the dream of every youthful American one day to occupy the White House. But in the great contest of 1896 there was something deeper than mere ambition. When I went over in the steamer I travelled with some overworked, big city merchants who were sacrificing their holiday in Europe to vote for Mr. McKinley; the little children wore the national flag in their buttonholes; and the last evening we had at sea a lady called me on to the deck and said, "Look at that beautiful golden sunset! It is a symbol that America is for gold." And as we looked behind at the sea-mist we had passed through, she found in that the symbol of silver! In fact, for a foreigner, I had had quite enough of the Presidential election before the steamer arrived at the White Star Line landing-stage.
I crossed the Herring Pond in chill October, so as to be in New York for the last stages of the Presidential contest. The last stages of these elections, although exciting and interesting from a political point of view, are not to be compared with the earlier scenes for effect. For the purpose of sketching scenes the artist should be there in the heat of summer, and in the heat of the Conventional controversies. At the time of brilliant sunshine, when in that year America was so much en evidence in England, when Yale was rowing so pluckily at Henley, when Haverford College was playing our schools at our national game, when the Ancient and Honourable Artillery Company of Boston were being feted right royally in the Old Country, when London was fuller of American visitors than at any other time--it was then that all the fun of political affairs was taking place in the United States for the fight for Gold v. Free Silver.
It is at the two gigantic Conventions at which the rival candidates are nominated that the artist finds material for his pencil, the satirist for his pen, and the man of the world food for reflection. By all accounts, these Conventions baffle description. Everything is sacrificed to spectacular effect. They take place in huge buildings decorated with banners, emblems of all kinds, startling devices, transparencies, and portraits of the candidates. Bands play different airs at the same time; processions are formed and marched all over the hall, carrying emblems and portrait banners, the State delegates carrying the State standards in front of each procession to the cheers and yells of their supporters. Similar demonstrations are carried on in the galleries. Girls dressed symbolically representing silver or gold, or some topic of interest in the election, wave flags and lead demonstrations, perhaps acting as an antidote to the less attractive surroundings.
The election being a purely commercial question, I attended the meetings held in commercial districts, where the excitement ran high. During the lunch hour crowds attend the political gatherings held in the centre of the business districts in large stores turned into halls for speechifying and demonstrations, and great as the subject is, and grave as is the issue, the ludicrous is the first feature to strike the stranger. A great empty store, running the whole length of the ground floor of one of the monster ten, twenty, or what you will storied buildings, was appropriated for the purpose. The bare walls were draped with stars and stripes, and innumerable portraits of McKinley and Hobart confronted you on every side. In the centre was a roughly-constructed platform; on this a piano and seats for the orators. At 12.30 sharp (the business lunch hour) a crowd surged in; bankers, brokers, dry goods merchants, clerks, messengers, and office-boys, straight from the Quick Lunch Counters--a great institution there--filling every corner of the hall. An attendant carried the inevitable pitcher of ice water to the orators' table; a "Professor" hastily seated himself at the piano and played a few bars; a solemn-faced quartette took its position in front of the rostrum, and the meeting was opened.
The campaign songsters had taken a leaf from the Salvation Army, and appropriated all popular airs for political purposes. Praises of Sound Money and Protection were sung to the air of "Just tell them that you saw me," and denunciations of Bryan, Free Silver, and all things Democratic to the tune of "Her golden hair was hanging down her back!" The quartette aroused the greatest enthusiasm. An aged Republican seated immediately in front of the platform, who had voted every Republican ticket since Lincoln was elected, waved his stick over his head, and the crowd responded with cheers and encores. The quartette retired, the chairman advanced, motioned with his hand for silence, and announced the name of the first orator of the occasion, who happened to be a clergyman--a tiresome, platitudinous person. Somehow, clergymen on the platform can never divest themselves of their pulpit manner. They bring an air of pews and Sabbath into secular things. The minister denounced Bryan and Democracy in the same tones he used in declaiming against Agag and the Amalekites on Sunday. At last he brought his political sermon to a close, and the quartette again came to the front, sang a few more political adaptations of popular songs, and the chairman announced the next speaker, a smart young lawyer of the Hebrew persuasion. After him, more songs and more speakers of all kinds, and at half-past one the meeting came to an abrupt conclusion. The crowd vanished like magic, the hall was empty, the lunch hour was over!
