Sights and sensations in Europe ; sketches of travel and adventure in England, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Holland, and Belgium, with an account of the places and persons prominent in the Franco-German war

Front matter

i'jvs.v^'iVA-

LATE EMPRESS EUGENIE.

SIGHTS AND SENSATIONS

Chapter I. On And Over Sea

PAGE.

Ocean Travel— The Advantage of Freedom from Sea Sickness— A Quoter of Poetiy Justly Punished— The Sentiment of a Bridal Couple Destroyed by a Storm— First Impressions of England— Liverpool and its Lions —Its "Wealthy Merchants— Custom House Officers, .... 17

CHAPTER n.

LONDON.

Match- Vending a Pretext for Begging— Tipping as a Social Science-The Theaters— A Tragedian of the Past— Droll Scene at Sadlers Wells- Cabs and Cabmen— A LabjTinthine City— The Times Establishment— St. Paul's— Billingsgate— Over Eight Thousand Spirit Shops— Drunken Women Repulsively Abundant, 24

Chapter III. Spukgeon

The Tabemacle-The Great Crowd in Attendance-Paying for Admissioa —Appearance and Manner of the Famous Clergyman— The Whole Congregation Singing— The Secret of his Power and Popularity, . 39

Chapter IV. The British Metropolis

Some Of its Notable Features-The Daily Press-Strange Scandal about the Duke of Wellington— Evenings at the Alhambra-A Peculiar Ball at the Cremome Gardens-White Bait-English Beauty-The Established Church— Dean Stanley of Westminster, xii CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XV.

MAGNIFICENCE OF PARIS.

PAGE.

Pere la Chaise — Disappointment in the Cemetery — Search for the Tomb of Abelard and Heloise — Women of the Humble Class Moved by Sentiment — Abelard one of the Most Heartless and Selfish of Men — The Churches of the City — The Hotel des Invalides and Tomb of Napoleon — The Bourse — Frantic Stocli-Buyers — Screaming Speculators — A Complete Financial Bedlam — A Foolish Follower of Fortune — A Young Man Wasting Life for Wealth — A Mother's Agony over the Cradle of her Child, 136

CHAPTER XVI.

LIFE IN PARIS.

A Bad Place for Bad Tendencies — How Young Men Study on the Continent — The "Grand Duchess" Schneider — The Women of the Capital — Difficulty Pretty Girls Have in Securing Places — Their Countless Temptations — American Women on the Seine — Cheap and Satisfactory Living — Story of La Ferine, the Popular News-Dealer — Adroit Advertising in Her Behalf. -143

CHAPTER XVII.

NOVELTIES OF PARIS.

The French Capital as a Wicked City — The Cocotte Balls — The Valentino, Casino, Chateau Rouge, Closerie de Lilas, and Jardin Malille — Unique and Extraordinary Dancing — Indecency of the Can-Can — Singular Mode of Getting Rid of a Wife — Ingenious Manner of Making a Reputation — Peculiar Experience at the Morgue — Romantic Fiction about Clarisse Demorne — New Way of Gaining a Livelihood, ... 149

CHAPTER XVIII.

ROMANCE AND MURDER IN PARIS.

French Love of Horror — The Great Sensation of the ' Pantin Murder — Artistic Treatment of Subjects by the Press — The Sentimental Cut-Throat of the Rue St. Honore — A Waiter's Inability to Understand Strict Celibacy — The Notorious Theresa as a Singer — The Original of Camille— Parisian Students — A Young Coxcomb Playing the Part of a Blase Man of the World — The Convenience of Spealdng French, - - -155

CHAPTER XLX.

CATACOMBS OF PARIS.

Their Situation and Extent — Three and a Half Millions of Persons Buried in Them — Setting out on the Dismal Excursion — Groping in the Darkness — Ghastly Display of Bones and Skulls — The Grinning Hideousness of Death — Victims of the Great Revolution — Theological Inscriptions — Sight-Seers Lost in the Sombre Labyrinth — Their Terrible Sufferings . — ^And Lingering Agony — The Relief of the Bright Sunshine, -- -161

Contents

CHAPTER XX.

SOCIAL STATUS OF PARIS.

