Italy and France. An editor's holiday

Front matter

AN EDITOR'S HOLIDAY. ITALY AND FRANCE. AN EDITOR'S HOLIDAY BY ALEXANDEK MACKIE. LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, & Co. 1874. PRINTED AT THE GUARDIAN OFFICE, WARRINGTON. DEDICATION. TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION. Sir, In accordance with your kind permission, I have much pleasure in dedicating this volume to you and to my fellow-members of the Provincial News paper Association. The letters of which it consists appeared in the Warrington Guardian in 1S72, and are now reprinted with the view of aiding other newspaper proprietors and editors to spend a month abroad with comfort. Another, and certainly my chief object in re printing and sending each a copy, is to show to you and them one of a number of volumes entirely set by my Steam Type Composing Machine. The only peculiarity in it to which I would refer is this : The Composer is purely automatic, and its selection of the proper letters and spaces is guided VI DEDICATION. entirely by means of perforated paper, which may be perforated anywhere, and at various rates of speed, the Composer running at a fixed speed of 12,000 an hour.

The perforated paper may be used as often as required for future editions, at hotne or abroad, and for as many sizes of type as may be required. [Specimens may be seen on pages xv. and xvi.] The same per forated paper may be reproduced to any extent by merely mechanical means, and be originally so per forated as to produce the most accurate justification as the type leaves the machine. It may be necessary to remind my professional friends that the letters were written entirely for home, and some of them to very young members there, with the exception of those about printing and newspapers : hence the occasional repetition, and detail, which otherwise would have been out of place. I am, Sir, Yours faithfully, ALEXANDER MACKJB. Guardian Office, Warrington, and 112, Strand, London, July, 1874. CONTENTS PAGE

Appendix

A. Preface to the Lord's Prayer in 250 Languages CONTENTS. PAGE

APPENDIX.

B. Ancient Maps ........ 4at>4

APPENDIX.

C. Ancient Maps. — Continued ..... 4°7

APPENDIX.

D. A Novel Printing Office ...... SPECIMENS. The same perforated paper as used in setting the Dedication, has directed the Composing Machine in re-setting this and the following page, and would have set it in any other sizes, from Pica to Ruby : — TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION. Sib, Ib accordance with your kind permission, I have much pleasure in dedicating this volume to you and to my fellow members of the Provincial Newspaper Association. The letters of which it consists appeared in the Warrington Guardian in 1872, and are now reprinted with a view of aiding other newspaper proprietors and editors to spend a month abroad with comfort. Another and certainly my chief object in reprinting and sending each a. copy is to show to you and them one of a number of volumes entirely set by my Steam Type Composing Machine.

The only peculiarity in it to which I would refer is this: The Com poser is purely automatic, and its selection of the proper letters and spaces is guided entirely by means of perforated paper, which may be perforated anywhere, and at various rates of speed, the Composer running at a fixed speed of 12,000 an hour. The perforated paper may be used as often as required, for future editions at home or abroad, and for as -many sizes of type as may be required. The same perforated paper may be reproduced to any extent by merely mechanical means, and be originaUy so perforated as to produce the most accurate justification as the type leaves the machine. It may be necessary to remind my professional friends that the letters were written entirely for home, and some of them to very young members there, with the exception of those about printing and newspapers : hence the occasional repetition, and detail, which otherwise would have been out off place.

I am, Sm, Tours faithfully, ALEXANDER MACKIE. Guardian Office, Warrington, and 112, Strand, London, July, 1874. TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION. Sir, In accordance with your kind permission, I have much pleasure in dedicating this volume to you and to my fellow members of the Provincial Newspaper Association. The letters of which it consists appeared in the Warrington Guardian, in 1872, and are now reprinted with the view of aiding other newspaper proprietors and editors to spend a month abroad with comfort. Another, and certainly my chief object in reprinting and sending each a copy, is to show to you and them one of a number of volumes entirely set by my Steam Type Composing Machine. The only peculiarity in it to which I would refer is this : The Composer is purely automatic, and its selection of the proper letters and spaces is guided entirely by means of perforated paper, which may be perforated anywhere, and at various rates of speed, the Composer running at a fixed speed of 12,000 an hour.

The perforated paper may be used as often as required for future editions, at home or abroad, and for as many sizes of type as may be required. The same perforated paper may be reproduced to any extent by merely mechanical means, and be originally so perforated as to produce the most accurate justifica tion as the type leaves the machine. It may be necessary to remind my professional friends that the letters were written entirely for home, and some of them to very young members there, with the exception of those about printing and newspapers : hence the occasional repetition, and detail, which otherwise would have been out of place. I am, Sir, Yours faithfully, ALEXANDER MACKIE. Guardian Office, Warrington, and 112, Strand, London, July, 1874.