When night fell, oratory was again rampant in all parts of the city. At every street corner one saw a waggon decorated with a few Chinese lanterns and covered with portraits of the candidates. In front the orator shouted to the casual mob, and at the tail end his companion distributed campaign literature. One crowd exhausted, the waggon drove on, and gathered more listeners at another stand. In this way, in strolling through the streets, one was met with a fresh line of argument at every turning. Republicans, Democrats, Prohibitionists, Socialists, etc., all had their perambulating orators. It was as if all the Sunday Hyde Park orators had taken to waggons, and were driven about through all quarters of the town, from Whitechapel to Kensington. At one street corner a Catholic priest was rallying his Irish compatriots to Tammany and Bryan, and urging them to shake off the fetters of the bloated British capitalist; and at the next a Temperance orator was pleading the hopeless cause of the Prohibitionist party.
The campaign was not so much a fight between Silver and Gold as between Sound Money and Sound Lungs.
BRYAN'S CAMPAIGN.
Number of speeches delivered 501
Cities and towns spoken in 417
States spoken in 29
Miles travelled since the nomination 17,395
Number of words spoken on the stump (estimated) 737,000
WHAT BRYAN DID IN ONE DAY.
Travelled from Jacksonville, Ill., to Alton, Ill., and spoke in seven towns and cities. Slept eight hours. Talked seven hours. Miles travelled, 110. Speeches made, 9. Persons who heard him, 60,000.
It would be impertinent on the part of any English journalist to use the ordinary language at his command to describe that scene. Let him copy the headings of those who have given the people of the United States a language of their own:
ARMY OF LOYALISTS.
A Hundred and Twenty Thousand Men March with Old Glory up Broadway.
GRANDEST PARADE IN ALL HISTORY.
The Great Thoroughfare a Tossing Sea of Red, White, and Blue and Gold.
Cheers and Music fill the Air with Melody.
Legions Marshalled for the Honor and Safety of the Union and the Prosperity of the People.
PATRIOT ARMY'S GLORIOUS MARCH.
WARRIORS OF PEACE, BATHED IN GOLDEN SUNLIGHT, PASS THROUGH
STAR-SPANGLED LINES.
PARADE'S RECORD-MAKING FIGURES.
Number in Line, 125,000.
Miles long (estimated), 14.
Parade started at 10 a.m.
Parade finished at 6.26 p.m.
Number of spectators (estimated), 1,200,000.
No pen or pencil could give any idea of the intense feeling and excitement over that election. To realise its effect one must have seen the faces of business men in cities like New York--faces pallid with care, eyes restless with inquiry and uncertainty, mouths twitching with anxiety. To them Bryan spelt ruin. You could read that in the faces of every one of responsibility.
We had huge meetings and long speeches from morning to midnight. In the churches the pulpits were turned into hustings, and for the moment ministers preached the Gospel and McKinley in equal proportions. Miles of sound money men paraded the streets, and at night the rivers north and east were given over to political aquatic demonstrations. Huge banners flaunted the sky, and tons of party literature strewed the floors of every house; but the whole story was better told and more impressively demonstrated in the faces of those united in commerce--99 per cent. of the better class in the city. They looked worn and anxious; their words were words of confidence, but expressed with an uncertainty and reserve which were significant.
One day I met a prominent citizen--an ardent Republican--and I asked him how he thought the elections were going. He said, "I feel like the old woman Ingersoll tells of, who did not believe in ghosts, but was terribly frightened of them." This reminds me that the Free-thinking Ingersoll had been stumping the country, and clergymen, such as Dr. Parkhurst, had been turning their pulpits into political platforms to bring their influence to bear on the voters. To all those who were in New York during that momentous time the scene will linger in their memories when the names of Bryan and McKinley have ceased to interest them.
