- ~ | What G. K. Chesterton Saw in Ameria The Eminent English Essayist Declares That While in the U. 8. He Fairly Longed to See a Sulky More Beautiful and More Dignified Daughters--American Elderly Women Than Their Sportive. By Professor } FS. America has been a Xlondike for many English men-of-letters. A long string of them have come across the seas to capitalize thelr literary reputation on the lecture platform In the United States. = Dickens, Thackeray, Matthew ' Arnold, Hux- ley, and dozens of authors in more Fecent times have reaped golden harvests In the new world. Dickens made two triumphal tours 4a tho United States and was received with lavish hospitality which he failed to appreciate, for in his "American Notes" he made fun of his hosts. Matthew Arnold was a dismal fail- ure as a lecturer but received th: Same generous treatment as his brethren. He had the bad grace to 80 home and write that America was utterly lacking in beauty; he assert- ed that the only picturesque thing that he saw during his travels was a sleigh half turned about on a frozen pond. He also tried to make a lit- tle extra money by publishing in took form the lecturers who have visited American cities. - The ma- jority of English lecturers who have visited America, however, have imi- tated Dickens by registering their impressions of Uncle Sam's country. 80 many books of this sort have been published that it would require a special alcove to hold them. Some of them are worth while, but as a general rule they are lacking in | 8¢/4 taste and betray .the insular Prejudice and downright ignorance of their makers. And the latest volume to be added to this English- man-across-the-sea library of snap Judgments is "What I Saw in Am- | erica," by G. K. Chesterton (Hodder and Stoughton, London and Toron- to). As a lecturer, nimble-witted Gilbert was an utter failure, even more disappointing to his trans-At- lantic readers than Matthew Arnold, but his book, while monumental in | verbosity, is much better than the | usual rapid-fire performance of the visiting English author. In this fat book by England's lterary Jumbo there is some very clever retiocina- tion and, best of all, Americans will i be able to read it without reviling | this author as an ingrate and a snob. All American Hotels Look Alike to Him. Chesterton follows his country- men who have written books on Am- rica by making fun of the hotels Which gave him shelter. He tells the people back home that in the new world there are "hotels top- pling to the stars, hotels covering the acreage of villages, hotels in multitudinous number like a moh of Babylonian or Assyrian monu- ments," but he complains that there @&re no inns in the United States or Canada. - Evidently, in his hurried visit to Toronto, no one told him about the inn at Grimsby, Ontario, a resort de luxe for Hamiltonians. All American hotels 100k alike to Ches- ferton, a sure sign that he did not remain very long in the country or depart from the main railway lines [during his lecture tour. "Broadly speaking," he says, 'thera is only one hotel in America. The pattern of it, which is a very rational pat. tern, is repeated in cities as remote from each other as the capitals of European empires. You may find that hotel rsing among the red blooms of the warm spring woods of Nebraska, 'or whitened with Cana. dian snows near the eternal noise of Niagara." He was surprised . to find that the hotel rotunda was thronged by people who were not necessarily guests. The ground floors he points out, are used almost @8 public streets, or rather public squares. "My first impression was thet I was in some sort of a high Street or market-place during a carnival or a revolution. i The whole of the lower floor is thrown open to the public streets and treated as a public square. But above it and all around it runs an- other floor in the form of a sort of deep gallery, furnished more luxuri- ously and looking down on the mov- ing mobs beneath. No .one is.ai- lowed on this floor except the guests or clients of the hotel. As I have been one of them myselt, I trust it is not unsympathetic to tompare them to active anthropoids Who can climb trees, and so look down in safety on the herds or packs ot wilder animals wandering and Woman-- Sports Not W. T. Allison. prowling below. Of course - thers | are modifications to it; it is the plan | that seems to suit the social life of | the American cities. There is gen- | erally something like a ground | floor that is more public, a half-floor or gallery above that is more pri- | vate, and above that the bulk of the block of bedrooms, the huge hive with its innumerable and identical cells." The Color and Fire of Broadway. When Mr. Chesterton looked for the first time on the winking elec- tric signs high up in the Broadway sky, on the long kaleidoscope ot | colored lights advertising everything | from pork to pianos, he said to his American friends, "What a glorious garden of wonders this would be to any one who was lucky enough to be unable to read." With this as a text, he proceeds to ploture the emo- tions of an illiterate peasant who had been told a great deal about the land of liberty and who, looking up at all this nightly glory of Broad- way, imagined that the electric mot- toes, appearing and disappearing, were proclaiming the . principles of the republic. 