A Journey of a Jayhawker

by W. Y. Morgan

FRANCE.

THE CITY OF PLEASURE.

Paris, France, June 19, 1905.

Since my last letter to The News we have been “going some,” and I will leave a few ideas I may have gleaned about England until I get back there on my return from the continent. We are pushing for a short visit to Italy before the summer gets too far advanced.

To use a classical expression, Paris is a bully sort of a town. If there is anything you want and don’t know where it is, I am satisfied you will find it in Paris. In England it was customary to close up and go to bed sometime after midnight and to rest on Sunday. Nobody in Paris thinks of either proposition. The only difference between Paris at midnight and Paris at midday is that it is livelier at midnight. The performance is continuous and it is worth the price of admission.

Coming into a country where your language is not generally spoken is always a little trying on the nerves. The French people have made it as easy as possible, but the ways are strange and the helpless tourist can only do as others do and trust to Providence and the power of a little money distributed as well as possible. I do not know how much Providence has had to do with it, but I do believe there are mighty few doors in France which a piece of money will not unlock. When I came into France I knew only two French expressions, one meaning “How much?” and the other, “Thank you.” With that vocabulary we went through the custom-house examination, a five-hour railroad journey, landed in a big city station, got a carriage, reached the hotel and an interpreter without any more trouble than we would have in Sterling. Of course everybody from conductor to porter knew we were Americans and could not speak French, knew what we ought to do next and showed the way, and all we had to do was to look pleasant and hand out small change. And it doesn’t cost much to be liberal in France. I gave the conductor an equivalent to our 10 cents, and I know he thought I was rich. The porter who took my baggage through the custom-house and brought me a carriage was deeply impressed with my financial standing when I gave him 6 cents worth of French coppers. The coachman who brought Mrs. Morgan and myself with four big grips from the station to the hotel, two miles, charged me the full price, 30 cents for everything, and when I tossed him another dime like a millionaire he took his hat off three times. The French people I have met have been very polite. They always tip their hats and go out of their way to show me, and they are never so discourteous as to refuse 2 cents. Imagine giving a Santa Fe conductor 10 cents for showing you where to sit in the car!

As a lesson in political economy I will put in my observation so far as I have gone: Everything in Europe that is made or done by labor is cheap. I was offered a tailor-made suit of clothes in London for $18 that would cost $30 in Hutchinson. A farm laborer in England gets about 50 cents a day and boards himself. The barber shaves you for 2 or 3 cents. Bread and meat are higher than in the United States. You can see how the wage-earner gets it going and coming. I am learning a few things from experience that I had been told before, but I want to visit a few more places before I try to form my conclusions and put them into print.

Paris is a beautiful city. In spite of the great business houses, the manufactories and the banks which I have seen, it strikes me as a kind of play town. Every day in the week in Paris looks like an American town on the Fourth of July, and on Sunday it is Fourth of July and Christmas together and then some. The men who are working at wages that would make Americans vicious, are as light-hearted and pleasant appearing as a Sunday school picnic. The women are as vivacious as a lot of school ma’ams at institute. As soon as work is completed it seems as if every Parisian only goes home to put on his good clothes and then comes down town accompanied by his wife, or somebody’s wife. Half the places of business along the principal streets are restaurants and a good many of the others are also restaurants. The Frenchman sits at a little table on the sidewalk in front of the café and puts in the evening drinking one glass of wine or absinthe, chatting with his neighbor and watching the women go by with their good clothes and bright faces. Every French woman is an artist when it comes to clothes. The goods may not cost much, but the gown is tastefully made, and if the lady wants to she sticks on a bow or jabs a flower in her hat, regardless of every rule except that it looks pretty there—and it always does. Bright and light gowns, hats that are up-to-date or ahead, hair to match the hat and hose to match the dress—and the artist’s work is done. No wonder the men hurry down town and sit on the sidewalk!

