I regret exceedingly to have to report
that a majority of these names had an American sound to them.
Indeed, many of the signatures were coupled with the names of towns
and states of the Union. There were quite a few from Canada, too.
What, I ask you, is the wisdom of taking steps to discourage the
cutworm and abate the gypsy-moth when our government permits these
two-legged varmints to go abroad freely and pollute shrines and
wonderplaces with their scratchings, and give the nations over
there a perverted notion of what the real human beings on this
continent are like?
For the tourist who has wearied of picture galleries and battlegrounds
and ruins and abbeys, studying other tourists provides a pleasant
way of passing many an otherwise tedious hour. Certain of the
European countries furnish some interesting types--notably Britain,
which producing a male biped of a lachrymose and cheerless exterior,
who plods solemnly across the Continent wrapped in the plaid mantle
of his own dignity, never speaking an unnecessary word to any person
whatsoever. And Germany: From Germany comes a stolid gentleman,
who, usually, is shaped like a pickle mounted on legs and is so
extensively and convexedly eyeglassed as to give him the appearance
of something that is about to be served sous cloche. Caparisoned
in strange garments, he stalks through France or Italy with an
umbrella under his arm, his nose being buried so deeply in his
guidebook that he has no time to waste upon the scenery or the
people; while some ten paces in the rear, his wife staggers along
in his wake with her skirts dragging in the dust and her arms
pulled half out of their sockets by the weight of the heavy bundles
and bags she is bearing.
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