English life

Front matter

LOVELL'S

INTERNATIONAL SERIES

MODERN NOVELS.

Preface

This book represents selections from letters written by me from London to the New York "World," during- a residence in England of nearly two years. The majority of the letters so selected are merely the record of first impressions. Naturally, some of these impressions changed during my stay in England, but I have thought it best to leave what I have written without alteration. I have confined myself generally to the features of actual English life, and as what is given in the record of what I have myself seen, the many readers of "The World," who have professed pleasure in reading these letters, may be glad to see the best of them in a permanent form.

T. C. C.

Chapter I

The Queen. — Study of her daily life from information given by her intimates. — Her timidity and physical weakness. —Analysis of her character.— Her method of summoning guests by telegraph messages. — Her wealth. — Personal anecdotes and sketches. — The Princess of Wales 62

Chapter I. London

THE STREETS. DIFFERENCES NOTED BY AN AMERICAN IN A FIRST

VISIT TO THE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. THE MUCH ABUSED

CLIMATE. COST OF LIVING COMPARED. THE REAL TRUTH

ABOUT THE FOGS.

At first the streets of London do not present such a strange appearance to the American accustomed to life in the larger cities of the United States. There are plenty of places in London not unlike corners or streets in Boston or New York, while in the more desolate and uninteresting parts of acres of monotonous jail-like looking houses certain sections of Philadelphia are suggested. The people who throng the streets do not look so very much different from the inhabitants of our Eastern cities. The least observing Englishman never has any difficulty in telling an American as far as he can see him, but I must confess I cannot distinguish with any readiness, unless the type is marked, between the two nationalities until I hear them talk. As one comes more and more in contact with the daily life, the points of difference become more and more sharply defined. The first thing that strikes the American's notice most prominently is the employment of women in so many of the public places, where only men are employed with us. The person who dispenses drinks in the London drinking places is almost invariably a sharp-featured, stony-faced, business-looking woman. They are very direct and expeditious. You find them at all of the hotels. Instead of being confronted with a smiling, diamond-ornamented American clerk, you meet a sad-faced, dismal, dejected-looking young woman, who, in a whisper, asks you to register, and who assigns you a room, then shuts up under a mantle of reserve and withdraws to the interior of the office.

No information is ever volunteered at any English hotel. The rooms at the hotels as a general thing are uncomfortable for Americans, because they are rarely if ever heated. The system of heating is by open grates. This would be well enough if the grates were of any size or had any capacity. The average grate in a London hotel room is about the size of a two-quart basket and it is always expected to heat a room 14 by 16 on an average. The extreme dampness of the atmosphere comes in all around the room, so that comfort can be maintained only by hovering right over the grate itself. It must be that these rooms are uncomfortable for the natives themselves. You hear them protest against the American system of overheating houses. Yet in every hotel of any standing there is always a large, comfortable smoking-room for gentlemen and a large lounging room for ladies. These rooms are always well heated, and it is a significant fact that they are always crowded. The guests of the hotel spend very little time in their rooms. The smoking-room in English hotels could be copied with advantage in the United States. There is nothing more dreary in the world than the reading-room or gentleman's waiting room of American hotels. In the English hotels the smoking-room is furnished with heavy leather-covered chairs and sofas, with small tables scattered about. Here any one can order anything he pleases to drink, or come in after his dinner for his cup of coffee with his cigar. It is always a cozy and comfortable place, and, indeed, almost the only comfortable place in the hotel.

Within certain limits there is more freedom in England than perhaps in any other country in the world. But once you are outside of those limits the restrictions are greater than anywhere else, except Russia. The authorities of London appear to be largely content with keeping the streets absolutely clean. The pavements are a marvel of solidity and excellence. They are kept perfectly clean in the most remote and poorer quarters by a perfect system of street-sweeping.

It is the public sentiment of London that keeps its streets so clean. In the lowest quarter of London the streets are as clean as in the best quarters of New York. They have tried every variety of experiment here in the direction of pavements and have settled down to asphalt and wooden blocks. It has been said in the United States that the asphalt streets would not stand in the heavy traffic of New York, but they do stand in London where the traffic is even heavier. The wooden-block pavements, which were such a failure in Washington when they were put down by Governor Shepherd, are a great success here. The material used for the surface is the same, but the English contractors are made to put down a solid rock and tar basis. Wood with this basis becomes as solid as stone while it retains elasticity. They have a Board of Public Works here which sends out inspectors to see that contractors and builders do their work honestly.

