Tired professional or business men make it
constantly, under the pretence that it is the only way they can get
"a real holiday." Journalists make it as the only way of getting out
of their heads such disgusting topics as Croker and Gilroy, and Hill
and Murphy. Rich people make it every year, or oftener, through mere
restlessness. We are now leaving out of account, of course,
immigrants born in the Old World, who go back to see their friends.
We are talking of native Americans. Of course, all native Americans
cannot go, because, even when they can afford it, they cannot always
get the time. But we venture on the proposition that there is hardly
any American "in this broad land," as members of Congress say, who,
having both time and money, has not gone to Europe, or does not mean
to go some day or other. So that, if Mrs. Stevenson's account of the
moral effects of the voyage were true, it would show that the very
best portion of our population, the most moral, the most religious,
and the most educated were constantly exposing themselves by tens of
thousands to most debasing influences.
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