Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, June 29, 1902, Page 30

Fight ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL, LIGHTED Copyright, 1902, by Frank G. Carpenter.) ONDON, June 19.—(Special Corre- spondence of The Bee.)—A merry war is golng on between the Brit- fsh Imperial Tobacco combina tion and the American Tobacco For years the Britishers have trust monopolized the tobacco sales of the United Kingdom. They have made the greater part of the cigars, cigarettes and tobacco used, and there are today about 600 tobacco factories in operation In different parts of the country. The American Tobacco Trust made its first Invasion some years ARO. It began by attempting to purchase the biggest of the British tobacco firms, but falled, so it took the second. This was known as Ogden's, a tobacco combination, with stock selling at a market value of a littles over $3,000,000. The trust pald a premium of $900,000 to get control of the business and at once began to push the sales of Yankee-made tobacco after Ameri- can methods. It was making rapld inroads upon the business of the Britishers when the Imperial Tobacco company was formed to oppose it. This company now consists of a trust comprising thirteen of the chief firms in the British tobacco trade and cov- ering all parts of the country. The two trusts are now fighting each other for all they are worth and the con- test excites great interest among all classes. The newspapers are full of it. They pub- lish daily articles concerning Mr. Duke, the American tobacco king, and his plans, and the best displayed advertisements are lhose of the rival companies. Yesterday it was sald that stores would be established in every village of the United Kingdom for the sale of American-made tobacco and today it is reported that the American syndicate has offered $86,000,000 a year to the French government for the monopoly of the tobacco business of France, which {s now run by the state. The end may be that the Americans will establish enormous factories here under British names and make their cigarettes and cigars with Brit- ish labor. Down with Yankee Momnopolies. The British tobacconists are much ex- cited over this teature of the invasion. They publish requests for the people to down the Yankee monopolies and buy English to- bacco, and over their stores you may see signs urging all patriotic Enghishmen to smoke cigarettes and cigars made at home. 1 paid a ehilling for a poster which I saw in a clgar shop near London bridge this morning. It is a cigar advertisement backed with a British flag and addressed to the British public, It reads: “Americans whose markets are closed by prohibitive tariffe agalnst British goods have declared thelir intention of monopoliz- ing the Tobacco Trade of this Country. “It is for the British public to decide whether British Labor, Capital and Trade are to be subordinated to the American sys- tem of Trust Monopoly and all that is lm- plied therein. “The Imperial Tobacco - company s an amalgamation of British manufaciurers who have closed their ranks with the de- termination to hold the British Trade for the British People. “Its aim is to provide the vast smoking of WITH AMERICAN ELECTRIC LAMPS. public with Cigarettes and Tobacco made solely by means of British Labor and Capl- tal,” etc., etc It seems to me there are more cigar shops than grocery stores in London. You find them on every corner and in every block. They are different from our American es- tablishments. The shops are small and the most of the goods are in the windows. Little taste is shown in display and box after box of cigars and cigarettes, with the covers off and the tobacco showing, are plled one on top of the other until the win- dow s full. BEvery tobacconist sells pipes and to- bacco pouches. There are different brands of fine cut and plug and all sorts of emok- ing tobaccos. More smoking is done by means of pipes than cigars, and every other man you meet has a short briarwood pipe in his mouth. This is especially so of the poorer classes The British are great smokers. They consumed $25,000,000 worth of tobacco last year and nine-tenths of the product came from the United States. Bit of Tobacco History. They have always gotten the most of their tobacco from us. The weed was first imported by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1586, and later on it became one of the chief articles of trade between the colonies and Great Britain. Some tobacco was planted in Eng- land during the time of James I. Tobacco smoking had become general among the up- per classes, and both ladies and gentlemen smoked. King James denounced the cus- tom. He prohibited its cultivation in Eng- land. Cromwell did the same and ordered his soldiers to tramp down the tobacco crops wherever they found them. Charles II tried to restrict our tobacco trade to England. He forbade the colonles to ship the product elsewhere, and the re- sult was the ruination of the Virginia to- bacco industry and the rebellion of