A Tramp Abroad

Exactly one-half of the second page is occupied with an opera criticism, fifty-three lines (three of them being headlines), and “Death Notices,” ten lines.

The other half of the second page is made up of two paragraphs under the head of “Miscellaneous News.” One of these paragraphs tells about a quarrel between the Czar of Russia and his eldest son, twenty-one and a half lines; and the other tells about the atrocious destruction of a peasant child by its parents, forty lines, or one-fifth of the total of the reading-matter contained in the paper.

Consider what a fifth part of the reading-matter of an American daily paper issued in a city of one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants amounts to! Think what a mass it is. Would any one suppose I could so snugly tuck away such a mass in a Chapter of this book that it would be difficult to find it again if the reader lost his place? Surely not. I will translate that child-murder word for word, to give the reader a realizing sense of what a fifth part of the reading-matter of a Munich daily actually is when it comes under measurement of the eye:

“From Oberkreuzberg, January 21st, the donau ZEITUNG receives a long account of a crime, which we shortened as follows: In Rametuach, a village near Eppenschlag, lived a young married couple with two children, one of which, a boy aged five, was born three years before the marriage. For this reason, and also because a relative at Iggensbach had bequeathed M400 ($100) to the boy, the heartless father considered him in the way; so the unnatural parents determined to sacrifice him in the cruelest possible manner. They proceeded to starve him slowly to death, meantime frightfully maltreating him – as the village people now make known, when it is too late. The boy was shut in a hole, and when people passed by he cried, and implored them to give him bread. His long-continued tortures and deprivations destroyed him at last, on the third of January. The sudden (sic) death of the child created suspicion, the more so as the body was immediately clothed and laid upon the bier. Therefore the coroner gave notice, and an inquest was held on the 6th. What a pitiful spectacle was disclosed then! The body was a complete skeleton. The stomach and intestines were utterly empty; they contained nothing whatsoever. The flesh on the corpse was not as thick as the back of a knife, and incisions in it brought not one drop of blood. There was not a piece of sound skin the size of a dollar on the whole body; wounds, scars, bruises, discolored extravasated blood, everywhere – even on the soles of the feet there were wounds. The cruel parents asserted that the boy had been so bad that they had been obliged to use severe punishments, and that he finally fell over a bench and broke his neck. However, they were arrested two weeks after the inquest and put in the prison at Deggendorf.”

Yes, they were arrested “two weeks after the inquest.” What a home sound that has. That kind of police briskness rather more reminds me of my native land than German journalism does.

I think a German daily journal doesn’t do any good to speak of, but at the same time it doesn’t do any harm. That is a very large merit, and should not be lightly weighted nor lightly thought of.

The German humorous papers are beautifully printed upon fine paper, and the illustrations are finely drawn, finely engraved, and are not vapidly funny, but deliciously so. So also, generally speaking, are the two or three terse sentences which accompany the pictures. I remember one of these pictures: A most dilapidated tramp is ruefully contemplating some coins which lie in his open palm. He says: “Well, begging is getting played out. Only about five marks ($1.25) for the whole day; many an official makes more!” And I call to mind a picture of a commercial traveler who is about to unroll his samples:

Merchant (pettishly). – No, don’t. I don’t want to buy anything!

Drummer. – If you please, I was only going to show you—

Merchant. – But I don’t wish to see them!

Drummer (after a pause, pleadingly). – But do you you mind letting me look at them! I haven’t seen them for three weeks!

Примечания

1

See Appendix A

2

See Appendix B

3

See Appendix C

4

From my diary. – Dined in a hotel a few miles up the Neckar, in a room whose walls were hung all over with framed portrait-groups of the Five Corps; some were recent, but many antedated photography, and were pictured in lithography – the dates ranged back to forty or fifty years ago. Nearly every individual wore the ribbon across his breast. In one portrait-group representing (as each of these pictures did) an entire Corps, I took pains to count the ribbons: there were twenty-seven members, and twenty-one of them wore that significant badge.

5

They have to borrow the arms because they could not get them elsewhere or otherwise. As I understand it, the public authorities, all over Germany, allow the five Corps to keep swords, but do not allow them to use them. This is law is rigid; it is only the execution of it that is lax.

6

See Appendix D for information concerning this fearful tongue.

7

The seeker after information is referred to Appendix E for our captain’s legend of the “Swallow’s Nest” and “The Brothers.”

8

The Savior was represented as a lad of about fifteen years of age. This figure had lost one eye.

9

When Baedeker’s guide-books mention a thing and put two stars (**) after it, it means well worth visiting. M.T.

10

I do not know that there have not been moments in the course of the present session when I should have been very glad to have accepted the proposal of my noble friend, and to have exchanged parts in some of our evenings of work. – [From a Speech of the English Chancellor of the Exchequer, August, 1879.]

11

Months after this was written, I happened into the National Gallery in London, and soon became so fascinated with the Turner pictures that I could hardly get away from the place. I went there often, afterward, meaning to see the rest of the gallery, but the Turner spell was too strong; it could not be shaken off. However, the Turners which attracted me most did not remind me of the Slave Ship.

12

The accident which cost Lord Douglas his life (see Chapter xii) also cost the lives of three other men. These three fell four-fifths of a mile, and their bodies were afterward found, lying side by side, upon a glacier, whence they were borne to Zermatt and buried in the churchyard.The remains of Lord Douglas have never been found. The secret of his sepulture, like that of Moses, must remain a mystery always.

13

“Pretty much” may not be elegant English, but it is high time it was. There is no elegant word or phrase which means just what it means. – M.T.

14

This was on a Sunday. – M.T.

15

Sir George Young and his brothers James and Albert.

16

See Frontispiece.

17

“Revenge!”

18

Wenn er aber auf der Straße der in Sammt und Seide gehuellten jetz sehr ungenirt nach der neusten mode gekleideten Regierungsrathin begegnet.

19

I capitalize the nouns, in the German (and ancient English) fashion.

20

It merely means, in its general sense, “herewith.”

21

“Verdammt,” and its variations and enlargements, are words which have plenty of meaning, but the sounds are so mild and ineffectual that German ladies can use them without sin. German ladies who could not be induced to commit a sin by any persuasion or compulsion, promptly rip out one of these harmless little words when they tear their dresses or don’t like the soup. It sounds about as wicked as our “My gracious.” German ladies are constantly saying, “Ach! Gott!” “Mein Gott!” “Gott in Himmel!” “Herr Gott” “Der Herr Jesus!” etc. They think our ladies have the same custom, perhaps; for I once heard a gentle and lovely old German lady say to a sweet young American girl: “The two languages are so alike – how pleasant that is; we say ‘Ach! Gott!’ you say ‘Goddamn.’”