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130 THROUGH NORWAY WITII A KNAPSACK.
This incident reminded me of several facts I have
observed of late, tending to show that a change is
coming over the spirit of travelling Englishmen. That
stupid ostentation of expenditure, which was once a
recognised characteristic of Englishmen, is now much
less frequent; and all experienced tourists that I have
recently met condemn it most heartily. It is well
known that in Switzerland, or any other country where
English swarm, the track of their wanderings is
indicated by a trail of corruption. The character of
hotel-keepers, waiters, guides, and all with whom they come
in contact, is lowered. A people originally
simple-minded, dignified, honest, and truly obliging, become
servile, greedy, and extortionate, through the folly of
some of our countrymen, who are mean enough to fling
their money about in exchange for a flunkeyish
adulation, which any man endowed with wholesome pride can
only regard as despicable and insulting ! The number
of these essentially vulgar-minded people is decidedly
diminishing; and this form of folly is now chiefly
confined to very youthful puppies, or very raw tourists,
who have just made their first escape from behind
the counter, and are intoxicated with their own
enterprise in venturing beyond Gravesend. A few of the
modern French fops who wear light Newmarket coats,
with vest and trousers of the same pattern, and keep a
" bouledogue," a cab, and an English groom whom they
call " Tom," do the same. These melancholy examples
are very useful to us, for nothing is better calculated to
make Englishmen disgusted with their own follies, than
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