PAGI.

Chapter I. On And Over Sea

^ NE of the advantages of travel is that our friends are never so agreeable as when we are going away from and coming back to them. Absence is temporary death ; and the possibility that it may be permanent makes us forget faults and remember virtues. The waves of the ocean wash away many unpleasant memories ; and at the distance of a thousand leagues we see what has been through the lens of the ideal.

The steamer " Queen," of the National Line, on which 1 sailed for Europe, proved what I had always believed, that sea^ sickness is not one of my possibilities. I had often been rocked on the cradle of the deep without the least discomfort ; but I had never crossed the Atlantic during what is known a& the stormy months. Perhaps the "Queen " is not a fair test, she is such an excellent ship, and seems so wholly in sympatli;^ with the sea. There were winds and waves and gales enough to make any one ill capable of illness ; but I had not the faintest qualm from the hour we quitted the Hudson until we cast anchor in the Mersey.

The " Queen " is one of the largest vessels afloat, and so convenient and well arranged, I do not wonder she is a favorite. All her sister ships, built by the Lairds, are on the same model, and have been very prosperous. They are particularly adapted to the carrying of emigrants (I have always felt an interest in their ocean passage), who, on account of the superior accommodations, seem to give the National Line the preference. 2

FAIRLY EMBARKED.

Our passage was interesting from its variety. It was not all calm, nor all storm, but a fair mixture of both. The first two days we had so little wind that it was monotonous. But on the third day the breeze freshened, and on the fourth rose to a gale. It was exhilarating to be on deck with the ship pitching and tossing under your feet; the waves breaking over her once in a while, and the spray dashing into your face from the white-crested surges on all sides. A good deal of rhetoric has no doubt been wasted in describing storms. The

ALL SEKENE.

waves are not mountain high — the highest rarely, if ever, exceed forty feet — nor does the vast deep open like a yawning chasm. But still a stonn is very picturesque and enjoyable to any one who retains stomachic regularity, and relishes a conflict of the elements. I felt a great satisfaction in standing on deck, hour after hour, watching the boiling waters, the dark, bending sky, and hearing the roaring wind, so fierce at times that I had to hold to the railings of the vessel to prevent being blown overboard.

I had not a single qualm, nor would the wildest storm that

EFFECT OF SEA-SICKNESS. 19

ever raged give me one, I am confident. I have been thoroughly tested by the ocean, and I have always refused to give up my resolution or my breakfast.

Many persons dislike sea-voyages, though I am not of them. They complain of weariness, of monotony ; but the ocean and the sky, with a book and a cigar, are companions, if you have no others, though sympathetic society is not to be despised. Travelling alone is not agreeable when you travel far ; and he who can take a friend with him will discover his friend a blessing. Marmontel was right : " It is sad when we see any thing beautiful to have no one to whom we can say, ' See how beautiful it is ! ' "

Whist is a pleasant sea game. I have found it an excellent time-killer in Atlantic travels. Tour own and your antagonist's tricks get confused when the ship gives a lurch or a roll ; but that is remediable, and adds to the variety.

I relish the feeling on the ocean, that when you leave the pier, you won't have to stop, or look after baggage for the next ten or twelve days ; that you are secure from the common annoyances of travel for more than three thou"sand miles.

A man who does not get sea-sick always has an opportunity on shipboard to gratify fhe element of original sin — the theologians say — we have in us. ' His superiority to the tortures of the ocean makes him seem superior to his fellows. The fancy is natural enough, considering that he can sit quietly down and eat his breakfast, while scores of poor fellows are lying below so disgusted with life that they are wholly indifferent whether the ship floats or founders. On the " Queen " we had some amusing instances of marine malady.

One young man was very eloquent upon the ocean, as we were steering down the bay. He quoted all the hackneyed songs and stanzas of Byron in praise of the sea ; wondered how any one could weary of its beauty and its grandeur. The first, two days were very calm, but on the third it began to blow. The enthusiast disappeared from the deck, and I did not meet him again until we were running up the Channel. Then he crawled into the saloon, pale as a ghost. I inquired

20 SIGHTS IN LIVERPOOL.

after liis condition, and as he had bored me with quotations (one of the blessings of Eden was that Eve couldn't quote), I asked how he enjoyed the sea. He steadied himself to give energetic energy to his utterance, and ejaculated sepulchrally, " Oh, the sea ! The people who are fools enough to like it ought to be drowned in it."

