WHY WE HATE THE FOREIGNER.
The advantage that the foreigner possesses over the Englishman is that heis born good. He does not have to try to be good, as we do. He does nothave to start the New Year with the resolution to be good, and succeed,bar accidents, in being so till the middle of January. He is just goodall the year round. When a foreigner is told to mount or descend from atram on the near side, it does not occur to him that it would be humanlypossible to secure egress from or ingress to that tram from the off side.
In Brussels once I witnessed a daring attempt by a lawless foreigner toenter a tram from the wrong side. The gate was open: he was standingclose beside it. A line of traffic was in his way: to have got round tothe right side of that tram would have meant missing it. He entered whenthe conductor was not looking, and took his seat. The astonishment ofthe conductor on finding him there was immense. How did he get there?The conductor had been watching the proper entrance, and the man had notpassed him. Later, the true explanation suggested itself to theconductor, but for a while he hesitated to accuse a fellow human being ofsuch crime.
He appealed to the passenger himself. Was his presence to be accountedfor by miracle or by sin? The passenger confessed. It was more insorrow than in anger that the conductor requested him at once to leave.This tram was going to be kept respectable. The passenger provedrefractory, a halt was called, and the gendarmerie appealed to. Afterthe manner of policemen, they sprang, as it were, from the ground, andformed up behind an imposing officer, whom I took to be the sergeant. Atfirst the sergeant could hardly believe the conductor’s statement. Eventhen, had the passenger asserted that he had entered by the properentrance, his word would have been taken. Much easier to the foreignofficial mind would it have been to believe that the conductor had beenstricken with temporary blindness, than that man born of woman would havedeliberately done anything expressly forbidden by a printed notice.
Myself, in his case, I should have lied and got the trouble over. But hewas a proud man, or had not much sense—one of the two, and so held fastto the truth. It was pointed out to him that he must descend immediatelyand wait for the next tram. Other gendarmes were arriving from everyquarter: resistance in the circumstances seemed hopeless. He said hewould get down. He made to descend this time by the proper gate, butthat was not justice. He had mounted the wrong side, he must alight onthe wrong side. Accordingly, he was put out amongst the traffic, afterwhich the conductor preached a sermon from the centre of the tram on thedanger of ascents and descents conducted from the wrong quarter.
There is a law throughout Germany—an excellent law it is: I would we hadit in England—that nobody may scatter paper about the street. An Englishmilitary friend told me that, one day in Dresden, unacquainted with thisrule, he tore a long letter he had been reading into some fifty fragmentsand threw them behind him. A policeman stopped him and explained to himquite politely the law upon the subject. My military friend agreed thatit was a very good law, thanked the man for his information, and saidthat for the future he would bear it in mind. That, as the policemanpointed out, would make things right enough for the future, but meanwhileit was necessary to deal with the past—with the fifty or so pieces ofpaper lying scattered about the road and pavement.
My military friend, with a pleasant laugh, confessed he did not see whatwas to be done. The policeman, more imaginative, saw a way out. It wasthat my military friend should set to work and pick up those fifty scrapsof paper. He is an English General on the Retired List, and of imposingappearance: his manner on occasion is haughty. He did not see himself onhis hands and knees in the chief street of Dresden, in the middle of theafternoon, picking up paper.
The German policeman himself admitted that the situation was awkward. Ifthe English General could not accept it there happened to be analternative. It was that the English General should accompany thepoliceman through the streets, followed by the usual crowd, to thenearest prison, some three miles off. It being now four o’clock in theafternoon, they would probably find the judge departed. But the mostcomfortable thing possible in prison cells should be allotted to him, andthe policeman had little doubt that the General, having paid his fine offorty marks, would find himself a free man again in time for lunch thefollowing day. The general suggested hiring a boy to pick up the paper.The policeman referred to the wording of the law, and found that thiswould not be permitted.
“I thought the matter out,” my friend told me, “imagining all thepossible alternatives, including that of knocking the fellow down andmaking a bolt, and came to the conclusion that his first suggestionwould, on the whole, result in the least discomfort. But I had no ideathat picking up small scraps of thin paper off greasy stones was thebusiness that I found it! It took me nearly ten minutes, and affordedamusement, I calculate, to over a thousand people. But it is a good law,mind you: all I wish is that I had known it beforehand.”
