Over the Ocean Part 14

While in London, purchase whatever trunks, portmanteaus, or valises you may need for your continental tour. London is the paradise of this species of merchandise, and in Paris you will learn too late that trunk-making is not a Frenchman's art, though if you reach Vienna, the headquarters of the elegant Russia leather work, you will find articles there in the travelling-bag line, at very moderate prices, that will enable you to make the most distinguished carpet-bagger in your own country die of envy.

It is said that London is headquarters for gentlemen's clothing, and Paris for ladies'. London sets the fashion for gentlemen in dress, and Paris that for the gentler s.e.x, although in the article of men's hats, gloves, and dress boots, I believe the Frenchman has "the inside of the track." A French boot is made for grace and beauty, an English one for service and comfort. An English hat, like an English dog-cart, has too much "timber" in it, and a French glove is unapproachable. Many Americans leave their measure, and now order their clothes of Poole & Co., Sackville Street, or Creed & Co., Conduit Street, Bond Street, both crack West End tailors. Others order of some of the city tailors down town, who, doubtless, suit them equally well, and use just as good materials, having the custom of some of the old particular London merchants, who like to step into a solid, old-fashioned, down-in-the-city store, where their predecessors traded,--like Sam Hodgkinson's, in Threadneedle Street, opposite Merchant Tailors'

Hall,--and buy at an old established stand, a place that has the aroma of age about it. The older a business stand, the more value it seems to possess in customers' eyes; and there is something in it. For a store that has built up a reputation, and been known as a good boot, tailor's, or hat store, with that stamp of indors.e.m.e.nt, "established in 1798," or eighteen hundred and something, more than forty years ago, is about as good an indors.e.m.e.nt as "bootmaker to the Duke of Cambridge," or Lord Stuckup, and a reputation which the occupant of said establishment does not trifle with, but labors to preserve and increase, as a part of his capital and stock in trade.

Your English tailor of reputation is rather more careful than the American one. He makes an appointment, and tries the garment on you after it is cut out, comes to your hotel, if you are a stranger and cannot come to him, to do so, and his two workmen who wait upon you, measure, snip, mould, and adapt their work, appear to take as much pride in their occupation as a sculptor or artist. Indeed, they consider themselves "artists" in their line; for Creed & Co's card, which lies before me as I write, announces "H. Creed & Co." to be "Artistes in Draping the Real Figure," and gives the cash-on-delivery purchaser ten per cent. advantage over the credit customer.

Furs are another article that can be bought very cheap in London. But I must not devote too much s.p.a.ce to shopping; suffice it to say that the windows of the great magazines of merchandise in Oxford and Regent Streets form in themselves a perfect museum of the products of the world,--and I have spent hours in gazing in at them,--for the art of window-dressing is one which is well understood by their proprietors.

A volume might be written--in fact, volumes have been written--about London streets, and the sights seen in them. It seemed so odd to be standing opposite old Temple Bar, on the Strand, to see really those names we had so often read of, to wonder how long the spirit of American improvement would suffer such a barrier as that Bar to interrupt the tremendous rush of travel that jams, and crowds, and surges through and around it. Here is Prout's tooth-brush store close at hand. Everybody knows that Prout's brushes are celebrated. We step in to price some.

"One shilling each, sir." You select twelve, give him a sovereign. He takes out ten shillings. "The price, sir, at wholesale." The reputation of that place would suffer, in the proprietor's opinion, if he had allowed a stranger to have gone, even if satisfied, away, and that stranger had afterwards ascertained that the price per dozen was less, and that any one could purchase less than he. So much for the honor of "old-established" places.

We go up through Chancery Lane,--how often we have read of it, and what lots of barristers' chambers and legal stationers there are,--out into "High Holborn," Holborn Hill, or "Eye Obun," as the Londoners call it.

What a rush of 'buses, and drays, and cabs, and Hansoms, and everything! But let us go. Where is it one goes first on arrival in London? If he is an American, the first place he goes to is his banker, to get that most necessary to keep him going. So hither let us wend our way.

If there is any one thing needed in England besides hotels on the American plan, it is an American banking-house of capital and reputation in the city of London; a house that understands the wants and feelings of Americans, and that will cater to them; a house that will not hold them off at arm's length, as it were; one that is not of such huge wealth as to treat American customers with surly British routine and red tape; a house _that wants American business_, and that will do it at the lowest rate of percentage. In fact, some of the partners, at least, should be Americans in heart and feeling, and not Anglicized Americans.

