“They wash each other’s, every two and two.  If he washes them all, he puts himself in Christ’s place. He says, ‘Wash each other’s feet.’”

This, I am also informed, is the rule among the third division, the
Old Mennists, the most numerous branch of these remarkable people.

P.E.G.

THE RAW AMERICAN.

London at present abounds in Americans on their way to the Vienna Exposition.  Many of them are commissioners from various States.  Some have lands to sell or other financial axes to grind.  Of such the Langham Hotel is full.  The Langham is the nearest approach to an American hotel in London.  There, though not a guest, you may pass in and out without explaining to the hall-porter who you are, what you are, where you come from or what you want:  you may there enter and retire without giving your pedigree, naturalization papers or a certificate of good character.  At other English hotels something analogous to this is commonly required.

We, who have been in England a full year, look down with an air of superiority on the raw, the newly-arrived American.  We are quite English.  We have worn out our American clothes.  We have on English hats with tightly-curled rims and English stub-toed boots.  We know the intricacies of London street navigation, and Islington, Blackfriars, Camden Town, Hackney, the “Surrey Side,” Piccadilly, Regent and Oxford streets, the Strand and Fleet street, are all mapped out distinctly in our mind’s eye.  We are skilled in English money, and no longer pass off half crowns for two-shilling pieces.  We are real Anglo-Americans.

But the raw American, only arrived a week, is in a maze, a confusion, a hurry.  He is excited and mystified.  He tries to appear cool and unconcerned, and is simply ridiculous.  His cards, bearing his name, title and official status, he distributes as freely as doth the winter wind the snow-flakes.  Inquire at the Langham office for Mr. Smith, and you find he has blossomed into General Smith.

He is always partaking or about to partake of official dinners.  He feels that the eyes of all England are upon him.  He is dressed a la bandbox—­hat immaculate in its pristine gloss, white cravat, umbrella of the slimmest encased in silken wrapper.  A speck of mud on his boots would tarnish the national honor.  Commonly, he is taken for a head-butler.  He drinks much stout.  He eats a whitebait dinner before being forty-eight hours in London, and tells of it.  All this makes him feel English.

You meet him.  He is overjoyed.  He would talk of everything—­your mutual experience in America, his sensations and impressions since arriving in England.  He talks intelligibly of nothing.  His brain is a mere rag-bag, shreddy, confused, parti-colored.  Thus he empties it:  “Passage over rough;” “London wonderful;” “Dined with the earl of ——­ yesterday;” “Dine with Sir ——­ to-day;” “To the Tower;” “Westminster;” “New York growing;” “Saint Paul’s”—­going, going, gone! and he shakes hands with you, and is off at a Broadway gait straight toward the East End of London for his hotel, which lies at the West End.