of barbarians. It is not necessary or possible for Europeans living in China to learn the three hundred rules of ceremony or the three thousand precepts of behaviour that are laid down in Chinese classics, but we might put into practice a few of the elementary principles of Christianity, and then we would be thought to be almost as good as Confucianists. When we show manners the Chinese are surprised. A lady told me that one day, when she went into a shop at Canton, the door was soon blocked up by a crowd of idle gazers. My friend, who speaks Cantonese well, said to the crowd in that dialect, "I beg your pardon, would you allow me to go out?" They at once made room for her, and she heard them remarking, She speaks our language, and she has manners too!" 66 People think it funny to spoil notices in railway carriages. By erasing "not" they "request you to put your feet on the seats and cushions." The The vulgarity of writing their names on monuments was committed by tourists of old. ancient Romans put theirs on Egyptian temples. Nay, did not Rameses the Second delete the names of other royal builders and put his own in their place? In a Court in the Alhambra at Granada, the opposite of this has been done. Travellers have abstained from writing their own names, but they have forged the names of persons who would not have been guilty of writing them themselves. Correspondents of the Daily Mail have been condemning "tube" travelling as responsible for a deterioration of public manners. "The censor morum frowns around, Why, when we burrow 'neath the ground, But soon we all shall go about By aeroplane alone And manners then, beyond a doubt, Many people when they get away from the restraints and associations of home think they can do what they like. Perhaps the gloss which a lady loses from her manners on a long voyage in a great modern passenger steamer is never recovered. The Honourable Madame A. Hōk was one of the first Chinese ladies who came to England. During her voyage she was constantly struck by some of the passengers not being as kind and polite as they might have been. "Is it possible," she said, "that they are Christians, and can do so and so? Why, I thought that they all believed that God is love." "Is it possible that they are Christians? we ask ourselves, when we hear the facetious re marks, ignorant questions, and thoughtless exclamations of the human herds that are now literally sent to Jericho by Cook and other tourist agents. Lady Elizabeth Butler tells us that "a party of trippers reaching the Jews' Wailing Place at Jerusalem, charged with their donkeys all along the line of those preoccupied figures standing praying with their faces buried in their testaments or pressed against the stones of the great wall and knocked them over.' It is part of the aloofness of English people to expect all the world to speak English. When the cockney French or Italian, which they deign to attempt, is not understood, they get abusive or they talk louder as though mere noise would make them intelligible. A British military officer called a Maltese a fool because he could not speak English. The man replied: "I know Greek, Italian, French, and German, and you do not; I only one fool, you four fools." A Frenchman on the top of a London omnibus thought he ought to pay only one penny and the conductor could not make him understand that the fare was two pence. Losing patience, this typical John Bull came down the steps, and putting his head inside the conveyance asked, Can any lady or gentleman oblige with the French for bloody fool '?" 66 Four Cook's tourists in Italy, greatly daring, left their conductor and walked to a country village. They knew no language except English, but they managed to order coffee. They wanted milk; how was that to be got? One of them drew a picture of a cow and pointed to her udder. The waiter rushed away and after some time returned with four beefsteaks. Hiring a carriage to bring them back, they got into trouble with the driver. He asked too much money and was abusive. An Englishman, passing, said: "Excuse me, can I help you, as I know the language and the ways of the place?" The only reply given was, "Just mind your own business." The Duke of N-- having got into conversation with a railway traveller, they were joined by the Duke of A for a short distance. On the latter leaving the carriage the non-ducal passenger asked who the gentleman was. Being told, he exclaimed, Just fancy his being so familiar with two little snobs like you and me !" 66 It is difficult to know when to speak to fellowtravellers who are strangers to us and when to leave them alone. If we do the latter, we may miss much amusement and information, and may be considered stiff and haughty; if we address them, they may be as irritated as Moltke was when a subaltern spoke four words to him in a railway-carriage. On entering, the young man said "Pardon, sir!" and when he left he said the same. "What an insufferable prater ! " growled the great Field Marshal, who could himself be silent in eleven languages.' Travellers who do not intend to bite off the nose of any not-introduced person venturing to speak should mark on their foreheads noncombatant Geneva crosses. When Lord Salisbury was Prime Minister and went for a holiday to Beaulieu in the Riviera, the Mayor called and asked what his wishes were. "To be saved from my countrymen," he replied. He dreaded being discovered and talked to by the trippers who put their trust in princes and who mob celebrities. Occasionally, when travelling by omnibus, Tennyson's mother would turn to her fellowpassengers and smilingly remark, “It may interest you to know that I am the mother of the Poet Laureate." The maternal pride was excusable, but probably few believed what the lady said. 66 When does the next train go?" a traveller who saw his train leave without him asked an A Irish porter. was the reply. Shure, sorr, she's just gone," The way people act when this happens shows character. The man in question swore, and a clergyman standing beside him |