It is a popular idea in the United States that living in London is much cheaper than with us. It may be that there are some places in London where you can live more cheaply than in a corresponding situation in New York. But it must be somewhere out in the remote suburbs. Clothing is very much cheaper, and everything relating to furniture, and some of the better class of manufactures can be bought here for a much less price. But the actual cost of living is very much higher. Rents are nearly as high. Taxes are higher, and the cost of maintaining an establishment is very much higher. The pay of servants may be less, but you have to have more of them. It is also true that the cab fares in London are less than they are in New York, but the distances are so great that the expense of going about is more than made up by the greater necessity of employing the cabs. The hotels are more expensive than with us, and do not begin to give the same accommodations. The smaller the hotel the higher the prices. In the first place, there is not a small hotel in London that does not charge as much for its rooms as any of the fashionable European plan hotels on Broadway. The restaurant charges will average much higher, while the fees for attendance and the like make up a bill which is far outside of the charge of the first-class hotels in New York. The guide books recommend tourists to call for their bills every two or three days. It would be better to go beyond this and pay your bill every day, because where a bill is allowed to run on it is apt to be added to in a way that is wholly unexplainable and not at all comforting, even to those who have long purses.

The hotels and lodging-houses of London are for strangers. No Englishman of position will live in a hotel or a lodging-house if he is married. Keeping house is regarded as a matter of course. This, for a person who has a family, is perhaps the most economical way to live if you are going to spend a year or so in London. The restaurants do not compare with the New York restaurants in the quality or variety of their food. The only thing that I have seen which is better in the English restaurants is the mutton chops. The mutton chop with us is greasy and coarse. The English mutton chop is sweeter and more delicate than our lamb chop. The English bread is abominable. You will hardly find a good piece of bread in any of the restaurants of London unless you give a special order for a special dinner. The regular English bread is always very heavy or dry, and hard and stale. Their so-called French breads are almost tasteless. The best breads are the Vienna rolls, but even these are unsalted. The butter in all of the restaurants strikes the American palate at once as a kind of fiat ointment. It is never salted, and for a time, until one becomes accustomed to the freshness, does not taste at all like butter. The roast beef of England will not compare with our roast beef. The fact that there is no good coffee served at any of the public restaurants in England is so well known as not to need special mention.

The common way of dining at the public restaurants is from the joint. A dinner from the joint is served in a great many of the good restaurants, costing from about eighty cents to a dollar and a half in our money for each order. A dinner served from the joint consists of, in the first place, a liberal allowance of roast meat. This is in some restaurants brought up on a little table wheeled alongside of yours and sliced off in your presence. With this is given boiled potatoes and some other coarse vegetable, sometimes greens and sometimes Brussels sprouts. The general range of vegetables appears to be confined to

Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and kale. The dessert served with the joint dinner is a lettuce salad and all you care to slice off of a Stilton or Cheddar cheese. These dinners are very coarse and hearty, and are just the thing for a man taking- a great amount of exercise. But there is nothing delicate about them.

There are a number of French restaurants in London, but they serve strictly French meals. The best restaurants to please the American taste are those kept by Italians.

The climate of England is very trying to American visitors at first. It is never as cold in reality as in America, but the dampness of the climate makes the cold much more trying. Instead of registering the condition of the atmosphere by the zero gauge as with us, the English speak of the condition of the atmosphere as being above or below thirty-two degrees. Degrees of frost are below this point. It is very rare that there is a record below six degrees of frost or twenty-six of our thermometer. Yet people will come to England from the climate of our country, where the average temperature for months is in the neighborhood of zero and below, and suffer with the cold in England in a temperature of from twenty-eight to thirty-five degrees above zero. After a time this sensitiveness to the damp climate wears off. The English climate greatly as it has been abused, is a splendid working climate. The atmosphere is full of life. It is specially suitable to nervous people who have become worn out with over work. The summers are especially agreeable to Americans. There is no day in an English summer which approaches even in a remote degree to the sweltering heat of the July and August days of our Northern cities.

