Part 29 (1/2)

Each city is as one reatly to e, of history and literature and art and life I have seen it in all its aspects; under the e of the Bourse and Mexico was to e, when the Hotel de Ville was in ruins, the palace of the Tuileries still afla a blight and waste; and I have randly, proudly, and like a queen coain, resume its primacy as the only completeit No city can approach Paris in structural unity and regality, in things brilliant and beautiful, in buoyancy, variety, charm and creature comfort Drunkenness, of the kind familiar to London and New York, is invisible to Paris The brandy and absinthe habit has been greatly exaggerated In truth, everywhere in Europe the use of intoxicants is on the decline They are, for the first ti adulteration of French wines, rigorously applying and enforcing the pure-food laws

As a consequence, there is a palpable and decided ine country Onehimself As men drink wine, and as the wine is pure, they fall away froer drink I have always considered, with Jefferson, the brewery in America an excellent temperance society That which works otherwise is the dive which too often the brewery fathers They are drinking ood beer And then--

But gracious, this is getting upon things controversial, and if there is anything in this world that I do hyboes which the Age of Miracles has wrought in eneration exceeded those of ocean travel Thepalace Between the ports of the Old World and the ports of the new the transit is so uneventful as to grow h seas The ocean is a thoroughfare, the crossing a ferry My experience forty years ago upon one of the ancient tubs which have been supplanted by these liners would , let us say, any one of the stea transatlantic companies The difference in the appointments of the William Penn of 1865 and the star boats of 1914 is indescribable It seearden where the ladies dress for dinner, a Hungarian band which plays for theo after dinner for their coffee and what not; a tea-room for the five-o'clockers; and except in excessive weather scarcely any arden which most appeals to a certain lady of s and never gone to her meals--sick from shore to shore--until the Gods ordained for her a watery, winery, flowery paradise--where the billows ceased fro and a woman could appear at her best Since then she has sailed ed a la Waldorf-Astoria to eat her victuals and sip her ith perfect content a friend found her in the Red Roo before on shi+pboard

”See about her and fancying herself still at sea, as well she hteenth

The Grover Cleveland Period--President Arthur and Mr Blaine--John Chamberlin--The Decrees of Destiny

I

What may be called the Grover Cleveland period of Aan with the election of that extraordinary person--another overnorshi+p of New York Nominated, as it were, by chance, he carried the State by an unprecedented majority That was not because of his popularity, but that an incredible number of Republican voters refused to support their party ticket and stayed away fro feud, inflamed by the murder of Garfield, had rent the party of Lincoln and Grant asunder Arthur, a Conkling leader, had succeeded to the presidency

If any huht have done it

No man, however, can achieve the impossible The case was hopeless

Arthur was a race As handsome as Pierce, as affable as McKinley, he was a more experienced and dextrous politician than either He had been put on the ticket with Garfield to placate Conkling All sorts of stories to his discredit were told during the ensuing can The Democrats made him out a tricky and typical ”New York politician” In point of fact he was aall conditions and adapting hi and tactful as he for head of his doain He possessed the knack of surrounding hihuysen was Secretary of State and Robert Lincoln, continued from the Garfield Cabinet, Secretary of War Then there were three irresistibles: Walter Greshaent--”Clint” Wheeler, ”Steve” French, and ”Jake” Hess--pictured as ”ward heelers”--were, in reality, efficient and all-around, companionable men, capable and loyal

I was sent by the associated Press to Washi+ngton on a fool's errand--that is, to get an act of Congress extending copyright to the news of the association--and, rereat and to make myself acceptable, I came into a certain inti had friendly relations with the President In all htful and useless a winter

Very early in the action I found thatless than the creation of a new property--and I proceeded warily Through my uncle, Stanley Matthews, I interested the reat lawyer and an old Philadelphia friend, was at ress, to which the ed

I could not account for this One evening at a dinner Mr Blaine enlightened ether at table and suddenly he turned and said: ”How are you getting on with your bill?” And et a vote in either House,” and he proceeded very huainst it as a dangerous power, a perquisite to the great newspapers and an i more than the post-prandial levity it wasafter a learned but dissolute old lawyer said to ress to protect your news service There are at least two, and I think four or five, English rulings that cover the case Let me show them to you” He did so and I went no further with the business, quite agreeing with Mr Blaine, and nothing further came of it To a recent date the associated Press has relied on these decisions under the coh, quite a nued, opened fire upon me and roundly abused me

II

There appeared upon the scene in Washi+ngton toward the middle of the seventies one of those probleht in This was John Cha two decades ”Chamberlin's,”

half clubhouse and half chophouse, was all a rendezvous

”John” had been a ga and then a partner of the fa Branch

There was a ti in wealth Then he went broke--dead broke Black Friday began it and the panic of '73 finished it He caot hies of the House of Representatives With this for a starting point, he was able to take the Fernando Wood residence, in the heart of the fashi+onable quarter, to add to it presently the adjoining dwelling of Governor Swann, of Maryland, and next to that, finally, the Blaine ant yet cozy ”Welcker's,” erst a fashi+onable resort, and long the best eating-place in town, had been ruined by a scandal, and ”Chah, mindful of the ”scandal” which had made its opportunity, ladies were barred