Society as I Have Found It
Suburbs--Sporting Ladies--The Drawing of the Badger--My Host gets
Gloriously Drunk--Visit to Her Majesty’s Kitchen--Dinner with the
Chef of Windsor Castle--I taste Mantilla Sherry for the First
Time--“A Shilling to Pay for the ‘Times.’”_
After my marriage I took up my residence in Newport, buying a farm on
Narragansett Bay and turning farmer in good earnest. I planted out
10,000 trees on that farm and then went to Europe to let them grow,
expecting a forest on my return, but I found only one of them struggling
for existence three years later. In London, I met a Californian, in with
all the sporting world, on intimate terms with the champion
prize-fighter of England, the Queen’s pages, Tattersall’s and others. He
suggested that if I would defray the expense, he would show me London as
no American had ever seen it. Agreeing to do this, I was taken to a
swell tailor in Regent Street, to put me, as he expressed it, “in proper
rig.” My first introduction to London life was dining out in the suburbs
to see a dog-fight, and sup at a Regent Street dry-goods merchant’s
residence. I was introduced as an American landed proprietor. Mine host,
I was told, spent twelve thousand pounds, i.e. $60,000 a year, on his
establishment. He was an enthusiast in his way, an old sport. The women
whom I was invited to meet looked like six-footers; the hall of the
house and the sitting-rooms were filled with stuffed bull-terriers,
prize dogs, that had done good service. We walked through beautifully
laid-out grounds to a miniature ornamental villa which contained a rat
pit, and there we saw a contest between what seemed to me a myriad of
rats and a bull-terrier. The latter’s work was expeditious. We
surrounded the pit, each one with his watch in hand timing the dog’s
work, which he easily accomplished in the allotted time, killing all the
rats, which called forth great applause. From this pit we went to
another, where we saw the drawing of the badger, a very amusing sight.
There was a long narrow box with a trap-door, by which the badger was
shut in; up went the door, in went the terrier; he seized the badger by
the ear and pulled him out of his box and around the pit, the badger
held back with all his might; should the dog fail to catch the badger by
the ear, the badger would kill him. Again, we assembled around a third
pit, to see a dog-fight, and saw fight after fight between these
bull-terriers, to me a disgusting sight, but the women shouted with
delight, and kept incessantly calling “Time, sir; time, sir!” Large bets
were made on the result. At midnight we went to supper. I sat next to
the champion prize-fighter of England, who informed me that a countryman
of mine had died in his arms after a prize-fight. Such drinking I never
saw before or since; the host, calling for bumper after bumper, insisted
on every one draining his glass. I skillfully threw my wine under the
table. The host and all the company were soon intoxicated. The footmen
in green and gold liveries never cracked a smile. The master, after a
bumper, would fall forward on the table, smashing everything. His butler
picked him up and replaced him in his chair. This was kept up until 3
A.M., when with pleasure I slipped out and was off in my hansom for
London.
My visit to Windsor Castle, dining at the village inn with Her Majesty’s
_chef_, and the keeper of her jewel room, was interesting. I saw the
old, tall doorkeeper, with his long staff, sitting at the door of the
servants’ hall. I saw Her Majesty’s kitchen and the roasts for all
living in the castle,--at least twenty separate pieces turning on a
spit. Then I examined a large, hot, steel table on which any cooked
article being placed would stay hot as long as it remained there. The
_chef_ told me a German prince, when informed of its price, said it
would take all his yearly revenue to pay for it. Then I saw Her
Majesty’s jewel room; the walls wainscoted, as it were, with gold
plates; the large gold bowl, which looks like a small bath-tub, from
which the Prince of Wales was baptized, stood in the dining-room. I saw
Prince Albert and the Prince of Wales that morning shooting pheasants,
alongside of the Windsor Long Walk, and stood within a few yards of
them. I feel sure we ate, that day, at the inn, the pheasants that had
been shot by Prince Albert. I visited Her Majesty’s model farm, and
found that all the flax-seed cake for the cattle was imported from
America. The simple cognomen, American Landed Proprietor, was “open
sesame” to me everywhere, accompanied as I was by one of her Majesty’s
pages. In London, of an evening, we went to Evans’s, a sort of public
hall where one took beer and listened to comic songs. Jubber, a wine
merchant, kept the hotel where I lodged. As a celebrated London
physician was dining with me, I asked for the palest and most delicate
sherry to be found in London, regardless of cost, to be served that day,
at my dinner. He looked at me and smiled, seeing I was quite a young
man, saying, “If I give it to you, you will not drink it.” “Send me the
sherry,” I replied, “and you will see.” The result was I got a delicious
Montilla sherry and sent a butt of it to America. This was my first
acquaintance with Montilla sherry, the most delicate wine that I know
of, to be served from soup to dessert.
Before getting through with my sporting friend, after paying all his
expenses and remunerating him liberally for his services, as I was about
to cross the Channel, he came up to me and said, “Mc, I want you to lend
me some money.” I saw by his face he was in earnest, and thought that he
was about to make a demand for a large amount. So, equally serious, I
replied, “It is out of the question, my dear fellow; I am here in a
strange country with my family and have no money to lend.” He roared,
“Why, all I wanted was a shilling to pay for the _Times_,” which made me
feel very sheepish. That was the last I saw of him. When two years later
I returned to London, I found he had conscientiously paid no bills, and,
strange to relate, his hotel keeper and tailors seemed fully compensated
for the food and raiment they had furnished him, by his sending them a
few valueless colored plates of sporting scenes in this country.
