A BADLY DRESSED PEOPLE.
You can tell an American or French woman as far as you can see one. The neatly fitting dress, so neatly fitting as to make you almost think the woman had been melted and poured into it, the dress of which an American girl said, that when she got into it she felt as if she had been born again; the neat little shoe; the grace with which the dress is carried, and the grace of the woman who carries it; all contrast terribly with the angular gown, the shawl badly hung, and awkwardly worn, the ugly shoe and the large foot it covers, and the square, steady, grenadier-like step of the English woman.
No matter how expensive the material, or how costly the garments, no matter how much Nature has done for the Englishwomen, (and they are, as a rule, magnificent specimens of womankind,) they can’t dress, and consequently lose half their attractiveness. They have strength, but they sadly lack grace.
It is all well enough for me, for I prefer badly fitting clothes, desiring to keep down to the ordinary level, and not be made too conspicuous; but it is hard upon those less favored, and who need to reinforce nature by art.
But always bear this in mind. When you come abroad bring with you all the clothes you think you will need, unless, indeed, you come flying light in the matter of baggage for convenience of transit. If that is your idea it is well, but if you come expecting to furnish yourself in England at a less price, or to get superior styles, you will be the worst deceived man or woman in the world. Quality considered, there is nothing cheaper than in America, and, as for style, it is a Parisian dandy to a Hottentot. The English tailor is the most detestable cloth-butcher on the globe. So unutterably bad is he that I cannot ascribe his miracles of misfits to lack of mechanical skill, or general imbecility; there must be underlying his work a fiendish purpose and determination. The English tailor or dressmaker must be a misanthropic individual who has a spite against the human race, and they must have a vengeance to wreak which they accomplish in this way.
I don’t wish it to be understood that all English men and women are badly dressed. I have seen some most charming toilettes, but on inquiry I found that they were well-to-do people who could afford to go to Paris to get their clothes, or those who had just returned from New York.
If you desire to be well dressed in London, take your clothes with you. This is the parting advice of a sufferer and victim. I have paid for my experience—I give it to my readers gratis. That is what I am here for, and I shall discharge my duty regardless of consequences.
The next principal nuisance you meet in England is the system of “tipping.” “Tipping,” be it known, is gratuities given to servants, or whomsoever does anything for you which, in any other enlightened country on the face of the globe, is considered an act of courtesy, or a matter of right.
It commences the moment you leave the dock at New York. You have paid a very large sum for your passage, enough to entitle you to every comfort that money can buy. But there sets upon you immediately a horde of blood-suckers who never let go, till, gorged, they drop off at Liverpool. There is a sovereign to the man who makes your bed; there is the chamber-maid, there is the table steward, the smoking-room steward, the deck steward; there are collections for asylums in Liverpool; there are collections for the man who attends to the purser’s room, where a select few are treated to a little refreshment at five in the afternoon; there are fees for showing the machinery of the vessel; there are tips for the Lord only knows what. The only thing free about the vessel is the water outside, and could a scheme be devised for making you pay for a sight of that it would be put into operation at once.
Then there is the English hotel. The landlord measures you as you come in. He inventories you. He says “this man will stand six pounds, or eight may be. That will leave him enough to get back to London, with a cab fare to take him to his lodgings.” And so when he makes his bill he manages to make it to the exact amount of what he thinks you have about your person, irrespective of what accommodation you have received. In paying this enormous bill should you display more money than he supposed you carried, he gnashes his teeth and howls with rage. But he very seldom gnashes or howls. He is a very skillful person, and knows intuitively to a half-sovereign how much you will, or rather can, bleed.