Letter I

London, March 28th, 1872. — At length the dream of many years is in a fair way of being accomplished. I am here, Rome-ward bound. My five friends have turned up to a man. No apologies, no broken promises, no unexpected delays. Our route is printed, pasted in our notebooks, and decreed to be like the laws of the Medes and Persians. We are to be home {Deo volente) to-morrow month. Once off, I and one or two others could have been less rigid in our dates; but we give and take, as our compagnons de voyage are mucli esteemed friends who must be home by a certain day. You will be glad to learn that we have appointed our ministerial friend chaplain, our banker treasurer, and our attorney fellow-traveller inspector of the laws which should regulate the conduct of those travelling in countries with which Her Majesty is at peace.

It seems taken for granted that I am to be the ready-writer and historian of the party, and to set me free for my work I have nothing else to do. We have already paid away half our funds in securing Cook's tour and inn tickets, and the extra disbursements will be paid by our treasurer in one sum from a general purse. I E have, therefore, no fear of being bothered with francs and lires, and sous and centimes. A few good English sovereigns will be enough for extras. Cook's system seems an excellent one, and as my letters to you and others will only be worth printing for their practical value, I may as well begin at once by telling you what Cook promises. In the first place, then, we pay about £18 for tour tickets, which will clear us from Paris to Lyons, Marseilles, Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, Rome, Florence, Bologna, Venice, Padua, Milan, Turin, and back to Paris, a distance of 4,000 miles.

Part of the way we are first-class, and part second ; but my previous continental experience tells me that the second is as good as the first, for a party of six at any rate. The tickets require to be carefully kept, shown when de manded, and endorsed when you leave one town for another. They save you having to make queue with scores of others when the tickets are being given, and all the annoyance of foreign moneys, with the loss on the rate of exchange, and 20 per cent, of the price. The inn checks, or coupons, will be very useful, we are told. They have printed on them the inns where Mr. Cook has arranged for bed, breakfast, and a seat at the table d'hote for all who present them. We are not tied to use them, nor to be content with the fare they secure. We may pay for extras in coupons or in cash.

As no doubt the innkeepers will be interested in making Cook's customers comfortable, we are full of hope that at the ten or twelve inns at which we must lodge we shall have all we want, without the danger of being overreached or annoyed with foreign money. But I must conclude. Twenty years of editorial work, during which no more than two Guardians have been without my contributions, make me feel warranted "AN OLD INSTITUTION." 3 in taking a month's holiday, and leaving my interests where I know they will be safe. I already feel that my part of the undertaking will not be slight ; and had it not been an " old institution " with the Guardian staff to give sketches of their summer rambles, I might have begged to be excused. But it may not be ; so I am off to bed, with the sure and certain conviction that I shall require to be up every morning by the break of day if I am to keep my contract.

Letter II. London To Paris

London, March 29th. — We are all here at the rail way station, safe and sound, at 7.30 a.m. I was up very early. Each has fallen in to his work. Our pro gramme is laid out. We shall have 13 days' and four nights' riding together; so we are to have reading, singing, reciting, discussing, story telling, &c, besides the duties which more especially belong to our clerical friend. And we are likely to fulfil our programme, one or two of our number being evidently full to the mouth with fun and frolic. Paris, March 30th, 7 a.m. — I am now up, dressed, and in good condition for a day's out. We left London, as stated in my last, at 7.30, after an early breakfast, of which I was chary, having a judicious fear of mal de mer. We rattled along, both tongues and wheels, at a good rate, and when passing Chatham were blessed with the recognition of two young friends who were waiting to see us.

We arrived at Dover at 9.40, and at once went on board. To avoid the rain, I sheltered rather near the engine, the fumes of which and the cooking establishment upset me in half an hour. I had held up bravely, and tried to turn my mind homeward, upward, downward, and onward. I turned my face SEA-SICRNESS. 5 windward, but a chorus of smokers made my condition worse. Oh, for a despotic King James and another " blast" from his philosophic mind ! But all in vain. My stomach wished to pay tribute to the great King Neptune. I sought shelter in a corner, where alone I poured out my sorrows and my small breakfast to the great sea god, and at once found ease and happiness from the oblation. No beefsteaks, no slices of bacon, — called "lard" in this city of polished phrases, — had laden my stomach, and so Neptune was easily mollified; in fact, he laved me from his briny washbasin, and even H gave me a taste, so that I could make comparisons between his brine and that of Northwich.

