A Tramp Trip: How to See Europe on Fifty Cents a Day

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Harper & brothers, 1886 - 276 páginas
The first-class tourist may see the beauties of a country's landscapes and scenery from the window of a palace-car, but his vision goes no further--does not penetrate below the surface. To know a country one must fraternize with its people, must live with them, sympathize with them, win their confidence. High life in Europe has been paid sufficient attention by travellers and writers. I was desirous of seeing something of low life; I donned the blouse and hobnailed shoes of a workman, and spent a year in a "Tramp Trip" from Gibraltar to the Bosporus. Some of my experiences have been related in letters to the New York World, the Philadelphia Press, the St. Louis Republican, and other American newspapers, and in my official report to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., on the condition of the laboring classes in Europe. While the following pages contain some of those newspaper letters, the greater portion is now in print for the first time. -- Preface

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Página 158 - Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!
Página 97 - From cradle to coffin we struggle and seek, Till the fugitive years of our lives are past ; But whether our lots be blessed or bleak, We are tossed like dogs to the worms at last " What is the use of it, then, I say ? Why are we brought from the blank unknown, To weep and dance through a little day That drifts us under a burial stone ? " Another of Mr. Meriwether's foot-notes defines Baedeker as
Página 261 - In 67 months she was tapped 66 times : Had taken away 240 gallons of water, Without ever repining at her case, Or ever fearing the operation.
Página 260 - He wrote sixty-four public works, beside many other pieces ; but his greatest work was Robinson Crusoe, and as such had been commemorated in the memorial. Mr. Reed then unveiled, amid loud cheers, the monument, which bore the following inscription : — "Daniel De Foe, born 1661, died 1731, author of Robinson Crusoe.
Página 5 - Europe has been paid sufficient attention to by travellers and writers. I was desirous of seeing something of low life; I donned the blouse and hobnailed shoes of a workman, and spent a year in a 'Tramp Trip' from Gibraltar to the Bosporus.
Página 28 - The Italian government has taken possession of the excavated city of Pompeii. A law recently enacted strictly forbids strangers entering or remaining after sunset. I was anxious to see the ruins by moonlight, and resolved to spend a night in that resurrected city of the Romans, the law to the contrary notwithstanding. The preceding night had been spent on Mount Vesuvius, and early in the morning...
Página 60 - Parents work at hand-looms ; the grandmother spins (at home), attends to the children and to two goats, the milk of the goats being sold at four cents per quart.
Página 246 - Antwerp and Brussels are built solidly together. The hall-ways opening into the houses are generally dark and narrow, and the stairs leading to the upper stories exceedingly crooked and steep. Often a rope is provided to hold to when going up the steps, it being impossible, or at least dangerous, to ascend otherwise.
Página 22 - A dog in one corner was suckling a kid — the poor thing is not allowed to have its mother's milk, that being reserved for the family or sold in the market.
Página 246 - THE Belgian laborer is as industrious, perhaps, as the laborer of any other country in the world ; two circumstances, however, operate to lessen the results which his energy and labor should produce. First, the extreme density of population and consequent great amount of competition ; secondly, his habits of intemperance.

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