A change had evidently come over the spirit of his dream.

A young couple, just married, had chosen Europe for a bridal tour. They were very affectionate and devoted for a little while ; but the first strong breeze blew all love and sympathy out of them. I observed them when the vessel first began to roll. They were leaning fondly against each other as the ship lurched. That lurch made them mutually hateful. They glared on one another like deadly foes ; then they groaned, and did the very opposite of what was poetic. They parted. They crept below by different stairways, and when they rallied enough — a week after — to reappear, they were Separated physically, if not spiritually. Each seemed to regard the other as the source of his or her suffering. Their passionate attachment was extinguished, at least for the time. They were changed by their sea-sickness as years of land-living would not have changed them.

Let no man who seeks to cultivate the sentimental amenities with a woman take her to sea. The ocean is very fine in the abstract ; but in the concrete it is as death to love.

The first impression of an American on entering England is the substantiality of everything. Our trans- Atlantic cousins, as the London Times calls us, when it wants to be patronizing, are not graceful nor artistic nor picturesque ; but they are sohd, which we are not. How strikingly the docks of Liverpool impress a 'New Yorker ! They are of sohd masonry, cost millions of pounds, and will last for ages ; while those of Manhattan are wretched wooden affairs, that are a shame to the city. The public buildings, the warehouses, the paving of the streets, the drays, the carts, and the horses, look as if they were, indeed, intended to last. Such long-limbed, massive quadrupeds, such broad- wheeled vehicles, we never see in our coun-

THE COMPTON HOUSE. 21

try. They seem primitive, almost grotesque, compared to our slight animals and wagons ; but they excellently serve the purpose for which they were designed.

All the buildings are dingy and grim from the moist character of the climate and the quantity of soft coal they burn ; but the principal streets are quite clean.

One of the lions of Liverpool is the Compton House — not a hotel, as might be supposed, but a variety store on a very extensive scale. It is one of the largest and most prominent buildings in town, and seems more Yankee than British. The proprietors sell dry goods, millinery, crockery, glass ware, clothing, furniture, hardware, marine outfits, musical instruments, and almost everything but locomotives and tombstones. If they have not the last, they have cofiins, both ready-made and made to order ; so that anything, from an infant's robe to a w^ooden overcoat, as they used to call it in the army, can be supplied at the Compton. I should think it would require a large degree of versatility to conduct so varied a trade, and that the strict attention it demanded would render a man fickle-minded. Almost any American would predict failure for such a peculiar business; but the present firm instituted the establishment, and have never been in any financial difiiculty. And that, too, though they have been burned out once or twice, which, speaking from a Kew York standpoint, might account for their prosperity.

I never knew until recently the origin of the word Liverpool. It is taken from the word liver, a fabulous bird of the crane species, supposed to have inliabited the vast pool w^iich once covered the site of the present city. This mythical bird is the central figure in the coat of arms of Liverpool. All the ground on which the town stands is made, and over it, in years agone, flowed the sea.

Except in business, Liverpool is a dull place. Commerce crowds out science, literature, and art, which London monopolizes. With a population of over five hundred thousand, Liverpool has not a library, a gallery, or a theatre worthy of the name. Every dramatic manager fails eventually.

QUICK SHAVING.

Tlie city lias few handsome private residences, as most of the prosperous citizens live out of town. Great fortunes have been amassed there, some of the merchant princes being worth $10,000,000 to $12,000,000 each. Fortunes, varying from $1,000,000 to $3,000,000 are quite common. Business is regulated very much as in Kew York ; a business day embracing but four or five hours. You can find no one before ten o'clock, and seldom after four. About the latter hour the merchants go to their homes, which lie along the different railways. The grounds of many of the houses are beautifully laid out, though they suffer, as English grounds usually do, from over-regularity and stiflness.

Shaving is still quite primitive in England, for the reason that most Englishmen are in the habit of shaving themselves.

SHAVED IN TWO MINUTES.