In the afternoon and evening the Paris streets look like a spring millinery opening—also like a display of samples of fine hosiery. Perhaps I ought not to go into the subject, but it will not be a fair description of Paris if I leave it out, and I must warn any other Kansan who may venture this way. When a Parisian lady walks along a sidewalk that is perfectly clear and clean she daintily lifts her dress so as to display only the top of the shoe, maybe an inch or two more. Sometimes she thoughtlessly raises the gown a little higher. When she reaches the street-crossing—but I had better stop, for she doesn’t. I have always been of the opinion that under such circumstances a plain, respectful man should look the other way and I have a crick in my neck from looking—the other way—since I came to Paris. Remember this is in fine weather when the walks and crossings are clean. “They say” that when the walks are muddy the result is even more startling to a staid observer from Kansas. If the weather gets bad I don’t know what I will do.

IN PARIS: LOOKING THE OTHER WAY.

The philosophy in the above is that it gives you an idea of Paris with its brilliantly lighted streets, the men eating and drinking, sitting at the little tables along the walks, the well-dressed people, the brilliant colors, the laughter, the bright and polite conduct of men and women, the holiday appearance, the pleasure that everyone is having, and the general gait at which Parisians travel. As another example let me add, fully one-third of that part of Paris which in any other city would be devoted to business, is given up to public gardens, playgrounds for children, parks and drives,—not out in the country or to one side, but right through the center of Paris. The houses, business and residence, are none of them more than six stories high, and I am told the law does not permit higher structures. It is a good idea, for you get air and sunlight, which you often do not in New York and Chicago, and you can occasionally see out over the city. About every so often is a circle or square from which radiate from six to a dozen avenues and boulevards. These streets divide into others which reach forward to other squares, and are intersected at every conceivable angle by cross-streets. The object of this plan was to place artillery in the square and thus command the streets and boulevards against the revolutionists, who have always been doing or about to do something in Paris. The houses, five or six stories high, are built right up from the sidewalk, and have inner courts. Usually there are stores or shops in the downstairs rooms facing the street and living-rooms back and above. And speaking of stores, most of them are about ten by twelve feet, one-half display window. The interior is lined with mirrors which make the room look large and two or three customers like a crowd. The French use mirrors every chance—there are three beautiful mirrors in our small bedroom. The shops are generally decorated with flowers, pictures and statuary and a sign “English spoken,” the latter being usually a delusion and a snare. Instead of naming a street or avenue and then sticking to it, the names of the streets frequently change. The boulevard our hotel is on begins as the Madeleine, runs two blocks and then becomes the Capoucins, two blocks more and it is the Italiens. We are on the Capoucins part, and besides the Boulevard des Capoucins, there is street “Rue des Capoucins,” and a square “Place des Capoucins,” each in a different section. The necessity of a stranger in Paris keeping sober is very apparent. The streets, squares and public buildings are adorned with frequent statues—good ones. Almost any way you turn there is something beautiful to look at. The French are artists and lovers of art. If there were such a thing as a Kansas joint in Paris it would be decorated like an art gallery. But the joints in Paris are open and run twenty-four hours a day, seven days in the week, and the police never interfere with anything that goes on except in case of a disturbance of the peace or abuse of the government.

The French like Americans and don’t like the English or the Germans. But that does not mean they refuse anybody’s money. In our country when a man gets a comfortable income he grows gray-haired and wrinkled trying to make more. A Frenchman spoke to me of this trait, and said that when one of his countrymen reached the point where he could live nicely on what he had accumulated or the salary he was receiving, he quit worrying and took to the cafés and boulevards to enjoy life. Perhaps the French way is the best, at least the French look happier over mighty little than we do over much more. They go in for “pleasure” and they enjoy it as do no other people I have seen.

PARIS AND PARISIANS.

Paris, June 20, 1905.

Almost the first thing we did after we reached Paris was to go to the Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine did its bloody work during the French Revolution. It is now a beautiful square adorned with statues, and is the center of the pleasure-ground of Paris. After tightly shutting our eyes so as to avoid seeing the gay Parisians passing by, we recalled the terrible scenes which took place a little more than a hundred years ago. Here Louis XVI., the unfortunate king, paid the penalty for the crimes of his family and class. Here Marie Antoinette was executed, and scores and hundreds of the French nobility. Poor Marie Antoinette, who always did and said the wrong thing, has been the recipient of the sympathy of the world. But in addition to the sorrow for her I have never been able to get over my sympathy for the thousands of women who marched to Versailles and when the king and queen appeared to quiet them, cried, “Give us bread for our children!” For France at that time was suffering as no other nation has suffered from physical oppression and poverty resulting from misgovernment and utter disregard of the lives and property of the people. In order to carry on wars and build monuments and palaces and indulge in personal dissipation and pleasure, the rulers of France had sucked the life of the nation like the juice from an orange. The French still make a great fuss over Louis XIV., “The grand monarch,” who made France the leading nation of Europe. But it was the logical outcome of his methods and grinding government that resulted in the degradation of the people, their poverty and distress, and the revolution which sent his great grandson to the block.