A sailor, out of pity and love for a sixpence, brought me a topcoat of sail-cloth and robed me n that. I stuck to my post of observation, watched the bow of the vessel clear the billows, and turn them into merry-looking foam, and heard the paddles smack them, one after another, like unruly school-boys who dared to laugh when such important business was on hand as that of carrying Her Majesty's mails. I did watch the waves, and, like the Yankee skipper, shall know many of them by sight on my return. How it fared with my covoyagers I know not but from their own mouths, and these spoke of nothing but sea legs, nautical attainments, and a readiness to go on to the Bay of Biscay if needed. Twice the "monotonous sea" " lull-a-byed" me within a wink of sleep. But I kept awake, and in two hours we landed at Calais, ready for glory, sight seeing, or — dinner.

How curious it is that I, who have been brought up at the sea side and sailed many a long day, should be such a poor hand at crossing the Channel when compared with some who were never really at sea before! May I take refuge under the transparent fallacy that it is my loyalty to King Nep tune? I spoke of dinner, but dinner there was none for lack of time. It was no matter. Kind friends had provided sandwiches, and at midi-trente (or 12*30) we started for Paris, having, by judicious management known only to constant travellers, secured a favourable reply to my statement that "Nous desirous un comparti ment pour nous seuls." The same had answered at the London terminus in plain English. For nearly six hours we travelled along, passing thousands of pretty whitewashed farmhouses, cottages, and farm buildings.

Either they whitewash at one time of the year — that is the present time — or they do it very often. At every railway crossing of the 200 miles, there was a woman with a little flag to tell the driver that the line was clear. These women wear uniform, a part of which is a man's glazed broad-brimmed hat. At Amiens we had refreshments in two divisions. Tea, coffee, bread and butter I remembered were always safe in France, and here I ventured on nothing more. By 6.15 we reached Paris, all merry, and wondering how our baggage would fare. At Calais we had to show our passports, but nothing more. Having only what luggage we could carry in our hands, we were passed without the slightest difficulty, one of our party suggesting, perhaps with truth, that "our good looks did it all." We had a little difficulty about securing conveyances, and I once more reflected in no kindly terms on the men who built the Tower of Babel.

I asked for deux voiturcs, but one two-horse one was the response, and as that only held four, and we were six, une autrc — another — was required, and we drove to the " H6tel Britannique" in a style worthy of six English travellers. It was a two-mile drive, during which those PARIS BY GAS-LIGHT. 7 who were for the first time in Paris had a fine view of that magnificent street — the Rue de Sebastopol. Our inn was even more than we had expected. An English hostess welcomed us as six of her countrymen, and her worthy Swiss husband put on his best English to add to her welcome. In a short time we dined and went off for a two hours' drive through Paris by gas light, and what those two hours revealed to those who had not been in Paris before is worth knowing. They were charmed, amazed, and overwhelmed.

Shops in full swing till ten o'clock at least; coffee-houses in scores, crowded outside and inside, the pavement covered with tables and chairs. We passed the scenes of desolation wrought by the Communists ; but I forbear describing them till seen by the light of day. The Place de la Concorde stood out under the rays of a young moon in all its old splendour. Its famed Egyptian monolith and representative figures from Strasburg, &c, looked stately, but lonely, for as yet the weather is too cold for those great gatherings which take place here further on in the season. March 31st. — We have now had time to view Paris by daylight, and although much of the destruction wrought by the Communists has disappeared, much is yet visible. A map of Paris of the present day may be had with the buildings marked in red which have been burnt to the ground or rendered useless.

Its appearance is very striking. A theatre in ruins here, a prince's house there, and Government buildings in many places, all tell of the horrid attempt to burn the city, if it had been possible. By gas-light the ruins had a ghastly gutted look, and spoke with trumpet-tongue of the will and the power of men to do evil, when they could not, or would not, do good. The Hotel de Ville is in ruins; so also are the Tuileries, the Palace of Justice, the Treasury, and the enormous building known as the Arsenal. I forgot to tell you in my last that in our evening ride we stopped at the Cafe Parisien, where four years ago I was so astonished at seeing some 800 persons at once drinking coffee at 200 or 300 little tables. There they were again, as if only a night had elapsed. Young men and maidens; young men without maidens, and maidens without young men ; young men with their wives, mothers, and even grandmothers; and mothers and sisters with their young charges, quite down to little children, were there sipping coffee, playing at cards and dominoes, and men, young and old, at billiards.

