CHAPTER XI

THE MANNERS OF TRAVELLERS

MEN used to make room for ladies in public conveyances, but the fair sex have now learned so well to take care of themselves, that some men consider it superfluous to do this for them. A lady got into a tramway car. For a long time no man moved; afterwards one offered his seat. "I would be sorry," said the lady, "to deprive of his seat the only gentleman present."

Another lady, who weighed about twenty stone, entered a car that was full. "If there were any gentlemen here," she remarked, "they would not allow a lady to stand." Then a very small man got up and said, "Don't be cross, ma'am ; I'll make one towards it."

However, ladies are sometimes unreasonable. They frequently have nothing to do, and could easily wait for the next car; but, instead of doing this, they wish to dispossess men who have been working hard, are very tired, and pressed for time. A man who was too tired

to give up his seat invited one of two standing ladies to sit next to him, hoping that as she was very thin she might squeeze in. "Here, mother," she said to the other, who was very stout, "sit down beside this gentleman." The mother tried to do so, and failing, began to abuse the gentleman for not pushing up more!

"Oh, thank you!" exclaimed an elderly lady to a labourer who gave up his seat in a crowded tramway car-"thank you very much!" "That's orl right, mum," was the rejoinder. As the lady sat down, the chivalrous labourer added: "Wot I ses is a man never ort to let a woman stand. Some men never gets up unless she is pretty ; but, you see, mum, it don't make no difference to me !'

Railway companies ought to provide sufficient space in their carriages for all who pay for it, but good railway manners make things easier in tight places. We should give and take and not be curmudgeons.

An Englishman wishes either to heave half a brick at a stranger or to ask him to dinner, according to the state of his liver, of the weather, and of everything else that affects manners. He always at first dislikes any one who ventures to enter a railway-carriage which he had hoped to monopolise. "This compartment is full, sir," said an old gentleman; that seat is taken

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by a friend of mine, who has put his bag there." The intruder plumped down with the remark, "All right; I'll stay till he comes," and took the bag on his knees. In vain the old person looked daggers; the new-comer was imperturbable. The "friend" did not appear, and the train presently moved off. As it glided down the platform, the interloper flung the bag through the window, with the quiet remark, "Your friend's missed his train, evidently; we mustn't let him lose his luggage into the bargain."

On returning after a moment's absence a man tried politely to regain a seat on which he had really put his coat and his hat in an empty carriage. The lady who had taken it exclaimed :

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Perhaps, sir, you are not aware that I am one of the director's wives." Madam',' replied the first in possession, "if you were the director's only wife, I should still ask you to give me up my seat."

To say casually "We must get those things disinfected at once will sometimes remove people.

Officials on trains and steamboats are much better mannered than are the generality of the travelling public. About sixteen hundred trains leave Clapham Junction each day. Imagine the number of foolish questions that old ladies of

both sexes ask the guards and porters about these in the tourist season. And yet nearly every one of these people of inquiring minds get civil answers.

At a railway-station there was a great crowd on account of races that were to take place at a town on the line. A man shouted out very rudely to the booking-clerk, "Make haste; I'm in a hurry!" The clerk replied so calmly and politely that it was a severe rebuke, “Everybody, sir, is in a hurry."

A Dublin carman asked a conceited English tourist who was leaving Westland Row Railway Station if he wanted a car. "No," was the gruff reply; "I am able to walk." May your honour always be able but seldom willing," said the polite and witty Jarvey.

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A certain class of travelling Britons have gained such a reputation for bad manners that they inspire awe wherever they go. On the Continent you will see a native go to the door of a railway compartment and recoil from it when he sees in it one, two, or (oh, horror !) three Britishers. A well-known Frenchman said that when in his own country he wants to have a railway-carriage to himself, he puts on red whiskers and the loud clothes which the French think the English wear, and then he has the compartment to himself.

British tourists often behave as if every spot in the world were as much their property as the little island off the coast of France from whence they come. Hence our money is more liked than our company in foreign parts.

Certainly foreigners take a terrible revenge when they make British travellers breathe dirty air by keeping the windows of railway-carriages closed.

Dr. Parke, who accompanied Stanley in his last expedition, behaved towards women in the Dark Continent as he would towards his lady friends in London. There are travellers who are not so gentlemanly. A Chinese proverb says that politeness is better than force." Unfortunately, many who travel in China and India think that courtesy to a native is not required, or is even mischievous.

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When I lived in the former country and heard people who had only lately come out saying to a servant, "Boy, boy," in contemptuous tones, and never thanking the boy for service rendered, I was tempted to ask, "Do you know to whom you are speaking? Are you aware that that boy belongs to a nation that was highly civilised when the British were savages, to a nation that has probably forgotten as much as we ever knew?"

The Chinese think that our manners are those