Jonathan and His Continent Part 28

"Put me in communication with 2438"--(her butcher's number).

In another instant the bell rings.

"h.e.l.lo!"

"h.e.l.lo!"

"Is it the butcher?"

"Yes."

"Send me two pounds of fillet of beef, and a leg of mutton, by twelve o'clock."

"Very good! Is that all?"

"Yes."

"All right."

Upon this the lady rings again.

"h.e.l.lo!" from central office, where this kind of thing goes on all day long.

"Send me 1267" (the fruiterer).

Again the bell rings.

"h.e.l.lo!"

"h.e.l.lo!"

"Is it the fruiterer?"

"Yes."

And the scene is repeated--and so on with the baker, the grocer, and all the lady's tradespeople.

We have all seen the wonderful labour-saving, time-saving apparatus of American invention which has suppressed the cry of "Cash here!" in most large shops in England, as well as America. To watch the ball containing your bill and coin drawn up, to see it run along one inclined groove, and return on another, bringing your change and the bill receipted, is to look on at another piece of American legerdemain.

There is a great effort being made now in New York, Chicago, and other towns, to find out a plan to accelerate the service in restaurants and do away with waiters. It is very simple and the Americans will not be baffled for such a small matter.

This is how the thing is to be done:

The restaurant is provided with small numbered tables. Each table is in direct communication with the kitchen by means of rails. Close at hand are a certain number of electric b.u.t.tons upon which the customer sees written _beef_, _mutton_, _chop_, _vegetables_, _tart_, _etc._ He touches three, four, five b.u.t.tons, according to his appet.i.te, and the cook receives his order.

"Steak and potatoes, tomato, salad, chocolate cream, for No. 52!... All right, ready!"

In an instant a tray bearing the lunch appears upon the table, placed there without hands. When the customer has disposed of his food, he touches the b.u.t.ton marked _bill_. In a twinkling the bill appears on his plate, and the a.s.suaged American settles it at the desk as he goes out.

The whole thing is as simple as _bonjour_.

The American complains that it is impossible to lunch in less than ten minutes. This evil will be remedied shortly.

If you want a really striking sight, go to one of the great restaurants of Chicago or New York at lunch time. Those Americans using their knife and fork will make your head swim. At a little distance, they look as if they were all playing the dulcimer.

I lunched one day at the Astor House, near the heart of the Stock Exchange furnace of New York. I was standing at the bar making all the speed possible with my food, so as to give place to the crowd pressing behind me. All the time I heard such remarks as:

"There's one that isn't in a hurry! How much longer is he going to be?

Is he going to take an hour over his grub?"

You eat too fast, my dear Jonathan, and I understand why your anti-dyspeptic pill makers cover your walls with their advertis.e.m.e.nts.

You die young; and you do not live, you burn out. You rush on at express speed, in your chase after the dollar, and you have not time to look at Happiness, standing with open arms at your door. Your very evenings are not your own. Hardly have you taken upon your knees one of your lovely little ones to kiss and caress, hardly have you begun a little love-scene with your pretty wife, when, ding, ding, ding, there is the telephone going.

"h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo!"

Your wife and children would fain see the telephone thrown to the winds, for you are a gallant husband and a charming father.

The little French provincial shopkeeper, who locks his shop-door, from twelve to one o'clock, while he dines with his family, has come nearer than you to solving the problem of life, _How to be happy_. Sharper and Co. may suspend payment, without the fact interfering with his digestion. Twice a year he goes and takes up his three per cent.

dividend on the Government Stock. It is petty, perhaps; but it is secure, and he can sleep upon both ears.

Those Americans are never still, never at rest. Even when they are sitting they must be on the move; witness the rocking-chair habit.

No repose for them: their life is perpetual motion, a frantic race.

Opposite my windows, at the Richelieu Hotel in Chicago, there was a railway station. Every ten minutes the local trains came and went. Each time the bell announced the approach of a train, I saw a crowd tear along the path of the station, and leap into the carriages, taking them by storm. By leaving their offices thirty seconds earlier, these good people might have walked comfortably to the station and saved themselves this breathless chase.

Go to the Brooklyn Bridge station, New York, about five o'clock in the afternoon. There you will see a sight very like the storming of a fort.

An American wrote me one day a note of a few lines, and thus excused himself for his brevity: "A word in haste--I have hardly time to wink."

Poor fellow! only think of it, not even time to wink; it makes one giddy.

But it must be acknowledged that this feverish activity has made America what she is. Yesterday forest and swamp, to-day towns of five, ten thousand souls, with churches, free libraries, free schools, newspapers; towns where people work, think, read, pray, make fortunes, go bankrupt, etc.

Very few Americans are content to live on their private means. There is no leisure cla.s.s, there are no unemployed. Rich and poor, old and young, all work. They die in harness, harnessed to the car of Mammon. A millionaire on his death-bed says to his son: "I leave you my fortune on the express condition that you work." General Daniel b.u.t.terfield expressed the feeling of most American fathers when he said on some public occasion: "If I had ten sons I would not give them a cent until they had learned to earn their own living, though I were ten times a millionaire."

Mr. Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York _Tribune_, Mr. Madill, of the Chicago _Tribune_, and several other editors I could mention, are millionaires. You will invariably find them at their desks until one in the morning. They work like simple supernumeraries.

Outside certain Anglo-maniac sets, to be found in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, no one boasts of living on his property.

In England, a man who does nothing goes by the name of _gentleman_; in Chicago he goes by the name of _loafer_.

In fifty years' time, when America has two hundred million inhabitants, perhaps she will impose her ideas upon the Old World. Then, maybe, society will have no contempt except for the ignorant and the idle.

A young man, with a very intelligent-looking face, was pointed out to me one evening, in a Chicago drawing-room.

"He is very rich," said my hostess to me softly. "For a year or two after he inherited the property he did no work, and people began to rather shun him. But he has just gone into partners.h.i.+p with a friend in business, and so he is quite reinstated in everyone's esteem."