And the curious thing is that this is no exaggeration. To see, as I did, thousands of well-dressed city men marching past at quick time, with martial tread, to the music of innumerable bands, from half-past ten in the morning till seven o'clock at night, is a performance that Englishmen can hardly realise, and one that they will certainly never see in their own country. Its very seriousness, simplicity, and impressive monotony made it all the more striking. Not a soldier to be seen, no triumphal cars, no break in the stream of respectability mechanically moving throughout the day. In England, on public demonstrations, one goes to look at the crowd, but here the crowd was the procession. This political fever seemed to work up the enthusiasm of every man, woman, and child when the march was over, on, I may tell you, a bright, hot Indian summer's day in November.
Crowds of the paraders continued to march in smaller squads through the side streets for their own enjoyment, and overflowed into hotel lobbies and restaurants, covered with emblems, flags, gold bugs, and chrysanthemums, which were brought into the city by thousands for the occasion. And then some humour was imported into the serious business of the day. One youth strolled into a cafe, and when he was offered a chair by the waiter, he drew himself up, and said, "Am I to sit on an ordinary seat to-night?" They blew their tin horns, rattled their rattles, and waved their flags in and out of every place until late at night, and they were still singing and demonstrating in the morning, but with that extraordinary common-sense which is characteristic of Americans, the Bryanites and the McKinleyites shaking hands and setting about their business with redoubled energy, having another crisis in the country to record as a landmark in the history of the republic.
On the last day of my first visit to America I found myself in the head depot of the New York detective force. The courteous and talented presiding genius of that establishment had left his busy office to show me over their museum, a chronicle of the city's crime, and as I was thanking him afterwards, he said:
"Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Well," I replied, "I have seen the best side of life in New York, now I should like to see the worst."
"The very worst?"
"The worst you have."
The worthy officer eyed me up and down as if he were going to measure me for a suit of clothes.
"Very well," he replied, seemingly satisfied with my resolute bearing and undaunted mien and determined visage, which showed my daring and enterprise. Beside me a Stanley or a Burton would have looked effeminate. "A detective will be at your hotel at ten o'clock to-night."
And he was.
I had just come in from dinner, and had changed my clothes for an old suit that had braved the weather in crossing, and was consequently well salted by Atlantic brine.
"May I offer you a cocktail?" I say.
"No, thank you," he replies.
(His nerve doesn't want fortifying, evidently!) Mine does, so I have a Manhattan as I hastily pencil a line to my wife to be sent to England in case I do not leave by the Majestic next day.
"Now, then, what's your programme?" said I in an airy way, as we reached the street.
"Trust to me," said the "'tec," "interfere with no one, and keep your pencil and your notebook in your pocket till I tell you. Keep your mouth shut and your ears and eyes open, and as they say in the pantomime, 'you shall see what you shall see.'"
We were soon whizzing along the elevated railway, and I was trying to impress my guide with stirring tales of midnight meanderings in the greater city, London. I left out any mention of Dublin, for my companion rejoiced in a truly Milesian cognomen, and still bore strong evidence of his native country in his accent, mixed with a good dash of American.
"Guess you're a pretty 'cute Britisher, and shure it's the likes of you I'm mighty glad to strike in this tremenjious city!"
I felt somewhat flattered by this encouraging condescension, and I admit now that I did not feel particularly happy at the idea of bearding the thieving lion, with his hyena-like satellites, in his den. I felt something like a criminal under arrest myself, and I am sure that everyone in the car must have thought that the world-famed detective force of New York had added another notorious catch to the many they have so cleverly made.
As we passed close to the windows of the houses, and actually looked into the rooms on the second and third stories, Detective Jonathan H. O'Flaherty would point out to me a room here and there which was being watched by his comrades, and as we approached nearer and nearer to the purlieus of the poor, he positively detected seated in rooms in shady hotels which harboured thieves a forger, a housebreaker, and other notabilities of a worse character. Indeed, I would not have been surprised had the arm of the law been literally stretched out at any moment, and one of these gentlemen transferred from his seat through the window and deposited by my side in the carriage.