'He would be shrewd enough to guess," says Chesterton in a vein of delicious humor, "that the three festoons fringed with flery words of somewhat similar pattern stood for 'Government of the Peo- ple, For the People, By the People®, for it must obviously be that, unless it were 'Liberty, Equality, Fratern!- ty." His shrewdness would perhaps be a little shaken if he knew that the triad stood for 'Tang Tonic To- day; Tang Tonic To-morrow; Tang Tonie Al the Time.' He will soon identity a restless ribbon of red let- tering, red hot and rebellious, as the saying, 'Give me liberty or give me death." He will fail to identify it jlon of the American woman. | always confessed a distaste for gen- as the equally famous saying, 'Skyo- line Has Gout Beaten to a Fraz- zle.' Therefore, it was that I de- sired the peasant to walk down that grove of flery trees, under all that golden foliage, and fruits like mons- trous jewels, as innocent as Adam before the Fall. He would see sights almost as fine as the flaming sword or the purple and peacock plumage of the seraphim; so long as he dm not go near the Tree of Know- ledge." ------ American Business Is Romance. One of the most amusing chapters in Mr. Ohesterton's bulky book fs devoted to a paradoxical oonsidera- tion of the American business man. The English wit notes with delizht that the New Yorker is very un- punctual. The hustling American business man is always late. Ches- terton first noticed this in connec- tion with his own lectures. He says that he could easily understand a crowd of commercial Americans not going to his lecture at all, but there was something odd about seeing them drift in long after the hour advertised for the performance. "Not that I objected to that," he observes. "It seemed to me an agreeable break in the monotony ; but as a characteristic of a people engaged in practical business, it struck me as curious and interest- ing. I have grown accustomed to being the most uabusiness-like per- son in any given company; and ft gave me a sorrt of dizzy exaltation to find I was not the most unpunctu- al person in that company." And what was the impression Chesterton formed of the American business man? Was it unfavorable? Not at all! He declares with an indulgent smile that the American is too busy to have business habits, too earnest to have business rules. Business to the American is the romance of life. Even a meat salesman of Chicago sells his commodity with a fine po- etic enthusiasm. And this fervor commends itself to G.K.C. In fact he seems behind and beneath the frantic rush after the dollar tho idealism of the Amerisan business man who is more interested in the game of grabbing it than in the money grabbed. 'We shall admire or deplore this spirit," says Mr. Chesterton in a subtle paragraph, "accordingly as we are glad to see trade irradiated with so much po- etry, or sorry to see so much poetry wasted on trade. But it does make many people happy, like any other hobby; and one is disposed to add that it does fil their imaginations po ------ te ei DA | CE ERTS ILAL 'Coffee Sein ft §_e> I1LY B RITISH Ww among the partans, the great his- | torical nation without a sense of hu. | mor. They suffer an ascetic regime | not to be menaced in any monastic, ism and hardly in apy militarism. | It any tradition of these things re- | mains in a saner age, they will pro- | bably be remembered as a mysteri- | ous religious order of fakirs or danc- ing dervishes, who shaved their heads and fasted in honor of Her- | cules or Castor and Pollux. And | that is really the spiritual atmos- phere though the gods have vanish- ed; and the religion is subconscious and therefore irrational. For the problem of the modern world is that it has continued to be religious when it has ceased to be rational. Am. ericans really would starve to win a | cocoanut shy. They would fast or | bleed to win a race of paper boats | on a pond. They would rise from a | | sick bed to listen to Mrs. Asquith." | Blended and Roasted for Particular People ~~ like any other delusion. For the true criticism of all this commercial romance would involve a criticism | of this historic phussiot commerce. These peopia are building on the sand, though it shines like gold, and for them like fairy gold: but the world will remember the legend | about fairy gold. Half the financial | operations they follow deal with | things that do not even exist: ind in that sense all finance is a "| tale. Many of them are buying 3 ! selling things that do nothing but | harm; but it does them good to buy | and sell them. The claim o fthe ro- | mantic salesman is better justified | than he realises. Business really is romance; for it is not reality." Longed to See a Sulky Woman. During his travels in the United States Mr. Chesterton was often ask- ed by interviewers to give