The great banking-house of Baring Brothers & Co., whose correspondents and connections are in every part of the world,--whose superscriptions I used to direct in a big, round hand, upon thin envelopes, when I was a boy in a merchant's counting-room, and whose name is as familiar in business mouths as household words,--it would be supposed would be found occupying a structure for their banking-house like some of the palatial edifices on Broadway, or the solid granite buildings of State Street, where you may imagine that you could find out about everything you wished to know about London; what the sights were to see; which was the best hotel for Americans; what you ought to pay for things; how to get to Windsor Castle, or the Tower, &c. Of course they would have American papers, know the news from America; and you, a young tourist, not knowing Lombard Street from Pall Mall, would, on presentation of your letter of credit, be greeted by some member of the firm, and asked how you did, what sort of a pa.s.sage you had over, could they do anything for you, all in American style of doing things; but, bless your raw, inexperienced, unsophisticated soul, you have yet to learn the solid, British, square-cut, high shirt-collar style of doing "business."

I have roared with laughter at the discomfiture of many a young American tourist who expected something of the cordial style and the great facilities such as the young American houses of Bowles & Co. or Drexel & Co. afford, of these great London bankers. The latter are civil enough, but, as previously mentioned, they do "_business_," and on the rigid English plan; they will cash your check less commission, answer a question, or send a ticket-porter to show you the way out into Lombard Street, or, perhaps, if you send your card in to the managing partner's room, he will admit you, and will pause, pen in hand, from his writing, to bid you good morning, and wait to know what you have to say; that is, if you have no other introduction to him or his house than a thousand or two pounds to your credit in their hands, which you intend drawing out on your letter of credit.

Don't imagine such a bagatelle as that thousand or two, my raw tourist, is going to thaw British ice; it is but a drop in their ocean of capital, and they allow you four per cent. interest; and though they may contrive to make six or seven on it, all they have to do with you is to honor your drafts less commission to the amount of your letters.

Messrs. Baring Brothers & Co.'s banking house we finally ascertain is at No. --, Bishop Gate (within). Arrived at No. --, Bishop Gate, you find that _within_ is in through a pa.s.sage to the rear of the building; and so we go in. There is no evidence of a "palatial" character in the ordinary contracted and commonplace looking counting-room, an area enclosed by desks facing outward, and utterly devoid of all those elegant conveniences one sees in the splendid counting-rooms on Wall and State Streets,--foolish frippery, may be,--but the desks look crowded and inconvenient, the area for customers mean and contracted, for a house of such wealth, and we wondered at first if we had not made some mistake. Here we were, in a plain and very ordinary counting-room, like that of a New England country bank, surrounded on three sides by desks facing towards us, behind high and transparent screens, and six or eight clerks at them, writing in huge ledgers. After standing some minutes in uncertainty we made for the nearest clerk at one of the apertures in the semicircle of desks.

"Is this the Messrs. Barings' counting-house?"

"Yes, sir."

"I wish to draw some money."

"Bill, sir, or letter of credit?"

"Letter of credit."

"Opposite desk;" and he pointed with his quill pen to the other side.

I accordingly crossed over, and commenced a fresh dialogue with another clerk.

"I desire to draw some money on this letter of credit" (handing it).

"Yes, sir" (taking it; looks at the letter, reads it carefully, then looks at me searchingly). "Are you the Mr. ----, mentioned here?"

"I am, sir" (decidedly).

"How much money do you want?"

"Twenty-five pounds."

Clerk goes to a big ledger, turns it over till he finds a certain page, looks at the page, compares it with the letter, turns to another clerk, who is writing with his back to him, hands him letter, says something in a low tone to him. Second clerk takes letter, and goes into an inner apartment, and the first commences waiting on a new comer, and I commence waiting developments.

In about five minutes clerk number two returned with something for me to sign, which I did, and he left again. After waiting, perhaps, five minutes more, I ventured to inquire if my letter of credit was ready.

Clerk number one said it would be here "d'rectly;" and so it was, for clerk number two returned with it in its envelope, and in his hand a check, which he handed me, saying, "Eighty Lombard Street."

"Sir?"

"80 Lombard Street" (pointing to check).

"O, I am to get the money at 80 Lombard Street--am I?"

"Yes; better hurry. It's near bank closing."

"But where is Lombard Street?"

(Aghast at my ignorance.) "Cross d'rectly you go out, turn first to left, then take ---- Street on right, and it's first Street on lef."

It might have been an accommodation to have paid me the money there, instead of sending me over to Lombard Street; but that would probably have been out of routine, and consequently un-English.