On one occasion I accompanied an American lady to a German Opera House.The taking-off of hats in the German Schausspielhaus is obligatory, andagain I would it were so in England. But the American lady is accustomedto disregard rules made by mere man. She explained to the doorkeeperthat she was going to wear her hat. He, on his side, explained to herthat she was not: they were both a bit short with one another. I tookthe opportunity to turn aside and buy a programme: the fewer people thereare mixed up in an argument, I always think, the better.
My companion explained quite frankly to the doorkeeper that it did notmatter what he said, she was not going to take any notice of him. He didnot look a talkative man at any time, and, maybe, this announcementfurther discouraged him. In any case, he made no attempt to answer. Allhe did was to stand in the centre of the doorway with a far-away look inhis eyes. The doorway was some four feet wide: he was about three feetsix across, and weighed about twenty stone. As I explained, I was busybuying a programme, and when I returned my friend had her hat in herhand, and was digging pins into it: I think she was trying to makebelieve it was the heart of the doorkeeper. She did not want to listento the opera, she wanted to talk all the time about that doorkeeper, butthe people round us would not even let her do that.
She has spent three winters in Germany since then. Now when she feelslike passing through a door that is standing wide open just in front ofher, and which leads to just the place she wants to get to, and anofficial shakes his head at her, and explains that she must not, but mustgo up two flights of stairs and along a corridor and down another flightof stairs, and so get to her place that way, she apologises for her errorand trots off looking ashamed of herself.
Continental Governments have trained their citizens to perfection.Obedience is the Continent’s first law. The story that is told of aSpanish king who was nearly drowned because the particular official whoseduty it was to dive in after Spanish kings when they tumbled out of boatshappened to be dead, and his successor had not yet been appointed, I canquite believe. On the Continental railways if you ride second class witha first-class ticket you render yourself liable to imprisonment. Whatthe penalty is for riding first with a second-class ticket I cannotsay—probably death, though a friend of mine came very near on oneoccasion to finding out.
All would have gone well with him if he had not been so darned honest.He is one of those men who pride themselves on being honest. I believehe takes a positive pleasure in being honest. He had purchased asecond-class ticket for a station up a mountain, but meeting, by chanceon the platform, a lady acquaintance, had gone with her into afirst-class apartment. On arriving at the journey’s end he explained tothe collector what he had done, and, with his purse in his hand, demandedto know the difference. They took him into a room and locked the door.They wrote out his confession and read it over to him, and made him signit, and then they sent for a policeman.
The policeman cross-examined him for about a quarter of an hour. Theydid not believe the story about the lady. Where was the lady? He didnot know. They searched the neighbour
hood for her, but could not findher. He suggested—what turned out to be the truth—that, tired ofloitering about the station, she had gone up the mountain. An Anarchistoutrage had occurred in the neighbouring town some months before. Thepoliceman suggested searching for bombs. Fortunately, a Cook’s agent,returning with a party of tourists, arrived upon the scene, and took itupon himself to explain in delicate language that my friend was a bit ofan ass and could not tell first class from second. It was the redcushions that had deceived my friend: he thought it was first class, as amatter of fact it was second class.
Everybody breathed again. The confession was torn up amid universal joy:and then the fool of a ticket collector wanted to know about the lady—whomust have travelled in a second-class compartment with a first-classticket. It looked as if a bad time were in store for her on her returnto the station.
But the admirable representative of Cook was again equal to the occasion.He explained that my friend was also a bit of a liar. When he said hehad travelled with this lady he was merely boasting. He would like tohave travelled with her, that was all he meant, only his German wasshaky. Joy once more entered upon the scene. My friend’s characterappeared to be re-established. He was not the abandoned wretch for whomthey had taken him—only, apparently, a wandering idiot. Such an one theGerman official could respect. At the expense of such an one the Germanofficial even consented to drink beer.