A WINTER IN ITALY.
CHAPTER IV.
_A Winter in Florence and Rome--Cheap Living and Good
Cooking--Walnut-fed Turkeys--The Grand Duke of Tuscany’s Ball--An
American Girl who Elbowed the King--What a Ball Supper Should
be--Ball to the Archduke of Tuscany--“The Duke of
Pennsylvania”--Following the Hounds on the Campagna--The American
Minister Snubs American Gentlemen._
I landed in France, not knowing how to speak the language, and only
remembering a few French words learned in childhood. It was the year of
the Paris Exposition of 1857; all the hotels were full. The Meurice
Hotel people sent me off to a neighboring house, where we lodged in the
ninth story. I saw the baptism of the Prince Imperial, and on that
occasion, and later on in Rome, at the Carnival, saw the handsomest
women I had yet seen in Europe. We then made for Florence, and there,
getting a most captivating little apartment, on the Arno, kept house,
and if it had not been for the terrible and incessant winds called the
_tramontana_ would probably have passed our days there. I had the most
admirable cook, and had never lived as well. Then the economy of the
thing; it cost nothing to live. I paid the fellow twenty-four pauls
($2.40) a day. For this sum he gave us breakfast and exquisite dinners.
For each extra guest, at dinner, I paid a few pauls; if I gave a dinner
party he hired for me as handsome a service of silver plate as I have
ever seen. His whole kitchen seemed to consist of half a dozen pots and
pans, and everything was cooked by charcoal.
His manner of roasting a turkey was indeed novel; he placed his bird on
a spit, put it in an iron pot, covered it with hot coals top and bottom,
and then kept turning the spit incessantly and basting the bird. Such a
perfect roast I have never before or since eaten. I shall speak later on
of the Newport turkey and the Southern barnyard-fed turkey, but they are
not a circumstance to the Florentine walnut-fed turkey. In Florence, at
the markets, all turkeys and fowls were cut up and sold, not as a whole,
but piece by piece. For instance, you saw on the marble slabs the
breasts of chickens, the wings of chickens, the legs of chickens; the
same with turkeys. To get an entire bird, you had to order him ahead, so
that a few days before Christmas, as we came home from our drive, we
found a superb turkey strutting through the drawing-room, the largest
creature I had ever seen, weighing twenty-five pounds. When he was
served, the walnuts he had eaten could be seen all over his back in
large, round yellow spots of fat. As he came on the table, he was indeed
a sight to behold; the skin, as it were, mahogany color and crisp, his
flesh partaking of the flavor of the walnut, would have satisfied
Lucullus.
At that period I worshipped doctors; my theory then was that you owed
your existence to them, that they kept you in the world, and not to
have a doctor within call was to place yourself in danger of immediate
and sudden death; so the first man I cultivated in Florence was the
English doctor. He came to see me every day; it was indeed a luxury; his
fee was two dollars. We became great friends, and as he was the Court
physician, he got me invitations to all the balls. The Grand Duke of
Tuscany, then the richest sovereign in Europe, gave a ball every
fortnight at the Pitti Palace. It was said that the Italians lived on
chestnuts and air between these suppers, and, like the bear, laid in
such a supply of food at them as comfortably to carry them through from
one entertainment to the other. Certainly such feasting I had never
before seen. The number of rooms thrown open really confused one, it was
hard not to lose one’s way. All the guests were assembled, and grouped
in the form of a circle, in the largest of these salons, when the grand
ducal party entered. The minister of each foreign country stood at the
head of his little band of countrymen and countrywomen who were to be
presented. The Grand Duke, Archduke, and suite passed from group to
group. The presentation over, the ball began in earnest. All waited
until the Archduke started in the dance, and as he waltzed by you, you
followed. When he stopped dancing, all stopped.
I remember, at one of these balls, dancing with an American girl, a
strikingly handsome woman, a great Stonington belle. As we waltzed by
the King of Bavaria, I felt a hand placed on my shoulder, and a voice
exclaimed, “_Mais, Monsieur, c’est le roi_”; I stopped at once, and
hastily inquired of my fair partner, “What is it?” She replied, “I did
it, I was determined to do it. As I passed the King I punched him in the
ribs with my elbow. Now I am satisfied.” I rushed up to the King and
Grand Chamberlain, saying, “_Mille pardons, mille pardons_,” and the
affair passed over, but I soon disposed of the young woman and never
“attempted her again.” The diamonds the women wore amazed me. You see
nothing in this country like the tiaras of diamonds I saw at this ball;
tiara after tiara, the whole head blazing with diamonds, and yet there
was but little beauty.
It was here that I first learned what a ball supper should be, and what
were the proper mural decorations for a ball-room and the halls opening
into it. The supper system was perfect. In one salon, large tables for
coffee, tea, chocolate, and cakes. In another, tables covered simply
with ices and other light refreshments, _foie gras_, sandwiches, etc. In
the grand supper room, the whole of the wall of one side of the room,