In some of the towns the barbers charge only a .penny, but they merely rasp the chin, and then release their victim ; not even washing: off the lather. I was directed to a tonsorial

CUSTOM-HOUSE OFFICERS. 23

artist who solicited American patronage, and who enjoyed a reputation. I found his shop exceedingly plain, with few conveniences and no luxuries. The chairs were common chairs, with a small head-piece. I sat down, and the razor was jerked across my face, being wiped at every jerk. There was none of the careful or artistic manipulation for which our barbers are famed. The job was finished in two minutes; but I remembered it two months.

It is often remarked by traveUers that the Custom-house officers in Em-ope form a marked contrast to those in America. The officers on this side are much more expeditious and obliging than ours. They show no such disposition to detain or annoy you. K they have no reason to suspect contraband goods, they pass baggage without inspecting it or pulHng it to pieces. They are mortal, of course. The British officials like to have their palms crossed with silver, and if you fail to remember their weakness, inform you of it by word of mouth. " Price of a pot of beer, sir," they say, and hold out their hand to facilitate the exchange of small coins. Several Englishmen have assured me no Custom-house officer in Great Britain can be bribed ; but he certainly likes to see the courtesies of the occasion properly observed.

Chapter II. London

STRANGER, or foreigner, going to England now is likely to infer that the principal branch of retail trade is in matches. The streets of London are full of match-venders, mostly children from six to twelve years of age. They offer you matches everywhere, and with a perseverance and energy that encourage the belief that their salvation depends upon their selling a certain number. You are forced to doubt if the matches they offer so superabundantly are made in heaven. You question if enough people have gone there to make so many. The cause of the activity in the match market is that it is an excuse for beggary. The English cities, especially London, became so overrun with professional mendicants that an effort was made to suppress them. The police received orders to arrest all beggars. Of course, the beggars found a subterfuge. They embraced a legitimate business — selling matches. They invest a penny in matches, run after you, and beg most piteously. They seem so forlorn, and are so pertinacious that strangers give them money either out of pity or for convenience. Americans are of course the first choice of beggars, for most Em*opeans believe we are all rich, and anxious to get rid of our money as soon as possible. A wretched-looking girl, of eight or nine, came up to me, holding out a box of matches, making her appeal so adroitly that I gave her sixpence for her art.

" Thank you," she said ; " thank you, Mr. American." " How do you know I am an American, my child ? "

" rirrixG " universal.

" Oh, because you gives me silver ; our people never gives us nothink but pennies."

The extent of " tipping," as it is styled, is remarkable in Britain. We should call it " feeing," and more candid persons would name it " bi'ibing." We are in the habit of paying porters, servants, and all kinds of menials for any particular attention or service rendered; but we are very careful about giving money to those we regard or who regard themselves as our social equals. The line is closely drawn on this side of the Atlantic, and we never cross it with douceurs. Over there it is quite different. You hardly meet any one you cannot make happy with anything between a shilling and a sovereign. Even pennies are not refused by well-dressed men, or sixpences by w e 1 1 - dressed women. The smallest courtesy or the largest kindness is gladly rendered you under the impression that you will pay for it. You drop your cane : it is picked up at once, and you part with a penny. A stamp is put on your letter; a glass of water is handed you ; the

TIPPING.

morning paper is

shoved toward you, and you pay for the convenience. A

woman buttons your glove, or takes a hair from your coat

(even if it be her own), and you make pecuniary compensation

therefor.

In America we do many things gratis. In England, or in

COST OF LIVING IN ENGLAND.

Europe, for matter of that, they do nothing on such terms. Little gratuities in London will cost a stranger from two to ten shillings a day ; and if he wants any real favors, he must draw on his sovereigns.

I have been embarrassed sometimes concerning the extent to which, and concerning the kind of people, one may " tip." But I have learned that in most cases hesitation is superfluous. A New Yorker, as the story goes, boarded in the house of a friend, in London, for some months. When about to leave for the Continent, and bid adieu to his friend's wife, she kissed him good-by. The New Yorker, not anticipating so warm a greeting, and deeming it a special favor — for the woman was

pretty — slipped a sovereign into her hand, and went off.