I have often heard American visitors in London say that they wished they could experience a real London fog. Most people who come here are very much disappointed if they do not at once meet with all the experiences common to London life. London is greatly celebrated for its fogs. I was here last spring during the stormy months of March and April, and during that time I thought that the atmosphere became thick enough to be considered foggy, but I was told there was no real fog during that time. The month which has just passed, November, is the month of the worst fogs. Fortunate American visitors in London at this time have been able to see what a real London fog is. The fog, made up of smoke, cloud and gloom, which has swept down upon London two or three times during the past month, certainly could not be matched in any other city of the world. What is known as black fog generally follows a sharp hoar frost. Intense cold is the basis of the fogs. The air becomes in the first place excessively damp and then there sweeps down upon the town a great cloud, mingling with the sooty smoke until it chokes the streets, enters houses, attacks the throat and eyes, and in some cases causes a suspension of traffic entirely in the streets.

The fogs of the present winter have been very peculiar. They would begin black and then they would change to light. The sun every now and then would seek to break through the cold mass of fog, soot and grime, but it never succeeded. The wind alone is able to carry off the fog, but the yellow light of the sun shimmering through the fog, produces at times strange effects. The town would seem to be standing in some sort of floating mixture, and then the sun would disappear and the fog would change almost as soon as it could be told, into a black, cold, dense mass of solid cloud and smoke. Twice during the month this black fog became so dense, so dark, and so thick, that you could not see a foot beyond you in looking out of the window. Of course, gas would be lighted all over the town. Out in the streets you could not see half-way across, and great care had to be exercised in going about. In the direction of the underground railroad the fog was the thickest and at the worst. In addition to the darkness and inconvenience of not being able to see where you are going, having to exercise extraordinary precautions against being run over, there was also a constant choking feeling, occasioned by the difficulty in breathing the horrible atmosphere of soot and smoke. More than this, the intense cold and the excessive dampness were harder to endure than the cold in the most northerly countries. The touch of the fog was like ice. Its dampness and its cold penetrated to the very marrow of one's bones.

It was almost impossible to heat the rooms or house when the icy breath of the fog was coming in at every opening. Unless a house were kept tightly closed against the invading gloom it became filled and choked. The sensation of oppression from the presence of the fog in the town was something that could only be overcome by those who have strong health and great vital resources. Every time a black fog visits London, it means death to a number of old and delicate people. It is particularly fatal to infants and to people with lung or throat troubles. People with a tendency to lung or throat troubles cannot live in London in the winter without having their maladies greatly aggravated. But there is this much to be said about even this fog infection : It does not endure very long at a time. It is rare for a fog of the intensely disagreeable character mentioned to last more than six or eight hours. The longest fog on record is the celebrated fog of eight or ten years ago. This fog continued for thirty-six hours. It was so black and so dark that people could not see more than two feet beyond them. Traffic during that thirty-six hours was entirely suspended. The great business of London was brought to a standstill and kept in check by this black and most merciless fog. Few people ventured out of doors, and the police on their beats with difficulty were able to find their accustomed points to guard and visit. During the thirty-six hours that this celebrated fog continued, there was not a breath of air stirring. The moment that the wind begins to blow the fog shifts and the worst is soon over.

If the city of London would adopt some modern system of heating houses, undoubtedly the fogs would never become so severe and so thick. Millions are wasted in the sooty open fireplaces of London. The smoke consumers adopted by Parliament are practically of no use, for the people refuse to put them on their chimneys in spite of the act of Parliament. Coal is burned in every house in a most tremendously wasteful way. The greater part of the coal burned in London, instead of heating the houses, simply becomes waste soot and is belched forth to become part of the poisonous atmosphere which enshrouds and hangs over London during the cold winter months.

But the evil effects of the fogs have been greatly exaggerated. They come only once in a while and except in historical exceptions do not remain for more than twenty four hours at a time. Often a dense fog in the morning will pass away early in the afternoon. During this present winter which is now just nearly passed there have been only two or three great fogs. The one great fog of the centuryendured for nearly five days.

Chapter II. The Derby Day As It Is

AN ACCURATE PHOTOGRAPH OF THE INCIDENTS OF LONDON'S GREATEST SPORTING EVENT.