America is a free country. England, we are assured, is not; but the fact that the police are allowed to arrest anybody they please without showing any authority whatever is a curious contradiction which the Britisher may be pardoned for smiling at.
Detective Jonathan H. O'Flaherty and I had a rather warm argument upon this point, and I must say that in the end I had to admit that there was a good deal to be said in favour of the utter want of liberty to which Americans have to submit.
"For instance," said my guide, "to-morrow is a public holiday. At daybreak I guess we'll be afther locking up every thief, vagabond, and persons suspected of being varmint of this description in this great city, and it's free lodgings they'll have till the holiday's played out. In that way crime is avoided, and the truth of the saying proved that 'prevention is better than cure.'"
"But there is an unpleasant feeling that this autocratic power may lead to mistakes. In England the police must have a warrant," I said.
"Guess, stranger, if we waited for a warrant the varmint'd vanish, and there'd be the divil to pay. No, sir, I reckon we Amurricans don't wait for anything--we just take the law into our own hands right away. A short time ago I was sitting enjoying some singing in one of the saloons in the Bowery here, and right through in front of me sat two foreigners with the most perfect false whiskers on that I ever clapped eyes on. That was enough for me. I went outside, sent one of my men for assistance, and then sent in a theatrical lady's card to one of the gentlemen. The bait was taken, and he came out. We arrested him straight away, and made him send in for his friend, who came out, and we nailed him as well. Turned out afterwards that they had come to kill one of the actresses--love affair, revenge, and all that sort of thing. In your country guess you'd have arrested them after the murder; we had them before. There was no harm done, but they got a fine of a few dollars."
He put his hand suddenly upon mine as he said this. For a second I thought that he imagined my whiskers were false, and that this was only a plant to lock me up! It was evident my nerves were becoming unstrung, and as soon as we were in the street my good-humoured and excellent guide told me that in another five minutes we would begin our voyage of discovery. We passed through the Chinese quarter, down Mott Street, and I could not but feel a pang of sympathy for these aliens, looked upon by the Americans as vermin. It is a strange war, this between John Chinaman and Sambo for the vassalage of the States; but in poor England, the asylum of the alien, all nationalities have an equal chance, and the nigger, the Chinaman, the Jew, and the German can walk arm in arm, whether in the squalid streets of Spitalfields or the aristocratic precincts of Pall Mall.
But there is a war going on in London between two races of different colour, undisturbed and unseen, for the gory scenes of warfare are enacted in the bowels of the earth. It is to the death, and has been going on for years, the combatants being the red cockroach and the blackbeetle. Both came to our shores in ships from distant lands. The blackbeetles were first, and had possession of underground London, but the cockroaches followed, disputed the right of territory, and thus the war began. The latest reports from the seat of war assert that the cockroaches are victorious all along the line as far as Regent's Park.
But this is digression. I merely made use of the cockroach simile because it occurred to me as I traversed the Italian quarter and gazed upon its denizens, an occasional accidental rub against one of whom made me shudder. Innocent they may be, but they don't look it, and when I was taken up a court--a horrible, dark, dank cul-de-sac--and shown the identical spot which a few weeks beforehand had been the scene of a murder, I made a sketch in the quickest time on record, keeping one eye on the ghastly place and the other on a window where a ragged blind was pulled quickly and nervously back, and a white face peered suddenly out and as suddenly retreated.
I did the same, pulling my detective friend after me.
It is said that one-half the world does not know how the other half lives, but not the ninety-ninth part knows how it dies. In the vicinity of Mulberry Bend I was shown a house in which another bloody deed had recently been perpetrated--another cockroach killed. The blood was as fresh and visible as that of Rizzio in Holyrood Palace, but this excited no curiosity among the passers-by--crimes are more plentiful than mulberries here.