After the French Jacobins executed their king and queen they began to fall out and “revolute” against each other, and so nearly all the leaders of the revolution went to the guillotine and got it where Louis and Antoinette did—in the neck. In a little more than two years over 2,800 persons perished here by the guillotine, and the place is very appropriately called “de la Concorde.” Around the square are statues representing eight of the cities of France, the one for Strassburg still there, but draped in black and with emblems of mourning for the city and province taken from France by Germany at the end of the last war. Every Frenchman has in his heart the intent to lick the Germans and recover Alsace.

I will not attempt to describe in detail the great palaces of the Tuileries and the magnificent gardens, the Louvre with its acres of paintings and statuary, most of which I did not see because it was like eating pie—there is a limit. These are historic grounds, for back and forth among statues of peace and beautiful works of art the French people have fought each other time and again, sometimes destroying but always rebuilding. From Place de la Concorde extends the Champs-Elysées (pronounced Shame-on-Lizzy, as near as I can get it). This is a great avenue 400 yards wide and over a mile long, consisting of parallel boulevards running through trees and flowers, playgrounds and palaces here and there, and at all times of the day and night filled with people and carriages.

The Champs-Elysées and the Bois de Boulogne, a park of over 2,000 acres in which it terminates, are the fashionable drives of Paris. It cost only 40 cents an hour for Mrs. Morgan and I to drive with the Parisian élite, and we took advantage of the opportunity to see Paris society. The carriages in the early evening extend in procession over miles of boulevard, and are often six or eight abreast. The drives wind around through woods, by good-sized lakes, along sides of cascades, and the carriages are filled with the swellest lot of gowns and cutest little dogs I have ever seen. Nearly every woman has a dog on her string as well as a man. In all of this style there is a general lack of formality which is appropriate to the scenery. It is not an uncommon sight to see the ladies and gentlemen with their arms around each other. It isn’t so bad when you get used to it, and the fashion is considered strictly proper in France. I am no longer shocked when I see a young man just ahead of me in the street put his arm around his girl, and in the street cars and automobiles the sight is a frequent one and never attracts comment or disapproval. At first Mrs. Morgan and I nudged each other at such things, but in less than a week’s time the novelty has disappeared.

I like the Champs-Elysées, for it looks a good deal as First avenue in Hutchinson would if it were about ten times as wide and the city kept up the parking.

And that leads me to repeat an observation which I have made before. It takes a strong government to do big things. You couldn’t get the people in America to put up money to construct palaces, widen boulevards, set up statues in all directions and devote the main part of the city to trees, flowers, walks and drives, playgrounds and art galleries. But whether the government of France has been a monarchy or a republic has made no difference in the fact that it exercised nearly absolute power over such things. The government appoints the officials in all cities and provinces and the government has the army. We talk about “government ownership” as if it were something new. The government of France has been in business more than a century. For example, the government has the monopoly of the tobacco business—manufactures and sells all the tobacco used in France, charges what it pleases and puts out mighty poor stuff. The government has owned the Sèvres china decorating factory for over a century, and the Gobelin tapestry, and I don’t know how many more such things. Lack of knowledge of the language has kept me from finding out all on these subjects I am going to before I get home, but it seems to me that whenever the French government sees some exceptionally profitable business, it just takes hold of the proposition and passes a law forbidding anyone else competing. The French are used to this sort of thing and accept it as the inevitable. I wonder if Americans would stand for it and for all the petty regulations that go with it. An army of workingmen is required to maintain all these parks, palaces, art galleries, opera-houses and government institutions, and I suspect the number is never reduced. A friend was telling how in a short ride on a government railroad his ticket was examined by five conductors. We reached the conclusion that this work, which in America would have been done by one man, was strung out for the good political reason—more jobs. Of course nothing like that would happen in America.