his opin- He eralisations, for he says that it seemed to him to be almost poly- gamous to talk of women in the plural, something unworthy of any one not a Mormon. In this volume, however, he hints that the young women of America seemed to him to be too much a creature of laugh- fr "and light, too genial, too kind, He says he often longed to see a sulky woman. The older women, however, pleased him better, not because they were sulky, but be. cause they were good-looking and | dignified. He thinks they dress bet- ter than the young women and ara! more beautiful. - In his opinion tha | United States is a country where a | man might almost fall in love with | his mother-in-law. Just the same | while G.K.C. admits that elderly | American women are much to be preferred to the eccentric spinsters and. incorrigible grandmothers of | England, he does not hesitate to say | that he believes that feminism is | too strong in the republic, that it is | i station of largely responsible for various Purl-|& New Interpretat! ° As every reader of his |Vescribes "Chitra" as "the greatest tan fads, works knows full well, Chesterton | gnashes his teeth whenever he runs across the trail of a Puritan. He de- votes a long chapter to prohibition. which he, a champion consumer of beer, hates most cordially, bat in his talk about women he notes with dis- approval that their influence in poli- | tics has been in favor of restrictive | regulations, because they do not really regard men as citizens, but ay children. "And as there can be no laws ar liberties in a nursery, tha extension of feminism means that | there shall be no more laws or liber- | ties in a state than there are in a nursery." In satirical mood Mr. | Chesterton says that there are not only states which punish the sin ot drink but "the equally shameless sin | of smoking a cigarette in the open | air." He proceeds to give further ex- amples of what he would call leg- | islation for the nursery,-- "The same | American atmosphere that permits | prohibition permits of people veins | punished for kissing each other. In | other words, there are states psy-| chologically capable of making a | man a convict for wearing a blue neck-tie or having a green front- door, or anything else that anybody chooses to fancy. There is an Am- | eriean atmosphere in which people | may some day be shot for shaking | hands, or hanged for writing a post- | card." | | | i -- Character Sports. Every English visitor to America goes home to write about baseball and athletics generally in the United States. Perhaps if Mr. Chesterton had been able to see a few ball | games he might have been more kindly in his remarks about Am- erican sport. but he came in the win- ter when both baseball and golf were out of season. What he says about the American athlete, however. has a flavor of truth. "American sport," he writes, "is not in the leagt sportive. It is because it is not very sportive that we sometimes say it is not very sporting. It has the vices of a religion. It has all the paradox of original sin in the service of aboriginal faith. It is sometimes untruthful because it is sincere. It is sometimes treacherous because t Is loyal. Men lle and cheat for it as | they lied for their lords in a feudal! conspiracy, or ted for their chieftaing in a H and feud. We may say that the vassal readily com. mitted treason: but it is equally true that he readily endured torture. does the American athlete endure torture. Not only the self-sacrifice but the solemnity of the American athlete is like that of the American Indian. The athletes in the States have the attitude of the athletes | Spartan of American | most to be feared. My readers will conclude from the | passages that I have quoted that Mr. Chesterton has written an interest | ing, in fact a highly origina! book | about America. In addition to the | toples which I have dealt with he | discusses such subjects as *'Presi- | dents and Problems," "The Extraor- | dinary American," "The Republican | in the Ruins," "Is the Atlantic Nar- rowing?" "Lincoln and Lost Caus- es," "A New Martin Chuszlewit,™ | "The Spirit of America" and "The | Future of Democracy." He has| crammed over three hundred pages | with Gilbertian sense and Chester- tonian nonsense, --W. T.. ALLISON. Literary Notes. Fruit farming in the Niagara | peninsula' on the shores of Lake | Ontario is the theme of a new story, | "Possession," by Mazo de la Roche, a Toronto authoress. Derek Vale, the owner of the farm, falls in love with Fawnle, a young Indian girl, whose people come to the farm to pick berries and cherries. This novel, which is more realistic than roman- tle in tone, is published by the Mac- millan Company of Toronto. After an exhaustive study of data derived from observation, biography, scholastic records and laboratory investigations of the effects of smok- ing on the intellectual processes, Prof. M. V. O'Shea, in "Tobacco ana Mental Efficiency," draws the con- clusion that it has not yet been prov. ed that the use of tobacco necessar- ily prevents the attainment of the highest mental