there was all the kids about, so the street did seem pretty full and busy, when all of a sudden I saw my beautiful lady standing at the corner quite frightened like. She told me she had come all the way 'cause she wanted to see me and the Terror and No. 44. Then she says, "Polly," she says, "are they always as happy as this?" and I says "Yes, particular on a Saturday"; and she says "Is there always such a noise?" and I didn't know, because I'd never thought before how everybody was shouting; and then she says, "I never thought it was at all like this, never," but whatever did she think it could be like?

The Terror was teaching another boy to turn wheels up against the wall; Chris is the best anywhere about us, and he could turn them a treat time as most boys is only learning. The lady didn't arf laugh at him, specially as he would keep standing on his head; he said afterwards he thought he looked more tidy like that way up, which was silly, seeing that the seat of his trousers was out, and so was the soles of his boots. Then I took my lady home, and she just sat down on our chair and talked as natural like as anythink; my Mother said afterThe Cornhill Magazine.

wards as she did think she was a pleasant spoken person, almost like one of your own. It was quite right about the trousers, for she didn't know nothing about making them; she said it had never crossed her mind, but now she should always think of it. Before she went she said-but I forgot that's a secret. Only if Dad do get regular work won't it just make a difference all round.

When we got out an organ was playing and everybody was dancing, and it looked that nice and lively, she says again, "I never thought it was like this, never." I asked her whatever they did all the time in the street where she lives, and when she said the children didn't play there, and there weren't no skating, or dancing, or football I thought it must be terrible dull and quiet; there wouldn't be nothing to put into a Diary, leastways nothing what would win a prize like mine. You should have seen how slow my lady walked away, she kept stopping and looking. Peter said he reckoned she was wishing she lived down our way, but my Mother said no, for home was home, and the place you liked to live in wherever it happened to be. Marjory Hardcastle.

At a time when nations strive with more sincerity than guile after a better understanding with each other, with promising talk of arbitration and even the dream of disarmament, can nothing be done to improve the morale of the tourist, the sample by which every country judges of its neighbors? Like traders, careful that their travellers' samples shall be of, at least, average quality, cannot we, a nation of shopkeepers, do something to ensure that more favorable impression may be

a

made abroad by the Englishmen and Englishwomen who spend their holidays in foreign capitals? A century ago the Grand Tour was part and parcel of every young nobleman's education, a progress of pomp and circumstance, with much posting and social amenity, a fine and dignified inspection of cities and scenery. If now and then this high-class travel found its expression in somewhat pedantic literature, like the memoirs of Mrs. Piozzi, there was no compulsion to read it, and the

Grand Tourists of the eighteenth century were at least worthy to represent in foreign parts the dignity and prestige of the Empire on which the sun never sets.

The same cannot, unfortunately, be said of the Little Tourist of to-day. He is cheaper, like his modes of travel. He moves by favor of the coupon in personally conducted parties, and he leaves such manners as he has on this side of the Channel. Doubtless the work of his improvement is everybody's business, and therefore nobody's business. I shall be told, perhaps, that it is none of mine. Yet I venture, in despite of such criticism, to suggest that if the Foreign Office could so far stoop to a sense of lesser duties as to issue with every passport a printed code of hitherto unwritten law, an epitome of etiquette, such an innovation would contribute even more to the friendship of the nations than the Hague Conference. Much of this mutual distrust among neighbors arises, without a doubt, from trivial misunderstandings, petty differences of standpoint, shades of mentality; in short, from want on both sides of that tact which our late King exercised with such happy results on his travels both within and without his Empire, and which, all said and done, is neither more nor less than a combination of moral perspective and sense of humor.

It is quite impossible to measure the degree in which the bad impression left in foreign minds by the worst type of British tourist may contribute to strained relations between his Own country and that in which he forgets his manners. I shall perhaps be told that his boorishness, his contempt for conventions, his indifference to local prejudices, his irreverence in places of worship, his arrogance in eatinghouses, all count for very little; that his eccentric dress and want of manners excite mirth and not anger; in

short, that I am attaching a quite disproportionate importance to a grievance which has none. This optimistic view of his short-comings does not, unfortunately, tally with what I have seen and heard in half-a-dozen Continental countries; while to watch English tourists in company with those of other nations during an Easter Week in the. Holy Land was to confirm a previous conviction that they need educating.