The workingmen still wear the long blouse outside the trousers, which looks like a heavy night-shirt and reaches below the knees. At the time of the great revolution the workingmen were so poor that they could not afford to wear trousers and the long blouses were all that covered them. Hence came the nickname “sanscullottes,” meaning “without breeches,” and as all who have read the story of the revolution or Victor Hugo’s books will remember, the Sansculottes, the men without breeches, made up the mob which upset the throne and established the republic.

The French still worship Napoleon. They have forgiven the sacrifice of blood and treasure which he forced from them, and remember the glory and the greatness of the empire. And in spite of the fact that Napoleon III. quit the emperor business under a cloud, having been removed from office after his surrender to the Germans in 1870, he is well thought of, for during his reign France and Paris prospered and times were good. There is a large party in France that favors the return of the present representative of the Napoleon family, Prince Victor, to the throne. We went to the Church of Madeleine, the most beautiful and fashionable church in Paris, and over the altar is a beautiful painting of Napoleon receiving the crown from the pope, with Christ in the background of the picture. That is just like the French.

I made an effort to get into the meeting of the Chamber of Deputies, the French congress, but failed. You have to have a ticket of admission, and it must be applied for several days in advance. They tell me the session is a good deal like an old-time Kansas Populist convention, where everybody said what he wanted to and then everybody was of the same opinion still. The meeting often gets so tumultuous that the president of the body adjourns it. Such an assembly must be guarded by careful and tactful leadership or it will end in a row. I can’t understand French politics. There are really no parties such as we have. A large majority favor the republic. The minority is composed of Clericals, Bonapartists, Radicals, and Socialists. The government party is divided into factions, and the issues are personal rather than on economic questions. The minority is of course divided, and the result is that the government wins somehow or other nearly every time. If it should lose, a new cabinet would be formed; but that would be taken from the same party as the old, and would be merely a different lot of statesmen. The French republic is all right so long as there is no serious trouble, but a Dreyfus incident, or a war, or hard times might overturn the government, and nobody knows whether the monarchists might not get on top again. The church is opposed to the policy of the republic, which has been to decrease the power of the church, cut off the parochial schools, and take education out of the hands of the religious bodies. The men in France are not very religious, leaving that part of life to the women and children. But a large and respectable party is in opposition to the government on account of the way it has confiscated church property and driven out the religious orders.

There are only a few electric lines in Paris, and they are not in the main part of the city. The people use carriages a great deal, for they are so cheap; and also omnibuses. The usual means of traveling in the city, aside from the cab, is the omnibus, which is double-decked, carrying as many people on top as inside. This seems a trifle slow to Americans, but it works all right in Paris. The ’buses make regular processions up and down the principal streets, and as they are nearly always filled inside and outside, they add immensely to the Parisian picture. There is an underground railroad and there are dummy lines in the suburbs, but I think the people of Paris like to travel where they can see and be seen. The cabs are victorias. Automobiles are everywhere, and if you go to Paris to live and want to cut any ice you must get one.

I saw a little scene which seemed to show up Parisian character. A cab collided slightly with another. Immediately both drivers were off their vehicles, gesticulating and talking about 300 words a minute. As they shook their fists and grew red in the face with the words that came so fast they interfered with each other, I thought somebody would surely be killed. Nobody noticed them. No one paid any attention. And finally the two exhausted men climbed back to their places and drove on. I know they used French words to each other that in America would have ensured a police court trial for disturbance of the peace. A French friend to whom I mentioned the matter said it was the invariable way, and he thought the French method of taking out their wrath in words was better than the American way of fighting it out. Perhaps he was right, but as I afterward saw the scene repeated in different forms it always occurred to me that it was childish. And that reminds me to say that the Frenchman is in the habit of playing with his children, taking part in their games as excitedly as they do.