We hear a great deal about the cheapness of living in Europe ; but it is not true for travellers in Great Britain.

The hotels in London are quite as expensive as in America, considering the accommodations. The English houses are generally inferior to ours, in size and comfort, and in the quality of the table. What a New York, or Boston, or Chicago hotel furnishes, would cost in London fully ten dollars a day. As it is, you cannot live in what is considered there a first-class hotel for less than five dollars in currency, and if you are fastidious or dainty, it will be much more. You cannot get the plainest breakfast for less than three shillings, and a tolerable dinner will be five or six shillings. Then you have sei-vice charged in the bill at one to two shillings a day, and are expected to pay the servants besides.

The Europeans live much more economically than we do. They care vastly more about money, in the first place, and secondly, they better understand its judicious use. All manu-

GOOD FOR A SOVEREIGN.

THE ^'BOBBIES.'''' 21

factured articles are cheaper in Britain and on the Continent ; are well made, and of good material. The expense of boots, clothes, and hats, for instance, is not mnch more than fifty or sixty per cent, of what it is in the United States. The average Englishman wears a coat or hat for several years, while we think a few months quite sufficient.

The policemen look awkward enough in their peculiar uniform, which is a short, stiff, square-cut, blue coat, that would give an unprepossessing appearance to Antinous. On their heads they wear a cloth helmet, with a small crest, intended to break the blow of any club or missile. This gives them a ridiculous appearance, and with their other garments, insures them the name of " bobbies." How the government can expect the majesty of the law to be sustained by the " bobbies " I can't imderstand. They are too funny to command respect. I should as soon expect to disperse a mob by reading a humorous lecture instead of the Kiot Act.

The speed of the English train is exaggerated. They go much faster than ours ; but even the express rarely averages more than forty miles an hour. When behind time, it runs as high as fifty or sixty, but only for short distances. The fare is about five cents a mile for first-class, four cents for secondclass, and less than three cents for third-class, while with us it averages about three cents per mile. The rate varies little whether the distance be short or long, and the .advantage of buying through tickets at reduced prices, as with us, is not to be had.

An American is struck with the superior construction of the railways. They all have double tracks, and their bridges, tunnels, embankments, and elevations are of the most substantial sort. No common road is allowed to cross the track, except over a bridge or by a tunnel. The telegraph lines and signal stations are excellent, and kept in perfect order. Serious accidents seldom occur, and only from gross carelessness.

The theatres in London are, on the whole, inferior to the theatres of New York, both in the quality of the houses (externally and internally,) and of the performance. The Covent

THEATRES IN LONDON.

Garden is a large, gloomy building, not at all attractive within, and the Italian operas are not given in the style that might be naturally expected ; nor are they mounted as they ought, in what the English claim to be the first of the European lyric theatres.

THIRD-CLASS RAILWAY CARRIAGE.

Drury Lane (recently rearranged and improved), the Prince of Wales's (the Wallack's of London), Hay market, and Gayety Theatres are the best in the metropolis. The Adelphi, Strand, Holborn, Lyceum, and minor theatres, have little to boast of, and some of them are dingy and dreary enough.

A theatre of the old time, and one rarely visited now-adays by strangers, is Sadler's Wells, in a quarter of the town where no one would imagine a place of amusement to be. Having attended all the fashionable play-houses, I fancied an excursion to Sadler's Wells niiglit be entertaining. Phelps,

AN UNWELCOME SUBSTITUTE. 29

" the eminent tragedian," was perfonning a round of favorite characters, and his E-ichelieu was so bad I felt a strong curiosity to see if he could do anything worse. I attended a second time, when the manager, with soiled hands and limping English, appeared before the curtain to state that Phelps was too hoarse to play, and that his son would take his part. It required fully ten mimites to communicate so much as that, for the audience cheered, hooted, and yelled so as to drown the fellow's voice at every half sentence.

The curtain rose, and young Phelps strode upon the stage as Bertuccio in the " Fool's Revenge." But he could not make himself heard. The uproar continued for fifteen minutes. At last he succeeded in informing the house that he would not attempt the character if they did not wish it. Cries of " Go on, go on," and " Go off, go off," with applause, hisses, and confiision worse confounded. The actor could not again lift his voice above the din, and finally quitted the stage in despair.