the Vir- ginia planters in 1676, which was in reality the commencement of the struggle which culminated in the American revolution and our independence. In those days the Eng- lish had the monopoly and the profits. Now the Americans are coming to the front, and the probability is that our trust will even up the exactions of the past. I don't know the amount of capital pos- sessed by the Imperial Tobacco company, but it runs high into the tens of millions. The American Tobacco company, incorpo- rated in 1890, had a capital of $25,000,000, and in 1901 it had so added to its holdings that its outstanding securities aggregated $70,000,000. The Continental Tobacco com- pany, organized in 1898, has a capital stock and securities of about $100,000,000, and there are other companies which represent millions more. It is safe to say that the tobacco companies of America altogether have a capital of at least $150,000,000, and that wost of them are more or less inter- ested in this fight. Americean Tracks on Old Landmarks th Everywhere 1 go in London 1 see footsteps of the ubiquitous ‘(ankee. He either on the streets with his carpetbag and samples in the machine shops with his American tools or in the book stores, sup plylng England with his share of its litera- ture. Mark Twain, Joel Chandler Harris, American and British Mary Johnston and other well known American writers are as popular here as at home and their books are sold by the thou- sands. 1 find the American invasion not only in the books, but in the materials of which they are made. I dropped into one of the places immortalized by Dickens the other day to buy a lead pencil and notebook. It was, in fact, the old “Curiosity Shop' about which the great novelist wove the story of “Little Nell.” The sign over the door is that of a stationer named Poole. I asked him for his best lead pencils and he showed me two, which were apparently just alike, but one of which cost twice as much as the other. The expensive lead pencil was made in Austria, costing 10 cents, and the other was almost a fac-simile for 5 cents, but on the back of the second I noticed a stamp showing that it was made by the Eagle Pencil company of New York. The stationer told me that much of his paper came from America. This is especially so of the cheap kinds, the most of the newspapers being printed on paper made of American wood pulp. Speaking of printing, Benjamin Franklin LONGFELLOW'S BUST STER ABBEY. IN WESTMIN- did some of his first printing in London. 1 came upon his old home in one of the houses of Craven street this morning. It {s within a stone's throw of Charing Cross and there is a marble slab on the wall upon which are the words “Benjamin Franklin once lived here.” 1 stumbled across a statue of George Peabody, our first chari- table millionaire, back of the Bank of Eng- land yesterday, and when I entered West- minster Abbey, shortly before it was closed to prepare it for King Edward’'s coronation, 1 found on a yellow card laid on one of the tombs a quotation concerning the beauty ¢f the place from Oliver Wendell Holmes. 1 soon drifted into the poet’'s corner and thore upon the wall just next to a statue of Shakespeare was & most beautiful marb’e bust of our poet, Longfellow, with an in- scription stating that it had been erected by the British admirers of the American poet. You all know something of the wonders of St. Paul's cathedral. It is one of the largest churches of the world and in many respects the most beautiful Many of you have visited it, but I doubt if you have seen the vast structure as I saw it the other day, lighted with the wonderful elec- tric lights in the beautiful fixtures pre- sented to the church by an American trust Tobacco Trusts DICKENS' “OLD CURIOSITY SHOP,” WHERE AMERICAN LEAD PENCILS ARE S OLD. magnate. Pierpont Morgan has furnished the money which enables the English to see the glories of their greatest church, whether the city in which it stands is shrouded in fog or not. I can't describe the beauty of the church under the soft lights of these lamps. It looks far better than in the brightest sun- shine. The church authorities told Mr. Morgan that they could not afford to put in this electricity and he thereupon offered to do it for them. He took $45,000 out of his left breeches pocket and planked it down on the pulpit and told them to go ahead. At any rate, that i{s what It cost at the start. The fixtures are modeled after the origi- nal lamps designed by Sir Christopher Wren and they are in perfect harmony with their surroundings. Some of the most beautiful of them are in the choir, just beyond the dome. They are great chandeliers of gold hanging from the roof, which i{s hundreds of feet higher up. Each chandelier has six lamps, but the rays are filtered through frosted glass and they give the effect of a bright moonlight. As I sat under these lights in the mighty cathedral my mind went back to its wonder- ful history and It seemed to me that I could see the ghosts of its architect, Sir Christopher