The French people are industrious and they save their money. France is really a rich nation. Most of the money is made in what seem small ways to Americans. The French are what we call “thrifty.” No matter how little they earn they save something, and the whole family works,—men, women and children. When their day’s labor is ended the whole family goes out for a good time—cheap, or within their means. Their natural temperaments and the beautiful surroundings make it easy for them to do this, and it is very seldom a Frenchman leaves his native land. He doesn’t travel much, but he believes in other people traveling and coming to France to spend their money. He is willing to help in the good work of separating foreigners from their cash, but he is gentlemanly about it. I like the French people even though I can’t understand some of the ways their minds work.

RURAL FRANCE.

Marseilles, France, June 23, 1905.

Rural France is a picture. Seen from a car-window it is a succession of fields and villages, at this time of year a continuous combination of greens and white. French farms are small. I suppose twenty or thirty acres is a big place, and many are much less than that. But the land is fertilized, drained, irrigated and worked to the limit. The people live in villages and not much on their own farms. Each village has a common pasture. During the day the farmers go out onto their little places and in the evening they return to town to spend the hours with their neighbors and friends. The houses are all white stone with red tiled roofs and the villages are numerous, one every two or three miles in every direction. A farm of twenty acres is divided into strips for various crops, so that the landscape is striped with the fields of wheat, alfalfa, potatoes and grass, which seem to be the popular products. Cattle are not so numerous, but sheep are plentiful, goats abound and hogs (always white that I have seen) are on every place. A strip of land a hundred yards wide in wheat will run across the twenty acres, and the next strip will be some other crop, making the hues of green vary. The most extensive crop besides grass is grapes, and hillsides which in our country would be considered too steep and too stony for cultivation are covered with vines. Nature is like the French, artistic when she has a chance, and the combination produces a beautiful effect. Coming from Paris to Marseilles through the valleys of the Seine and the Rhone, it was 500 miles of continuous agriculture and pretty towns. Do you wonder it looks like a picture, with the villages of white houses and red tops, the fields and hills of green, and the rivers like ribbons running here and there?

France is ahead of England and Ireland in this point: Nearly every French farmer owns his own place, even if it is small. In Great Britain the big landlords own the land and rent it to tenants. In France the farmers, or peasants, as they are called, are landlords of their own if it is small. The French nobility lost their possessions and they were bought up by the people. A French farmer does not have the opportunity to make himself a large land proprietor. He can work all his days and only hope to accumulate a little place and enough to take care of him in his last days. But he is able to do that, and it has been almost impossible to do so in Great Britain.

The farms are separated from one another by high stone walls. In driving along the highway these walls shut off the view of the fields and you have to get up above the walls to see the picture. The stone walls are the evidence that the place is the exclusive property of the owner. The grass field is inclosed by these high fences, and the gates are locked at night as if they were afraid somebody would steal the land. It looks strange indeed to a tourist from the land of quarter-sections and barb wires.

Every Frenchman has to serve in the army three years. This is not militia service, but regular soldiery. It takes three of the best years out of a young man’s life. Of course it gives some compensation in the way of discipline, and in continental Europe every nation has to keep its pockets full of rocks and its people ready for war with the neighbors. A republic cannot neglect this matter any more than a monarchy, and France loses a great deal by the withdrawal of its young men from the producing class during a time when they could be very useful.

In the fields men and women work side by side. The women of France have plenty of rights. They can plow or rake hay all day long, and then they can indulge in the recreation of housework in the evening. This is harvest-time, and on nearly every farm I saw the whole family at work, not with reapers and mowers, but with good sickles and hand-rakes. The women seem to age earlier than in America, but this fact is true wherever I have been outside of the United States.