efficiency in matura persons. He does, however, main- tain that investigation leads to the conclusion that tobaceo is detriment- al to the intellectual work of college students as well as of high school pupils. Miss Bathsheba Askowith, who has made an enviable reputation by her artistic productions of Hindu dramas and lyrics, is presenting "Chitra," by Rabindranath Tagore, in Boston this month. Miss Askowitn says that each time she gives '"Chi- tra" people come to her and tell her that they have gained from tifa play life. She love poem of modern times after Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde." HIG ¢ Baking-day - and no worry abott "your OVEN! SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1928. a range are the parts Foiling the Enemy-- : RUST The flues and the smoke box of rust, and corrosive gases. hidden vital parts are protected in the Kootenay by being enamel-clad. UICK to heat--an even baker--no burn- ing top or bottom -- and holding its heat with a small fire. Good reasons, aren't they, for the popu- larity of the Kootenay? Have you seen this won- derful oven? It has white nickeled steel walls--easy to clean, and a pleasure to work with;--an exclusive Mc- Clary's feature. attacked by These WhyMelay securing a range that will be such a help in your daily housework SEE McCLARY'S DEALER. McClary's London, Terento, Montreal, Winnipeg, Vancouver, St.John, N.B., saves time and = ves roast. yo favorite hard. vou a MeOlrrs Pore a 's Po pocrie Enameled, Cow ered Roasting Pan. "The Clean Ware" SOLD AT BUNT'S HARDWARE. 388 KING STREET German students are having a hard time these days. Ten thou- sand of them are employed in the mines and metal factories. A the- | ological work by Dr. Deissmann used | widely in German divinity classes | costs 36,000 marks unbound and | 50,000 marks bound. Imagine LH Canadian theological student paying $9,000 to $12,000 for a single text book! Here is a charming poem from "The Great Dream," a new volume | of verse by Marguerite Wilkinson, | a well-known American poetess: THE ROBBER IN ENGLAND. I am a robber from over the seas; I have come stealing things like these: The slant of the hills toward Par- | racombe Town, ] The look of the sea from Perlock | down, The patchwork of fields with hedges between | Dividing the new-ploughed red from | green ' Like a magical quilt-stitched set to bind | Fields upon hills around and be- | hind. | U have come stealing the tilt of the | thatches | Where villages 'doze among the | green patches, | | { } | Where each little house as the road winds around Seems to have grown from a root In the ground, For almost as natural as trees are they With the dull brown thatch above the stone's old gray. } Of ancient plaster firm and mellow | [n quiet tones of cream or yellow. | ! These I have stolen, stolen awwy { To make them mine till my dying day: | And neither the King In 'Bucking- | ham Palace | Nor the gracious Queen with her crown of gold take them from me, without malice What I have taken I mean to hold. | will for all] we | ' by remem. | The insignificant often are 'Forget others' faults bering your own. .l | | ' Made in Canada fhe makers of the famons Care, E Your Home It means a better looking and a longer lasting job Durability and good appearance characterize CANADA ~ PAINT. | "Elephant Brand" Pure White Lead is the pigment basis of this "Paint of Merit." The other ingredients are pure linseed oil, a small quantity of pure zinc, the necessary coloring material and drier--all ground together by powerful machinery, producing a paint of wonderful durability and beautiful coloring-- CANADA PAINT, "Canada's Favorite." COVERING CAPACITY Ons gallon of Canada paint will furnish two coats on 5 sq. ft. of smooth surface. By measuring distance around Bide of building and sul i height, you the nu tr of re feet of surface. Divide this br 5 and you get Lacunle {oe pe, Ee Paint required ror the entire job, Our shelves ave well stocked with Canada P. i s oh wp lisiging ant in a full range of color cards are here t solve every customer's paint buying problem. H. W. MARSHALL, Kingston Sun Varnish For all interior or ex- terior work. The two CP. Varnishes that cover every requirement of home varnishing Mik Tre Yidds Cream | The milk tree, which flourishes in! Braxil, ylelds a sap which is very | much lke thick cream and in flavor | scarcely distinguishable from cow's milk, though slightly coarser. Aas al drink, mixed with water, it is said! to be delicious. The bark of the | tree is red in color and the natives | extract a red dye from it, which they use to dye their cloth. The | wood is hard and durable and is| much used in the construction of na- tive houses. The tree also yields a rich and juicy friut which is a great ' MACHINERY] TORONTO One of the largest telescopes in the world, with a five-foot reflector, Was recently completed at Cleveland foe the Argentine national observa- i tory. | The truly virtuous do not cantly : credit evil that is told them of their | neighbors for if others may do| amiss, then may thess also speak | amiss, |