There was no wrangling, no drunken revelry, no swearing; but there was an absence of a home look. Can these two young women, thought I, who come in alone, and walk boldly to a table and ask for their coffee and brandy, or even without brandy, can they have those domestic feelings which we attribute to similar looking girls at home ? There is no vice written on their faces, or they could not be here ; but they cannot have an English home. They may be two girls making an honest living in some shape, living in numcro soixante, a little room at the top of a large building ; a room which does duty for both at all times, and to which they only go to sleep, it being cheaper to buy coffee, bread and butter, and warmth at a cafe than in their solitary home — we mean their sleeping rooms. Then there is the glare of a thousand lights, the hum of a thousand voices, the chance of a friendly look, of a hearty bon soir — and perhaps an invitation to the theatre, that all-pervading institution of France.

The Cafe Parisien is but the head of hundreds of others as to size. It has no out-door service of tables, PARIS 9 such as most other cafes have. All customers are inside ; while at other cafes they sit under the trees in front by the hundred. The short-time movement does not exist in Paris. The religious condition of Paris is, however, hopeful. Efforts are being made in the highest quarters to establish what are called " Cercles Catholiques d'Ouv riers," or, working men's religious institutions — Christian Associations, in fact. On entering the Church of Notre Dame I had put into my hand an appeal to aid these movements, with the usual English subscription list forms, on which I was asked if my subscription was annual, " et pour combien d'annees, ou settlement une fois payee." The treasurer is Count de Mun, and the secretary Henry Blount.

A sermon is announced to be preached on the 14th April in the church of Sainte- Clotilde. I have read the circular with deep interest. It is expressive of life — home, social, religious life. It tells us that the working man question is not a problem to be discussed. It has become a menace — a per manent peril. The revolution has attained its end. The " brains " of the philosophers have descended into the hearts of the people, and have organised for a last fight the working men, who are the backbone of a nation. The passions of the working man have been flattered — and he is an enfant sublime ou ego'iste — to the injury of France and of the world. But by the invin cible powers of the heart of the " workman Jesus," they shall not let the glory of France, as the eldest daughter of the Church, be lost.

To subversive doctrines they will oppose the holy lessons of the Evangelists; to materialism, the teachings of sacrifice ; to the cosmo politan spirit, the idea of country; to the negations of atheism, the affirmations of the Catholic Church. The well-to-do are urged to place themselves face to face with their working men brothers, and aid them to save themselves from evils worse than shell and shot. Already there are two or three Christian Associations in Paris, which find lodgings, reading rooms, savings hanks, sick clubs, &c, for working men, who otherwise have no homes but garrets, and no diversion rooms but cabarets. Out of these have risen some who are now masters, and many who are now foremen. The cost of the number France needs may be one hundred thousand, or one million francs. What of that ?

The putting down of the Commune cost France far more, and has not England and Germany such places in hundreds ? I have given you this long epitome, as it must interest every one who has a heart to feel for the young men of Paris, who are really homeless in our sense of the word, and upon whom no quiet Sabbath day ever dawns wherein their brains might cool. We have but one week-day in Paris until our return. What shall we see ? My old friend Notre Dame Cathedral. There I go at an early hour, and drink in the light streaming through its immense and beautiful oriel windows of stained glass. Can St. Peter's be more impressive ? We shall soon see. But there is the sacristy. Into it we entered. There were all the sacred vessels and ancient relics which such a church should possess. There were the robes of the last three Archbishops of Paris — all killed by the hands of assassins.

One died in 1S4S trying to calm the mob, then in a gory street revolt. Another was stabbed by a priest in a church which we visited near the Pantheon. And the third was shot by the Communists not twelve months ago. The strong in faith, among whom were not we, took coins and laid them on the holes made PARIS. 11 by the bullets and the poignards, on purpose to procure "luck." We passed on to the Louvre and the Tuileries — the latter a ghastly heap of ruins. The walls still stand ; but windows, roofs, ceilings, and their etceteras, have disappeared. There are 60 acres of trees, walks, and squares, but all look sad compared with the year of the Paris Great Exhibition. We spent several hours in the Louvre under the intelligent guidance of a well known French minister — M. E. Cook. He was read up in the endless rooms which abound in that famous place.

The Egyptian, and especially the Roman antiquities, which are very numerous, attracted our close attention. We are soon to be in Rome. Well, there were Rome's great emperors before us in marble, and at various stages of their lives. We studied veritable busts of Nero taken at three periods of his life, and we should not have been surprised if Nero Number One had been reported to have said of the predicted deeds of Nero Number Three — "What! is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" Of the endless paintings time would fail me to tell. In fact we saw hut part of the contents of the Louvre after all. I have a dim remembrance of many scores of Virgins with babies on their laps, but only of one face which showed womanly and motherly pride at the precious gift. I cannot forget an enormous painting of the " Marriage in Cana of Galilee," and the way it upset my old notions of a quiet marriage party of a score or two.

