THE PEOPLE ARE A SETT OF FAWNING OBSEQUIOUS EMPTY HEADED, DULL BRAINED WOULD BE SNOBS…

THE PEOPLE ARE A SETT OF FAWNING OBSEQUIOUS EMPTY HEADED, DULL BRAINED WOULD BE SNOBS…
An interesting six page letter from a world traveler comparing London and Paris in very unfavorable terms to New York and the writer’s home in New Jersey. The letter in full:
Grand Hotel Paris
May 10, 1881
Dear Billy,
You stick to Jersey and thank God you don’t have to go near London. The Cabbies are thieves, the hotels are swindlers, the air is murky, the people are a sett of fawning obsequious empty headed, dull brained, would be snobs and it rains or drizzles two hundred days out of the 365. The _____toad eaters go and stand up against an iron railing in Hyde Park every afternoon for the sole purpose of feasting their eyes on the representatives of Shoddydon who condescend to move in a slow procession past them with their coach men and footmen in powdered wigs.
I was introduced to several M.P’s. And I asked one of the if he didn’t consider it a dangerous practice to wear that pasty looking wig, he might get prematurely bald. He seemed surprised that our lawyers didn’t wear them and still more so when I told him we would not tolerate any such farce as that in America or if our lawyers did wear the popular opinion would compel them to have them made so as to cover their own hair in the back and not come into court looking as if they had forgotten their own heads and had put on their grand fathers by mistake.
You don’t see much of what we call English style in London and as far as dress goes you could very easily mistake an English crowd for an American one, except that the latter would be altogether the better dressed of the two.
I didn’t see a cheap article in England except cloths and Winchester is much cheaper than a great many of the swell tailors.
To be in business in London is to lose your self respect completely as far as I could see, and the only gentlemanly men I met were the two Waterton Bros and they are so, I think because the old man made all the money for them, and they are trying to spend it. The youngest of them is a graduate of Cambridge and a very decent fellow.
Had a good time coming over Wasn’t sick at all and didn't feel a qualm ever crossing the channel.
From the time we started it has been nothing but one continuous gourge up to the present time and I presume it will continue until I get busted and have to come home. No man seems to occupy a position high enough to enable him to get along without either stealing or begging in a highly respectable manner.
The cigars are poor here, the wine is bad and dear, and the cooking is miserable.
There is not a place in Paris where for the same money, you can get as good a dinner served in as pleasant a room and with as good wine as you can at Marticello.
Paris is a very pretty city but good Lord you can’t live on that.
I have seen the two biggest cities in the world and I begin to think that New York will just hold me.
This place, like so many others things, is not what it has been cracked up to be.
I have seen more diamonds in the shop window. Today than I ever thought there were in the world but what is the good of that in a place where a cup of coffee and a roll cost you from thirty to forty cents.
Went to Notre Dame to day – fine building, better than they put up Nowadays, but when that was commenced – 1165 – people had more time to give to such diversions, that the reason I suppose no modern church is a patch on it. Saw a piece of the true cross. Very pretty to look at because they have got it all embedded in gold, and although you know its a lie, the workmanship is fine.
Went to the Louvre and had a look at some old masters. When I come home I am going to have those two paintings in the office rubbed All over with soot and label one Murrillo and the other Fitian and then you and Papa can feast your eyes every day on two better pictures than the old masters event turned out.
Saw some fine statuary though. The genuine Venus de Milo with which every one is familiar being remarkably fine. Will write you again soon. Hope business continues good. Write me particulars.
Yours,
W.A.H.A.
Mailing fold lines with several short separations, some repaired with archival tissue/tape. Very legible and in vg cond.