And such is the high personal honor of the average Parisian news gatherer that one Paris morning paper, which specializes in actual news as counterdistinguished from the other Paris papers which rely upon political screeds to fill their columns, locks its doors and disconnects its telephones at 8 o’clock in the evening, so that reporters coming in after that hour must stay in till press time lest some of them—­such is the fear—­will peddle all the exclusive stories off to less enterprising contemporaries.

English newspapers, though printed in a language resembling American in many rudimentary respects, seem to our conceptions weird propositions, too.  It is interesting to find at the tail end of an article a footnote by the editor stating that he has stopped the presses to announce in connection with the foregoing that nothing has occurred in connection with the foregoing which would justify him in stopping the presses to announce it; or words to that effect.  The news stories are frequently set forth in a puzzling fashion, and the jokes also.  That’s the principal fault with an English newspaper joke—­it loses so in translation into our own tongue.

Still, when all is said and done, the returning tourist, if he be at all fair-minded, is bound to confess to himself that, no matter where his steps or his round trip ticket have carried him, he has seen in every country institutions and customs his countrymen might copy to their benefit, immediate or ultimate.  Having beheld these things with his own eyes, he knows that from the Germans we might learn some much-needed lessons about municipal control and conservation of resources; and from the French and the Austrians about rational observance of days of rest and simple enjoyment of simple outdoor pleasures and respect for great traditions and great memories; and from the Italians, about the blessed facility of keeping in a good humor; and from the English, about minding one’s own business and the sane rearing of children and obedience to the law and suppression of unnecessary noises.  Whenever I think of this last God-given attribute of the British race, I shall recall a Sunday we spent at Brighton, the favorite seaside resort of middle-class London.  Brighton was fairly bulging with excursionists that day.

A good many of them were bucolic visitors from up country, but the majority, it was plain to see, hailed from the city.  No steam carousel shrieked, no ballyhoo blared, no steam pianos shrieked, no barker barked.  Upon the piers, stretching out into the surf, bands played soothingly softened airs and along the water front, sand-artists and so-called minstrel singers plied their arts.  Some of the visitors fished—­without catching anything—­and some listened to the music and some strolled aimlessly or sat stolidly upon benches enjoying the sea air.  To an American, accustomed at such places to din and tumult and rushing crowds and dangerous devices for taking one’s breath and sometimes one’s life, it was a strange experience, but a mighty restful one.