ompatriot as soon and as far as you can see one, by his graceless
gait, a cross between a lounge and a shuffle. In reading-, or dining-
room, he is the only man whose spine does not seem equal to its work, so
he flops and straggles until, for the honor of your land, you long to
shake him and set him squarely on his legs.

No amount of reasoning can convince me that outward slovenliness is not a
sign of inward and moral supineness. A neglected exterior generally
means a lax moral code. The man who considers it too much trouble to sit
erect can hardly have given much time to his tub or his toilet. Having
neglected his clothes, he will neglect his manners, and between morals
and manners we know the tie is intimate.

In the Orient a new reign is often inaugurated by the construction of a
mosque. Vast expense is incurred to make it as splendid as possible.
But, once completed, it is never touched again. Others are built by
succeeding sovereigns, but neither thought nor treasure is ever expended
on the old ones. When they can no longer be used, they are abandoned,
and fall into decay. The same system seems to prevail among our private
owners and corporations. Streets are paved, lamp-posts erected, store-
fronts carefully adorned, but from the hour the workman puts his
finishing touch upon them they are abandoned to the hand of fate. The
mud may cake up knee-deep, wind and weather work their own sweet will, it
is no one's business to interfere.

When abroad one of my amusements has been of an early morning to watch
Paris making its toilet. The streets are taking a bath, liveried
attendants are blacking the boots of the lamp-posts and
newspaper-_kiosques_, the shop-fronts are being shaved and having their
hair curled, cafe's and restaurants are putting on clean shirts and tying
their cravats smartly before their many mirrors. By the time the world
is up and about, the whole city, smiling freshly from its matutinal tub,
is ready to greet it gayly.

It is this attention to detail that gives to Continental cities their air
of cheerfulness and thrift, and the utter lack of it that impresses
foreigners so painfully on arriving at our shores.

It has been the fashion to laugh at the dude and his high collar, at the
darky in his master's cast-off clothes, aping style and fashion. Better
the dude, better the colored dandy, better even the Bowery "tough" with
his affected carriage, for they at least are reaching blindly