Paradise Park, The Bowery, New York, is a very high-sounding address. It is one that any European might imagine as a retreat of aristocratic refinement and sylvan beauty; there is nothing in the name to suggest the Seven Dials of London in its old days; and yet the place is its counterpart, the only difference being that the Five Points, as it is called, is two degrees worse than the Seven Dials that's, all!
Standing at these misnamed crossways, I noticed hurrying past an Italian woman bearing a load of household furniture on her back, and followed by a man--her husband, I was told--cursing her.
"They always move at night," said my guide. "The women do all the carrying, and this is in a country where woman reigns soopreme, too!"
Next comes a youth with a crutch.
"One of the cleverest thieves in the city. No one suspects him--guess his crippling is his fortune."
I should like to tell you of other interesting people I saw, of my perambulations through Baxter Street, the Jewish quarter, of the visits to the joss house, opium joint, grocery stores, halls of dazzling delight, and dens of iniquity I made that night. I had my sketches and notes before me to continue this chapter, when I received a New York paper. In it I discovered an illustrated article headed "In His Own Black Art," purporting to be an account of my visit to the slums with a detective. After reading it I laid down my pen and took up my scissors, I felt it impossible to disclose any more. The rest I leave to my shadower on that occasion, reproducing also some of the sketches this "faithful copper-fastened distorter of features" set down, with many thanks to him and a sincere wish that his headache is better.
"IN HIS OWN BLACK ART.
"Mr. Furniss writes very cleverly, it should be said. He writes good London English, for he, like many of 'the infernally good fellows' of Fleet Street, 'don't you know,' believes that the vernacular is only written in its virgin purity in that city. However, let that pass.
"But there was one thing that I couldn't consent, even as his friend, to overlook. Mr. Furniss was determined to go 'slumming.' He had letters to several members of the police department, but the friends who had given these valuable credentials had evidently selected only the captains of the highly respectable precincts. Of course, they could not imagine that Mr. Furniss would want to visit the joss house and opium joints of Chinatown. Nobody would, to look at him. And yet, in his tireless study of 'American' character, he penetrated even these mysteries.
"Everything was arranged for the tour during the night before his departure on the Majestic. It was a charmingly dark night, admirably suited for those chiaroscuro effects that a black-and-white artist is supposed to seek even in his dreams. An experienced Central Office detective took him in hand with all the savoir faire of an Egyptian dragoman.
"HITTING THE PIPE.
"With the wisdom of an artist and the news-sense of a Park Row hustler, Mr. Furniss lit a cigarette, and said:
"'Show me all.'
"This remark filled me with terror. Was it right to permit this well-meaning but over-zealous friend of my country, my people and myself to sound the depths of social degradation in the metropolis and lard an otherwise charming book with screed and sketches dragged from the slums? He was likely to mistake Donovan's Lane for Harlem Lane, and Paradise Square for Maddison Square! Any man would be liable to do so after a few days' visit to a strange city. How many of the American birds of passage who flock to London every summer know the distinction between Mitre and Capel Courts? One is the scene of a ghastly Whitechapel murder; the other is the financial center of the Eastern world!
"When, therefore, it was seen to be impossible to dissuade the talented young caricaturist from his blue-glass view of metropolitan society, it seemed necessary to provide for our self-defence. One of the cleverest pen-and-ink artists in America was engaged to accompany the party as a second detective. A flying visit was paid to Mott Street, and the services of High Lung, a distinguished crayon manipulator, recently arrived (by way of Vancouver and the dark of the moon), were secured to make a Chinese-American caricature of the charming but over-curious Englishman.
"Everything worked to a charm. Mr. Furniss went where he intended. He saw all. He made sketches. He visited the shrine of the great Joss. He ate birds' nests and rice. He saw the deadly opium smoked, and 'hit the pipe' a few minutes himself.
"The night came to an end with dawn. Headache destroyed curiosity. Our own faithful, copper-fastened distorter of facial beauty set down in Mr. Furniss's black art what he had seen and did know. Here are the results, H. F. It is to be feared he has imitated your style.
"Bon voyage, master of the quick and the lead! Draw us, if you must; but draw not the long bow.