Our guide and teacher was able to descant on the merits of the old masters' works, many of which I had seen when here in 1868. Rembrandt's " Christ at Emmaus" delighted me; Albani's "The Father sending the Angel to Mary" is painfully objectionable. Barbieri's " Rais ing of Lazarus" is very fine — touching, I would say; Cantarini's "Holy Families" are not Jewish; but Murillo's "Virgin," seated on a hillock, holding the infant Jesus on her knee, while the infant St. John presents him with a cross of reeds, is like a fact and not a fiction ; Rubens' " Adoration of the Magi," and his " Christ nailed on the Cross," I need not say are beyond my criticism. The galleries of the Louvre must cover miles. The very catalogue is 750 pages. Of all the Parisian sights the Bourse to me is the most interesting.

I was there with my friends to-day. I at once recognised the well-known red-headed stock broker I wrote about in 1868, and who, during the war, raised a troop of his own, as had done his grandfather before him. The Bourse of Paris is a sort of wild beast show. In it the prim, polite Frenchman becomes an apparently raving maniac. Only sixty stock brokers can exist at once. With a great price have they purchased their monopoly, and they may now do the business of 500 of their English brethren. Their hall is spacious and galleried round. In the centre is a circular platform for the use of the sixty. It is hedged round with a divinity of privileges and an iron railing. Outside are the commonalty, including our selves ; for we may enter the Paris Bourse, whereas from the English Stock Exchange we should be shouldered out.

Business had begun when we entered, but it was languid. The dii majores were not talking : the dii minorcs were. One hundred voices at least were shouting like rival penny showmen. They held up their scrip and pocketbooks like our betting men at home. The excitement became intense. The sixty took part. They gesticulated and shouted. The ten or twelve hundred outside shouted back. The confusion of tongues re-appeared. Dore must have been here PARIS 13 when he drew his illustration of that direful event. — But I must conclude by telling you that we have been to the Panth6on and many other places of fame, too well known to need description. On our return we shall visit Versailles and other places near by, which have an interest in connection with the war. To-morrow we shall see a Parisian Sunday, and on Monday morning start on our 536 miles ride to Marseilles.

Letter III

A SUNDAY IN PARIS. Paris, March 21st, Evening. — This has been a day long to be remembered by those of our party who were never in Paris on a Sunday. But who could tell it was Sunday ? Did we not meet the operatives going to their workshops, and see the shopkeepers taking down their shutters, and the market gardeners unpacking their wares, as we took our early walk ? But the church bells did their duty, and told us that to-day is Dimanche, or Sunday. Some of us walk early to Notre Dame, which is near by the Avenue Victoria, where our inn is situated. There are many worshippers inside, and some curious onlookers both inside and out. There is a seller of photographs plying his trade inside the railings. Tlie Cathedral front is a book in stone. Apostles, prophets, martyrs, are carved all over by cunning hands.

The inside is worthy of its fame. At ten o'clock we returned and saw the ordinary service in all the gorgeousness of Roman Catholic Cathedral worship. The Archbishop of Paris headed the procession as it walked round the enclosed part, and past the various side chapels, where were images of saints and crosses in abundance. The music was grand, but not so devotional as that to which we listened in the THE MORGUE. 15 evening. The cadences were weird and depressing as they rolled through the rows of mighty pillars. We felt Cathedral Christianity to be for musicians peradventure, but not for the average of mankind. No unofficial person joined in the song. We were all proxy worship pers. A woman's voice was not heard. No doubt it is my want of taste, but I would rather have heard, as I did lately, 5,000 men and women singing under the dome of St. Paul's — Abide with me, fast falls the eventide, or as I heard the same day in Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle another 5,000 sing a hymn to a good old-fashioned tune, the preacher asking the people at the end of the first verse not to let the "tune drag," but to sing with energy.

The crowd was a curious one. There were many devout men and women there. Some, not devout, were going up to the tower to have a view of Paris ; others were waiting to enter the sacristy to see the sacred relics, the coronation robes of Napoleon I., and part of the spine of the first murdered Archbishop. We passed on to the Morgue — the dead-house of Paris — and there saw the dead body of a man who had been a ringleader among the Communists. He had been fished out of the Seine. There are eight or ten slabs for such recovered bodies to be laid out on, but the others were not required to-day. Passing the Louvre we remembered that this was the great sight seeing day of Paris. Within its very spacious walls many thousands throng every Sabbath, charmed with its pictures, statuary, frescoes, and dazzling mirrors.