AMERICANS IN EUROPE.

Bush Advocate, Volume XX, Issue 939, 5 February 1908, Page 7

AMERICANS IN EUROPE.

Mr Vaiu-o Thompson lui.s :ui iirticle in Mimsoy's on thp- American social invasion ol" Europe." According to him, the invasion is enLiroly duo to tho American girl. It is she who has? battered down tho walls of Kuropoan exclusion. Nor .is it dollars iilono lli.-it have won the victory. C.Vi'tainly n European nobleman rrrjuiros a dowry with his bride, but the American fiirl has qualities which compel European society to admit her on terms of equality. "Is it the clear hole, capable assured frank? The freedom from excess of sentimentality"—from the almost pathetic coquetry of the woman who must please? to live?'' Whatever are the characteristic qualities of the- American girl, she may be distinguished easily among Frenchwomen, though she gets her hats and gowns ill Paris. Hutit is not true that American women who havo married into the. aristocracy of Europe have Americanised that aristocracy. When the American girl marries a duke slie becomes ducal. "Upon her descends the occult prestige of tho nobility," and in thought aud action she becomes aristocratic. But the great army of American tourists have had a marked effect on European society. They have not brought European simplicity with them across the Atlantic, but dazzling extravagance^ 'Tor them the huge hotels, ornate, complete, expensive, have- been erected, dotting the map' with gilt and marble, excrescences from Naples to Berlin, from Paris to the Nile. For them the 'trains de luxe' traverse all lands with rolling restaurants and beds. And they it is who have raised the scale of life — in cost and comfort — tho world over. This, be it said, is the- chief reproach brought against them. They have set a bad example to the Old World, and arc educating it into ways of Yankee extravagance." It is estimated that 20,000 Americans make their homes, more or less permanently, in Paris. As for London, it has been said that the Americanisa.tion\>f it is as palpable as tho llussification of Poland. Boston, St. Louis, Denver, aiid Baltimore are said to bo nearer Parrs than many of the French provincial cities, and nearer London than many an English town.