They are not provided for in the better class of travel handbook. It is to be regretted that there exists no special manual for their behoof, written for them as Galton's Art of Travel, or the excellent handbook of the Geographical Society, is written for the academic traveller of more serious pursuits. Those who spend a month in Continental capitals do not need to be told how to pitch a tent, light a campfire, or signal for help when lost in the jungle. What they need to be told is how to behave themselves in churches, in railway-carriages, restaurants, or at public entertainments. Pity it is that they should stand in need of such information, but the melancholy fact remains that they do. Should the Foreign Office see its way to supplement its passports with such a code of hints as has been suggested, here are a few of the salient matters which should not be overlooked.

First and foremost, a general instruction to the wandering tourist of ultrapatriotic temperament that there are other countries besides Great Britain. It may seem ridiculous to insist on this; but it is a fact commonly overlooked, and it is a concession that the travelling Englishman may make without disloyalty to his King. There is France, there is Germany, there is Italy —particularly Italy, the beautiful land in which he is seen at his worst. On the strength of a half-remembered smattering of fifth-form Latin, even the more educated tripper sometimes takes

possession of Rome as if it were a suburb of Oxford. In so doing he quite ignores that other modern Rome, the princely Rome of the late Marion Craw ford's novels, which moves in a world of its own to which the vulgar sightseer has no access. In addition to the counsel to recognize the existence of nations other than his own, the globe-trotter should be exhorted against race-prejudice generally. Those who suffer from this obsession should stay at home, since world-travel will do little to eradicate it if it is in their bones; and the man who roams abroad with a catholic contempt for "dagos" and "niggers" will make life a misery to himself and those about him. It is not here suggested that this bigoted prejudice against those of other color, creed, or language has the same significance in the irresponsible traveller as it would have in those entrusted with the administration of the Empire's affairs Overseas. Yet there is no doubt whatover in my mind, after twenty years of travel in Continental capitals, as well as in the country districts, that this vulgar and ignorant contempt for every ideal in dress or manners which does not conform to the conventions of Brixton Hill, thinly veiled where indeed it is not openly expressed, does incalculable harm in disturbing otherwise cordial relations. I do not hesitate to say that even to-day, with all the talk of the entente cordiale on the one hand, and the "Rhine" on the other, a party of German tourists will excite less derision in a boulevard café than one composed of a too familiar type of English people.

The etiquette of the railway-carriage is another matter in which the British tourist might with advantage be guided to a better understanding of his obligations. Railway journeys in this country are for the most part so short that a boor has scarcely time to make himself objectionable. On the Continent,

however, or in America, where the journey may last for days and nights, he has endless opportunities, and much greater importance therefore attaches to those little amenities so often neglected at home; the matter of keeping the window up or down during the day, or the light covered or otherwise at night, the arrangement of hand-baggage on the rack, and so on. It is simply a matter of compromise, and the commonest cause of friction with the Englishman is not so much his churlishness as his remarkable ignorance of modern languages. Unable to make himself understood, he blusters. True, there are times when a little knowledge of languages may also be dangerous, in proof of which let me tell a story against myself. Some fifteen years ago, one night in March, I found myself at Madrid in the night express, bound south for Ronda. I had wired from the hotel in the Puerto del Sol for a corner seat in a first-class smoking carriage; and, knowing that it would be retained, I lingered over an excellent dinner and drove to the station at the last moment. The compartment accommodated eight, and I found the other seven places already occupied by stalwart Spaniards, all of whom had lighted large cigars and removed the boots from off their feet. Both windows were up, and the atmosphere was not to my liking. My reserved seat, in the farther corner, faced the engine, so that at home, at any rate, etiquette would have permitted me to lower it if I had so desired. But I was not at home, and a feeble attempt to open it a few inches while the train was still in the station produced a dissentient grunt from opposite. I hastily shut it again; but sleep was out of the question, and I lay in my corner with a splitting headache. When we had gone about two hours of the journey I could stand it no longer. My acquaintance with the Spanish lan

guage was very slight, but I knew something of Italian; and, trusting to the resemblance between the two, 1 murmured a request to the gentleman opposite that I might be allowed to open the window a trifle "per lasciar scappare il fumo." Alas! my words conveyed a different meaning to the hidalgo, who without more ado drew from his inner pocket an immense sealskin cigar-case, and insisted on my taking an enormous weed. There was nothing for it but to thank him and light up, though by the time I had smoked a couple of inches of it I was beginning to feel sick; but we fortunately stopped at a station, where I managed to lose it. This reminiscence merely illustrates the danger of a little knowledge. Had I not even known enough Italian to proffer that misunderstood request, but merely lowered the window surreptitiously, all would have been well. After the politeness of my vis-à-vis, I obviously could not do that to which he had previously taken exception. Yet a total ignorance of foreign languages is even worse, and I have seen it responsible for more unpleasantness, particularly with officials, than any other cause.