Then the manager reappeared and began a series of emphatic gestures, putting his hand on his heart, and swinging his arms in a manner that indicated he was making a speech. It was all dumb show amid the tumult. I grew weary of the place, and concluding I had had my three shillings' worth of legitimate drama, quitted the theatre. What became of the manager or the audience, I do not know.

As I went out of the dingy old building, with its crooked entrances, its queer arcade, its seedy ticket-sellers, and heard women in draggled skirts swearing over their disappointment, and saw tipsy rogues standing in the rain (it always rains in London) waiting to rob-somebody tipsier than they, I thought how thoroughly Sadler's. "Wells represented the theatre of the past, and that quarter of the city the London of the present.

Phelps certainly represents the past. Twenty-five years ago he Avas thought one of the best of living tragedians, for he had a powerfid voice, and could rant like King Cambyses. He stood at the head of his profession ; but the natural school of acting came in, and left his strut-and-thunder style out of fash-

LONDON CABMEN.

ion. He could not change ; lie did not wisli to. He declared tlie times unjointed, and the generation nnappreciative. He grew morbid and bitter ; lie could not get engagements where once he would have refused to play. When I last saw him he was obliged to seek the provinces. Poor, old, broken, misanthropic, he was filling at the Wells his final engagement in the metropolis.

There are two kinds of cabs in England, the Hansom, a two-wheeled vehicle, and a four-wheeler, built like an Amer-

A " HANSOM " CAB^ ican coupe or brougham. English cabmen are like their tribe the world over. They will cheat you if they can. They are •not so bad as the Celtic Jehus in New York — they could not be if they tried — ^but they overcharge whenever they think they can with safety. Their regular fare is sixpence per mile for a Hansom, and one shilling for a four-wheeler ; but they always ask a stranger twice as much, presuming he Avon't

THE GREAT CITY. 31

know the distance he has been driven, "When he hands them the proper amount, however, and lets them see he understands the situation, they accept the fare with a tolerable degree of resignation. They do not swear and insult, and threaten him as they do in our blessed land of freedom, until nothing but self-discipline and the high price of funerals prevent him from indulging in the luxmy of a justifiable homicide.

To one not a native of London, the famous labyrinth of Crete seems to have been recreated along the Thames. Such a wilderness of streets, lanes, inns, courts, and alleys, was never before known in Christendom. There is no clue to any given locality. You must depend entirely on your instincts or a cabman ; and the latter, on the whole, is to be preferred.

A street has one name in one block, another in a second, and still another in a third. On the west side of a thoroughfare the street is King ; on the east. Queen ; on the north. Bread ; on the south, Milk ; on the right. Black ; on the left, White; and so on without end.

There is some mental connection between such nomenclatnre, but in most of that prevailing there, there is no suggestion of fitness or coherence. A triangle is called a square, a square IS called fields, a rambling block a circus, a dark comer an inn, and a blind alley a crescent.

To show the irregularity of London, let me take one of the best-known routes between down-town and the western quarter. Beginning at the Bank of England with Threadneedle street, where there is a chaos of thoroughfares, and going toward Trafalgar square as directly as you can, you pass through Poultry, Cheapside, St. Paul's Churchyard, Ludgate Hill, Fleet street. Temple Bar, the Strand, and Charing Cross, and yet you have nothing to inform you where you are. Few of the streets are indicated by their names. Those which are, are so insignificant that no one cares to know them. The lamp-posts have no directions whatever ; so, after dark, you are wholly at a loss.

The Directory, though an immense volume, is so like a Chinese puzzle that it rather conceals than conveys intelligence.

32 A NEW YORKER PUZZLED.

The location of a house or the address of a business firm is given simply as Oxford street, Bloomsbury, White Friars, or Covent Garden, with a number of such cabalistic initials as W. C, E. C, W. or C, which are simply confounding to the stranger. The letters mean "West Central, East Central, "West or Central, as respects the quarter of London. In the Directory you constantly find " City" in parentheses, and marvel at it until you learn that it means the part of town east of Temple Bar, though London extends miles and miles west of the Bar.