Not only the foreign man, woman and child, but the foreign dog is borngood. In England, if you happen to be the possessor of a dog, much ofyour time is taken up dragging him out of fights, quarrelling with thepossessor of the other dog as to which began it, explaining to irateelderly ladies that he did not kill the cat, that the cat must have diedof heart disease while running across the road, assuring disbelievinggame-keepers that he is not your dog, that you have not the faintestnotion whose dog he is. With the foreign dog, life is a peacefulproceeding. When the foreign dog sees a row, tears spring to his eyes:he hastens on and tries to find a policeman. When the foreign dog sees acat in a hurry, he stands aside to allow her to pass. They dress theforeign dog—some of them—in a little coat, with a pocket for hishandkerchief, and put shoes on his feet. They have not given him ahat—not yet. When they do, he will contrive by some means or another toraise it politely when he meets a cat he thinks he knows.
One morning, in a Continental city, I came across a disturbance—it mightbe more correct to say the disturbance came across me: it swept down uponme, enveloped me before I knew that I was in it. A fox-terrier it was,belonging to a very young lady—it was when the disturbance was to acertain extent over that we discovered he belonged to this young lady.She arrived towards the end of the disturbance, very much out of breath:she had been running for a mile, poor girl, and shouting most of the way.When she looked round and saw all the things that had happened, and hadhad other things that she had missed explained to her, she burst intotears. An English owner of that fox-terrier would have given one lookround and then have jumped upon the nearest tram going anywhere. But, asI have said, the foreigner is born good. I left her giving her name andaddress to seven different people.
But it was about the dog I wished to speak more particularly. He hadcommenced innocently enough, trying to catch a sparrow. Nothing delightsa sparrow more than being chased by a dog. A dozen times he thought hehad the sparrow. Then another dog had got in his way. I don’t know whatthey call this breed of dog, but abroad it is popular: it has no tail andlooks like a pig—when things are going well with it. This particularspecimen, when I saw him, looked more like part of a doormat. Thefox-terrier had seized it by the scruff of the neck and had rolled itover into the gutter just in front of a motor cycle. Its owner, a largelady, had darted out to save it, and had collided with the motor cyclist.The large lady had been thrown some half a dozen yards against an Italianboy carrying a tray load of plaster images.
I have seen a good deal of trouble in my life, but never one yet that didnot have an Italian image-vendor somehow or other mixed up in it. Wherethese boys hide in times of peace is a mystery. The chance of beingupset brings them out as sunshine brings out flies. The motor cycle haddashed into a little milk-cart and had spread it out neatly in the middleof the tram lines. The tram traffic looked like being stopped for aquarter of an hour; but the idea of every approaching tram driverappeared to be that if he rang his bell with sufficient vigor thisseeming obstruction would fade away and disappear.
In an English town all this would not have attracted much attention.Somebody would have explained that a dog was the original cause, and thewhole series of events would have appeared ordinary and natural. Uponthese foreigners the fear descended that the Almighty, for some reason,was angry with them. A policeman ran to catch the dog.
The delighted dog rushed backwards, barking furiously, and tried to throwup paving stones with its hind legs. That frightened a nursemaid who waswheeling a perambulator, and then it was that I entered into theproceedings. Seated on the edge of the pavement, with a perambulator onone side of me and a howling baby on the other, I told that dog what Ithought of him.
Forgetful that I was in a foreign land—that he might not understand me—Itold it him in English, I told it him at length, I told it very loud andclear. He stood a yard in front of me, listening to me with anexpression of ecstatic joy I have never before or since seen equalled onany face, human or canine. He drank it in as though it had been musicfrom Paradise.
“Where have I heard that song before?” he seemed to be saying to himself,“the old familiar language they used to talk to me when I was young?”
He approached nearer to me; there were almost tears in his eyes when Ihad finished.
“Say it again!” he seemed to be asking of me. “Oh! say it all overagain, the dear old English oaths and curses that in this God-forsakenland I never hoped to hear again.”
I learnt from the young lady that he was an English-born fox-terrier.That explained everything. The foreign dog does not do this sort ofthing. The foreigner is born good: that is why we hate him.
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