I started for the door, but when nearly out, remembered that I had not inquired for letters and papers from home, that I had given instructions should be sent there to await my arrival from Scotland and the north, and accordingly I returned, and inquired of clerk number two,--

"Any letters for me?"

"Ah! I beg yer pardon."

"Any letters for me?"

"You 'av your letter in your 'and, sir."

"No; I mean any letters from home--from America--to my address?"

"The other side sir" (pointing across the area).

I repaired to the "other side," gave my address, and had the satisfaction of receiving several epistles from loved ones at home, which the clerk checked off his memoranda as delivered, and I sallied out my first day in London, to turn to the left and right, and find Lombard Street. Three pence and a ticket porter enabled me to do this speedily, and thus ended our first experience at Baring Brothers & Co.'s.

There may, perhaps, be nothing to complain of in all this as a business transaction, but that it was regularly performed; but after one has experienced the courtesies of bankers on the continent, he begins to ask himself the question, if the Barings ought not, taking into consideration the amount of money they have made and are making out of their American business and the American people, to show a little less parsimony and more liberality and courtesy to them, and provide some convenience and accommodation for that cla.s.s of customers, and make some effort to put the raw tourist, whose one or two thousand pounds they have condescended to receive, at his ease when he visits their establishment.

All this may have been changed since I was in London (1867); but the style of transactions like this I have described was then a general topic of conversation among Americans, and seemed to have been similar in each one's experience. In Paris how different was the reception!

Upon presenting your letter, a member of the American banking-house, a junior partner, probably, steps forward, greets you cordially, makes pleasant inquiries with regard to your pa.s.sage over, invites you to register your name and address, ushers you into a large room where the leading American journals are on file, and there are conveniences for letter writing, conversation, &c. He invites you to make this your headquarters; can he do anything for you? you want some money--the cashier of the house cashes your draft at once, and you are not sent out into the street to hunt up an unknown banking-house. He can answer you almost any question about Paris or its sights, and procure you cards of permission to such places of note as it is necessary to send to government officials for, tell you where to board or lodge, and execute any commission for you.

The newly-arrived American feels "at home" with such a greeting as this at once, and if his letter draws on Baring's agent in Paris, is p.r.o.ne to withdraw funds, and redeposit with his new-found friends. Of course the houses of this character, that tourists do business with in Paris, were peculiar to that city, and may be cla.s.sed as banking and commission houses, and the "commission" part of the business has come into existence within a few years, and was of some importance during the year of the Exposition. That part of the business would not be desirable to a great London banking-house, nor is there the field for it, as in Paris; but there is room for an improvement in conveniences, accommodation, cordiality, courtesy, &c., towards American customers, especially tourists, who naturally, on first arrival, turn to their banker for information respecting usages, customs, &c., and for other intelligence which might be afforded with comparatively little trouble.

But to the sights of London. The streets themselves, as I have said, are among the sights to be seen in this great metropolis of the civilized world. There is Pall Mall, or "Pell Mell," as the Londoners call it, with its splendid clubhouses, the "Travellers," "Reform," "Army and Navy," "Athenaeum," "Guards," "Oxford," and numerous others I cannot now recall; Regent Street, to which I have referred, with its splendid stores; Oxford Street, a street of miles in length, and containing stores of equal splendor with its more aristocratic rival; Holborn, which is a continuation of Oxford, and carries you down to "the city;"

Fleet Street and the Strand, with their newspaper offices, and bustle, and turmoil, houses, churches, great buildings, and small shops. Not far from here are Charing Cross Hotel and the railroad station, a splendid modern building; or you may go over into Whitehall, pa.s.s by the Horse Guards' Barracks,--in front of which two mounted troopers sit as sentinels,--and push on, till rising to view stands that one building so fraught with historic interest as to be worth a journey across the ocean to see--the last resting-place of kings, queens, princes, poets, warriors, artists, sculptors, and divines, the great Pantheon of England's glory--Westminster Abbey.

Its time-browned old walls have looked down upon the regal coronation, the earthly glory, of the monarch, and received within their cold embrace his powerless ashes, and bear upon their enduring sides man's last vanity--his epitaph.

"Think how many royal bones Sleep within these heaps of stones!

Here they lie--had realms and lands, Who now want strength to lift their hands, Where, from their pulpit, sealed with dust, They preach, 'In greatness is no trust.'

Here's an acre, sown, indeed, With the richest royal seed That the earth did e'er suck in Since the first man died for sin."