There is no racing event in England which is so interesting to Americans as the Derby. Every American who comes to England regards going to see the Derby as one of the things he must do, if his visit to England is not wholly in vain. It is classed with seeing the leading people and the prominent sights of London. Its pleasures are greatly exaggerated. The Americans who go to the labor and expense of witnessing this outdoor spectacle, I am afraid, are inclined to exaggerate on their return to their native land ; for I have never heard any one of my countrymen who have visited Epsom Downs on Derby Day tell the story which would give a stranger a correct idea of that day and of its events. The tendency is always to exaggerate and overdraw. We certainly have nothing like the Derby on any of the race-courses of the United States ; and for lovers of real sport is perhaps as well that we have not. The racing is the very smallest feature of the Derby day.

For any one who is fond of this, but little pleasure would be found in the Derby event. It is really an overgrown picnic ; it is a day of holiday-making, and the scenes on Epsom Downs are those which are to be found at any great country fair in England on a pleasant day, multiplied many times over on the great stretch of rolling land where this meet takes place. But in spite of the multiplication of the attractions and the diversity of the crowd, there is still a sameness running throughout all these features. It resembles, to a casual stranger, who

EN G Lis 1 1 LIFE.

walks about from one end of the great stretch to the other, a succession of country fairs, if you please, with the racing element occasionally coming to the surface as a feature. Derby Day is one of the great popular holidays of England. It is not a legal holiday, but common consent has made so much of a holiday of it that it practically amounts to the same thing.

The Epsom Downs are distant from London some twenty miles. There are many ways of getting to this ground from London. The trains carry great crowds. Every kind of vehicle is brought into play on this day to carry people down who prefer to drive over the magnificent country roads between London and Epsom. The expense of attending a race meet in England is much larger than for a similar event with us. The prices of admission to the paddocks, the grand stand, and the various points of advantage throughout the grounds are higher than on our racing tracks. The cost of transporttation is also higher. English railway charges for short or long distance are much higher than with us, and the companies make but little reductions on the day of racing events. All kinds of wagons that can be employed for carrying passengers to the Derby are rented out at exorbitant rates on that day. The favorite method of going to the Derby employed by Americans is to go on a drag or a high coach drawn by four horses. These coaches are rented for the day at for from fifteen to twenty guineas. There are incidental charges connected with the drive which bring the cost up to twenty-five and sometimes thirty guineas, which will include lunch, the pay of the men, the fees of the servants and the fees at the grounds. Three guineas are charged for the admission of the drag to the space in front of the grand stand and next to the course. Hansoms are rented on this day to go t<> Epsom and back from £ i up. It will cost any single individual from $15 to $20 to visit the Derby by way of the country roads and take in its sights. This is the minimum cost. Of course if one bets, or yields to the thousand and one importunities on the grounds to spend money, he can make the day at the Derby cost him anything he likes. The average American with money who goes down to the Derby spends from $100 to $200.

The Americans are not the only people who go to the

Derby on the top of a drag. It is a favorite method also with the English who have plenty of money to spend. Those who go down to Epsom for the racing of course prefer the grand stand. There they have some chance of seeing the horses. But I come back to my original theory concerning the Derby. People go to it as they would go to a picnic. It is a day for an outdoor lark. It is one long round of stuffing and drinking from first to last, combined with the rural fair features, as I have mentioned above.

I went down to the Derby on top of a drag in the American style, with the star-spangled banner waving over the top seat of this very high vehicle. The start was made at 10 o'clock. The road was through West Kensington and Wimbledon over a perfect road from beginning to end. The day was raw and an east wind was blowing. The clouds obscured the sun all day. The sun shines only on six days in the year in England, and this was not one of the six days. But it did not rain, and for that fact every one was thankful. It is hard to realize in any place in the United States so late in May the intense cold of this Derby day. The season was' supposed to be on the verge of the full bloom of an English summer, and yet the heaviest blanket coats and rugs were necessary for one's comfort. The English country at this present time is a perfect garden of beauty. It does not seem possible that there has been enough warmth or sun during this so-called spring to develop the rich and beautiful green of the hedges, the great stretches of emerald color over the meadows, the luxuriant growths of the clover fields, and the brilliant hues of the deep, dense woodlands. The depth and richness of the greens of the English landscape will always strike the American eye. This depth of color comes from the moisture of the atmosphere.