That reminds me of a mistaken notion I had before coming here. I thought the women of the United States were more active in a business way than the women of other countries, and had progressed in taking hold of what is generally called “men’s work” more than the women of Europe. That is a mistake. Proportionately women have more to do with business in England and France than they do in America. Nearly all the hotels in Great Britain are managed by women. Shops, stores and offices are filled with women. The fact is, the combined labor of husband and wife is necessary among “the great plain people,” to get enough to support the family, and in Ireland, England and France this is taken as a matter of course. Especially in France do I find women managing business, and doing so with the skill and success which shows that it is neither a new thing nor a side occupation. In America it is generally accepted that a man who can do so will take the brunt of the work and a woman will find her time fully occupied with housekeeping. And there is also a widespread practice of raising the girls to sit in the parlor while their mother washes the dishes. That is not the way they do in France. A young woman is brought up to expect what she will get—a young man whom she will have to help, or they will go hungry. There are not many chances for a young man to get ahead fast. He has no reason to believe that he will be better fixed than his father or than his grandfather. In fact, in France a boy usually follows the occupation of his father, so that a family for generations will be farmers, shoemakers, shopkeepers, etc. In America a farmer usually wants his son to study law, while a lawyer hopes his son will be a business man, and a merchant sees the advantage of rural life. Our people change around from generation to generation, and I doubt on that account if we make as good workmen as the French do, who are brought up in their occupation. Of course our people would be discontented with the French way, but the Frenchmen seem to be satisfied and they get a good many compensating advantages to offset the opportunities which young Americans have, but of which young Frenchmen never dream.

There are some disadvantages under which these Europeans labor which they should remove. They never get any pie. Here in a land where the cherries grow big and red and juicy, a Frenchman will grow to manhood and old age without knowing the taste of cherry pie. It is a great misfortune. Since landing in Europe I have never seen a piece of pie of any description, from Queenstown to Marseilles. They have “tarts” and “sweetmeats,” but these can’t approach pie any more than Cow creek can be compared to the Mississippi river. Even in the best hotels and restaurants of London there is no sign of pie on the bill of fare, and the French cooks, who can make old hash taste like choice bits of fresh meat or better, have not learned the science of constructing pie, mince, apple, pumpkin, cherry or any kind of pie. I do not know how they do it, but the railroad restaurants are run without pie. Even the crowned heads go through life without knowing the taste of pumpkin pie, and one of my ideas of royalty in my early days was that a king or prince could have custard pie with flaky brown crust three times a day. No wonder the rulers of Europe are afraid of revolution. If they would see that their subjects had square meals and pie at least for dinner, the heads that wear the crowns need not be so uneasy.

And the Europeans are trying to live without hot cakes for breakfast. I suppose there is not a man or woman in Europe who would recognize by experience the rich and regal buckwheat cake, or the corn cake, or the pancake. I can’t understand why the reformers in this country do not get to the point, and see that the people have flapjacks for breakfast as well as pie for dinner, and then let the disbanding of the armies proceed.

Every American citizen who is sane and patriotic believes that he is a fisherman, and tries to prove it whenever he gets near a creek or river. Whether he actually catches any fish or not, he “goes fishing.” I was somewhat worked up in Ireland and England because the streams were nearly all private property and the ordinary citizen had no chance to fish any more than he did to attend the wedding of the prince. I was glad to know that it is different in France. Last Sunday in Paris we walked along the banks of the Seine as it runs through the city between the stone walls and under the stone bridges. The stream was lined with fishermen. One of the privileges the citizens of Paris enjoy is to fish in the Seine, and I was told that there were at least 10,000 Frenchmen watching the corks on the river that afternoon. I waited for a long time to see them catch a French fish. Occasionally one of the men or women would pull up a line, but the bait was never missing. Finally I asked a friend who has been in Paris some time if anybody ever caught a fish. He said he had never really heard of anyone but there was a tradition that along about the time of Napoleon III. somebody did catch a fish in the Seine. He doubted the story, but said I could believe it if I wanted to. And yet there are theologians and doctors of divinity who say the French people are losing in faith, when these thousands were demonstrating to the contrary and were heartily enjoying the privilege the government gives and for which the Parisians would doubtless fight, the right to fish in the river.

This city of Marseilles, in which we are spending a couple of days, is the principal seaport of France. It was established by the Phœnicians, and was an important town when Julius Cæsar was setting up the primaries in Rome. It is the port from which France does business with southern Europe, Africa, Asia, and even America. Consequently the harbor is full of all kinds of shipping, the streets are crowded with Arabs, Greeks, Spaniards, Turks, Italians, and representatives of all nations which use the sea, and the town has the largest collection of odors and smells that I have met. As a strange fact I will add that Marseilles is the first large city I have visited in Europe with a good up-to-date electric railway system. Americans do not come here very much. So far as I know, Mrs. Morgan and I are the only Americans in the city, and there is not a soul at our hotel who can speak English. So you see we are running up against a little real foreign experience.