Wren, and of the hundreds of England's dead now buried there hovering about the lamps in amazed curiosity. St. Paul's dates back to the days of the Romans. Some authorities maintain that a temple of Diana stood here in pagan times and Christopher Wren found the ruins of a church built by the Christians in the days of the Romans when he laid the founda- tion for this structure. There was a Chris- tian church here as far back as 1000 A, D. and there was a cathedral on this spot when the great fire of London came and wiped it out in 1666. Sir Christopher Wren began his work upon the present structure fifteen years later and he lived to see it completed in 1710 He watched the job for twenty-nine vears and in that time received the munifi- cent salary of §1,000 per annum as his architect fee. Nevertheless the cathedral cost $3,700,000 to build. Had Sir Christo- pher r ived the fee of 5 per cent which our architects now demand he would have gotten $185,000 for the job, and after look- ing the building carefully over I am sure it was worth it. How Americans Made a Million. Still men of all sorts worked for less in those days than now. Samuel Johnson, whose grave I mourned over in the church —his statue stands not far from that of the | duke of Wellington—made almost nothing out of his dictionary, his total receipts for his work being less than $8,000, the most of which was eaten up by clerical hire. That dictionary then was as great an undertaking in comparison as the Encyclopaedia Britan- nica is now, and the latter work, which had already run its day in England, made a million dollars for some Americans who brought into Eng'and the Yankee system of selling books through the newspapers. When they first proposed the selling of the encyclopaedia in this way to the London journals the publishers laughed at them. At last, however, they interested the Lon- don Times and through that paper on the | installment plan sold so many books that it is said their profits were £230,000, or $1,250,000. None of the great authors of the past of the present. Oliver Goldsmith died deeply in debt at 46, and during the best part of his life he did not make more than 2,000 a year. All his literary earnings were hardly as great as the price that Scribners pald Barrie for ‘“‘Sentimental made anything to compare with the nulbors‘ Tommy,” and still Goldsmith wrote some of the best selling books of the English lan- guage. It is said that he was the author of “Goody Two Shoes” and a large part of the original ‘“‘Mother Goose,’”” which were published by John Newbery, whose shops were just outside St. Paul's churchyard. Newbery was the first publisher of books for children and thereby the father of the enormous business which is now done in such books in the Anglo-Saxon world. What Morgan Could Neot Buy. Speaking of Pierpont Morgan, he is looked upon here as the Croesus of the twentieth century. The old painting for which he paid $500,000 is now on view in the national gallery. He will leave it there and give the people a chance to see it before he takes it home. The London papers are full of stories of his wealth and power. He is supposed to have so much that he can buy anything or do anything, but I heard just yesterday of one bargain which he failed to make. It was for the services of a mid- dle-aged Englishman, and a poor one at that. The man is the head porter at one of the leading hotels here. He stands at the front door and greets the travelers as they come in, looks after their baggage and gives them all sorts of information as to how tc get about the city and other things. He wears a bright livery, with gold lace on his cap and brass buttons on his coat. He is always ready to accept a fee, and if you don't give him one when you leave he will have his own opinion of you. There are such porters at every hotel. The man whom Morgan coveted had been head butler to one of the best known of English dukes, and, as the story goes, Mr. Morgar wanted him for his American home and offered him the position at a royal salary. To every one's surprise the offer was declined. The porter said he was doing well enough where he was and that he did not care to leave England. It may be that his receipts from tees are so large that he cannot afford to exchange them for the butlership of even so liberal a millionaire as Mr. Morgan. And this brings me to the iniquitous fee system which is in vogue all over Great Britain. You can't turn without finding someone at your elbow rvudy for a fee I have not yet met a man who will not take one, and the more style the official puts on the more sure he is of getting his fees. I have lately gauged my gifts accord- ing to the yards of gold lace and brass buttons, the average being something like a penny or a sixpence a button, according (Continued on Seventh Page.) worst kind of a com- bination, pot only makesthe harness and the | bhorse iock better, but makes the ! Beather soft end pliable, puts it in con- dition to last 8 len Made by STANDARD | sles.