Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1889 — MAX O'RELL. [ARTICLE]

MAX O'RELL.

Things Noted bjr the Keen-Eyed -Frenchman While Visiting the United States. The American men are generally thin. Their faces glow with intelligence and energy, and in this mainly consists thefr handsomeness. Ido not think it can be possiblejto see any tyhere a finer assemblage of men than that which meets at the Century Club, of New Yolk, every first Saturday of the mouth. It is not male beauty, such as the Greeks portrayed it, bat a manly beauty iphll its intellectual force. The hair, often abundant, is neglige, sometimes even disordered-looking; the dress displays taste aDd care, without aiming at elegance; the face is pale and serious, but lights up with an amiable smile; you divine that resolution and gentleness live in harmony in the American character. The well-bred American is to my mind a happy combination of the Frenchman and the Englishman, having lees stiffness than the latter, and more simplicity than the former. As for the womeD, I do not hesitate to say that in the East, in New York especially, they might perfectly well be taken for French women. It is the same type, the same gait, the same vivacity, the same petulance, the same amplitude of proportions. The beauty of the American women, like that of the men, is due much more to the animation of the face than to form or coloring. The average of good looks is very high, indeed, I do not remember to have seen one hopelessly plain woman during my six months’ ramble through tbe States. To the American woman the diamond is not an object of luxury; it is an object of prime necessity. An English old maid would do without her tea before an American woman would go without her diamonds. Diamonds, at night with evening dre-s and artificial light, are Things of beauty; but diamonds in the street with iUorning dress, at early breakfast in company with morning wrappers; diamonds in the ears, at the neck, in the bonnet strings, on arms, on fingers—diamonds all day long and everywhere; it is a remnant of savagery. Nay, 1 saw diamonds on shoe buckles qne day in one of the fashionable shops of Union square. Diamonds are worn ov tbe woman of fashion, the tradesman’s wife, shop girls; work girls, servants—all the womankind. If you see a shabbily dressed woman who has not a pair in her ears you may take it for granted that she has put them in pawn.

Decollete toilets are universal in America, old ladies vying with young in the display of neck and shoulders. It is true the Americans are not peculiar in this. Many times in a European ball room have I longed to exclaim: “Ladies, throw a veil over the past, I pray you.” The wives of men with middle-class incomes imitate the luxury of the millionaire’s wife. I expected to find it so; in a democratic country frogs try to swell into oxen. They 'puff themselves out until they burst, or rather until their husbands burst. In France always, and in England when he will let her, a wife keeps an eye on her husband’s interests. In America she often lays hands on his capital. 1 Upon the strength of a six months’ stay in America one would hardly attempt to deliver a verdict on the political system of the country. I think,however, that it may safely be affirmed that the English are a freer people than the Americans; that the constitutional—l had almost said republican—monarchy of England is preferable to the authoritative democracy of America. The well-read, well-bred American 1b the most delightful of men; good society in America is the wittiest, most genial, and most hospitable I have met with. But the more I travel, and the more I look at other na ions, the more confirmed I am in my opinion that tbe French are the happiest people on earth.