From the very start there were rows upon rows of people, ranging from the outskirts of London down to Epsom itself, waiting by the roadside for the spectacle of the moving hosts marching on to the Downs. These people remained along the line of this road all during the day enjoying hugely the coming and waiting patiently for the return. The children were the most vociferous. From behind nearly every hedgerow and corner there would come the most hilarious shouts from bands of applecheeked British youngsters, who, with yells of good cheer, pelted every passer-by with flowers, expecting a return fire of coppers. The cat-o'-the-wheel boys, as they are called — that is to say, small boys who revolve on their hands along the roadside after the fashion of a wheel — also expect pennies. The visitor to the Derby who u ishes to go through the day without loss of his peace of mind should take along at least a peck measure full of British copper coin. English lads hang around and call for pennies in a very bluff and matter-of-fact way. They sing " Chuck out your rolling coppers.'' A gentleman on the coach with me called attention to the fact that the Scotch boys have altogether a differcntcry, which he said was in his mind significant of the difference between the English and Scotch character. The Scotch boys call "Poor oot" (pour out), upon the theory that a Scotchman wants everything which you have for nothing.

I do not propose to give in detail an exact sketch of this ride, the number of hedgerows and all the various quaint public inns and the character of each group passed. That would require a volume. I shall merely allude to some of the features of the ride as it struck my eye as a stranger. I was particularly impressed, in the first place, with the capacity for drinking of the wandering, waiting crowds. Every public inn from the outset of the journey was crowded. I noticed that upon the wagons the drinking and the lunching began at even the early hour of 10 o'clock, when the shadow of breakfast could not have been far distant. This lunching and drinking continued apparently without cessation during the day, and on the way home the lunching and the drinking were still going on with an energy and thoroughness which indicated very hard heads and very matter-of-fact stomachs, at hast upon the part of the lunchers and drinkers. Now and then a man would fall out of the ranks and drop upon th< by the roadside, lie was regarded with that respectful consideration which is paid to the veteran who falls lighting with his face towards the enemy. The pedestrians walked carefully round him, and no one presumed for a moment, — not even the blue-coated policeman — to disturb the dreams of the sweet sleepers along this variegated road to Epsom. Going out, these fallen veterans were occasionally met with, but in coming back they were to be found in great numbers all along the road, and particularly in the neighborhood of some public inn — the Royal George, the Prince of Wales, or the Hare and the Fox, or the Dog and the Partridge — which lined the way.

Another feature of this day which I noticed was in marked contrast to any such day with us — the drinking of the women. In nearly every public inn there were nearly as many women as there were men. They were not women of the class who would be seen drinking in public with us. Nearly all of them belonged to what is called here the lower working class, that is to say, the families of unskilled laborers. These also comprised the costermonger, the green-grocer and the petty tradesman class. Nearly all these people owned either small ponies or donkeys. The endurance of these small beasts was something phenomenal. Most of the donkeys are about the size of a good Newfoundland dog. You would see some forlorn, undersized donkey or dwarfed pony harnessed up to a green-grocer's rack wagon, which is a simple frame for carrying vegetables on two wheels, and on this frame you would often see four or five full-grown men. The wretched little donkey would trot along contentedly, and would show no signs of being engaged in any unusual labor, although he would be expected to go with this load twenty miles and return, dragging a weight which the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals with us would regard as a great load for any one horse, however strong and powerful. Of course the perfection of the roads alone made it possible for the little donkeys and small ponies to drag their heavy loads. The women drank with the men, and appeared to have the same royal privilege of getting drunk without attracting the slightest notice or criticism. This privilege of becoming uproariously drunk appears to be one of the great features of an English holiday.

The wandering minstrels who torture the ears of the public with wretched apologies for musical instruments swarmed along through this moving mass of pedestrians and vehicles, catching with great alertness at the slightest suggestion of any one of the coaching parties, to whom they paid the greatest attention. The coaching parties are the ones who are supposed to have the money, and naturally all the wandering- crowd of merchant-. ' street fakirs and the like pursued the coaches as they did none of the other vehicles. The appearance of our coach carrying the American flag, was always the signal lor the minstrels to strike up "Yankee Doodle" or some national air which would at once unloosen the rolling coppers of the sentimentally patriotic Americans. The susceptible patriotism of the American abroad is thoroughly understood by the army of street highwaymen who lie in wait for opportunities of assaulting the pocketbooks of the passers-by.