Two minor offences, from which our countrymen who tour abroad might perhaps be dissuaded, are in the matter of dress and tipping. It may be that the outrageous holiday garb affected by the extreme type-the chessboard knickerbockers of the men, and the "useful" skirts and boots of the ladies -promote only the hilarity that Caran d'Ache managed to convey in his drawings, and cannot give offence.

But

there is another side to this eccentricity, and it is to be regretted that a few Englishmen should permit themselves to bring ridicule on the race, that they are unable to realize that by dressing like buffoons at a country fair they are lowering the national prestige in the eyes of ignorant folk abroad. This is

particularly true of the East, where there is dignity in the robes of even the meanest native. To appreciate the difference between the sartorial ideals of East and West one need only watch the landing of British or German tourists on the quays of Constantinople.

It

The chief offender in the matter of extravagant tipping is, as a matter of fact, the American; though the Englishman is not exempt from blame. may be that the travellers of other nations err in the other direction, and give too sparingly of their bounty; yet, if such be their pleasure, they have a right to be thrifty, and it must be galling to have prodigal foreigners "spoiling the market" by spending their money broadcast and inspiring in the venal natives a contempt for lesser generosity. Americans fling their dollars to dragomen as they would fling maize to hogs, but the manner of the giver is readily overlooked in the munificence of the gift; and the poorer traveller, offering the more modest gratuity that he is able to afford, is indifferently looked after. Seeing that tips are neither more nor less than a secret commission for services rendered or implied, it is a pity that they cannot be made, if not illegal, at any rate the subject of regulations.

Needless to say, however, by far the most important matter in which most English tourists need very serious instruction is the proper reverence for the holy places of other sects and creeds, in which, though religious in their own country, they are so sadly lacking abroad. Their fine contempt for the "tinsel" of papist fanes or the mosaic of Moslem mosques may be proof of simple faith, but they should keep it strictly to themselves. Their thoughts are their own, but they need not express them till they get home again. Not long ago a worshipper shot at a party of Europeans in the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem. That beautiful

building, which I know well, stands on the site of Solomon's Temple, and encloses, among other symbols sacred throughout Islam, two adjacent pillars between which very pious Moslems endeavor to squeeze in the hope of thereby adding ten years to their life. This appears, no doubt, a childish superstition to the higher intelligence of the West (which trembles whenever a black cat runs across the road); but that is no reason for laughing at it in the mosque in the presence of worshippers at their prayers. Nor is it seemly to stand gaping in front of the confessionals in St. Peter's, as if, forsooth! the whispered admissions of veiled penitents were part of a side-show arranged for the entertainment of the personally conducted. In the Holy Land, so far as I have seen, the Germans were the most conspicuous tourists, behaving with an assurance that was perhaps encouraged by the influence of their countrymen throughout Syria and Palestine, where every seaport of consequence has its German colony, and where, in the interior, all the Chambers's Journal.

best hotels (best only by comparison with the worst) are in their hands. The tourists of nations belonging to the Orthodox or Latin Churches are in a marked degree more reverent in both Christian and Moslem places of worship than those of Protestant races, and it was the reverse of edifying to contrast the respectful behavior of ignorant, long-haired peasants from the Volga with the more boisterous conduct of others from the Thames. The Mohammedans appreciate the distinction too, and it is to be regretted that the thoughtlessness of a handful of tourists should have earned for the English, with their subject population of more than sixty million followers of the Prophet, a reputation for irreverence. These things count for much in the East. How, I wonder, would the worshippers in a village church at home feel if half-a-dozen robed Moslems were to enter the building during divine service and comment in audible whispers on the congregation? And why is such conduct to be condoned on the part of English tourists in a mosque? F. G. Aflalo.

Mr. Arthur Benson has created a pleasant diversion from the General Election by giving proof in "The Times" of his exquisite sensibility. Now and then it seems that a breeze blows through his college window from the outer world and distresses him sorely. The news that Dr. Crippen was to be hanged was more than he could bear. He confesses that he found himself "profoundly thankful when all was over"; and he asks those who have "any touch of compassion and humanity" to share his horror.

From what, then, does this horror arise? From nothing worse than a vague hallucination. Mr. Benson does

not wish to raise the question of capital punishment, and we may presume that he still thinks a murderer should suffer the last penalty for his crime. It is the method of death which so grimly appals Mr. Benson. He shudders at "the dreadful prolongation of the frightful business." (What a pity it is that the epithets of horror are thus monotonous!) The delay between sentence and death appals him. “What equanimity of penitence is attainable," he asks magniloquently, "by a man who is counting the moments which remain before an act of such grim and repulsive brutality as an execution is bound to be?" The criminal, we may be sure,