Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, November 30, 1902, Page 30

Swi ‘AT EVERY STEP YOU MEET A PRETTY SWISS GIRL IN A WHITE CAP." (Copyright, 1902, by Frank G. Carpenter.) UCERNE, Nov. 19.—(8pecial Cor- respondence of The Bee.)—1 heard a striking American in- vaslon proposition the other day. Its enunciator was Adolph Frankenthal, our consul at Berne. He made it in jest, but it might lead to matters of earnest. It is that our trust magnates should monopolize Switzerland Yor money- making purposes Frankenthal says they could turn the country into a sightseeing park and drain the pockets of the world's traveling public. They could buy the water powers and thus concentrate its indus- tries, and by the addition of electricity multiply their cutput a hundred fold. rndecd, the tourist business might easily he controlled by a trust, and with it this enormous hotel industry, which now an- nually brings in many millions. All that would be necessary would be to buy the best of the hotels which control the most beautiful views and then to organize a system by which cut-and-dried coupon ckets could be furnished, taking the trav- eler from his home in Europe or the United States and returning him there after his tour at a fixed price. He could thus know to a cent what his trip was to cost. The tips, which now amount to about 35 per cent of one's expenses, could be cut off and the increase in comfort would be enormous. This is the gist of Consul Frankenthal's proposition. Since then I have looked fur- ther into the matter and can give you some facts as to the vast sum Switzerland is making out of the foreigners. The hotel business In this country is enormous. Switzerland is just twice the size of Massachusetts, but its hotels and boarding houses are crowded into a com- pass of less than half its area. Neverthe- less it has 1,900 hotels, and it is estimated that there is $120,000,000 in the business. The hotels now take in about $30,000,000 a year and a large percentage of this is profit. About half of them are open all the year round, and during the summer all are crowded. Travelers to the number of almost 3,000,000 swarm into Switzer- land from all parts of the worid. They wan- der about from hotel to hotel and from one view to another, dropping their money at every turn Indeed, the receipts of the hotels during good years are more than the receipts of the government, and their army of employes is larger than our stand- ing army was at the beginning of the Span- ish-American war. There are about 28,000 men and women employed in them, and of these 12,00 are females. A trust could materially cut down the cost of running these hotels, for it would buy things in gquantities. As it is now it is estimated that more than $15,000,000 a year is spent for provisions and help. About $8,000,000 goes into the kitchens, which in one season consume $70,000 worth of cheese, ,000 worth of tea, $5600,000 worth of cof- fee and more than $100,000 worth of sugar. It costs the hotels every season at least $3,000,000 for bread, $400,000 for butter and $3,600,000 for vegetables and jams All these things are bought in driblets, each hotel paying for its own. The trust could run a central supply station and make div- {dendd out of its savings in purchases alone A general impression prevails in the United States that traveling in Switzer- ss Hotels as SS IOtCIs as land is cheap. 1 do not find it so. The rates at the better class hotels are not far from the rates at similar hotels in the United States, None of the 1,900 hotels I have referred to charge less than §1 a day, and the ordinary traveler finds that his ex penses run up to over $5. You pay so much for your room, and then, like as not, some- thing more for light and attendance It you breakfast in your bed room an extra charge is made, and the table d'ho. dinner now costs a dollar and upward. Everything extra must be paid for, and some of the hosts are little more than high- traveling best robbers whose foreigners way victims are 1 do not know that the railroads of Swit- zerland could be acquired by any trust, but they are certainly profitable In 1500 they paid a net profit of over $11,000,000, and their travel is increasing every year. Only four years ago the government decided to buy them, and the transfer of the lines from private parties to the state is now tndcr way. The roads, including the tram- way, have a length of about 2,500 miles, and there are so many rack and cable lines running up the sides of the mountains to access to the beautiful that “Every Alp has now a like a pair of suspend give views Mark Twain Indder up its back ers." One of the things of the govern- ment railway system is its general season tickets or passes, which include all Switz- erland. The railroad companies will sell you a ticket for two weeks, a month, a quarter or a year which you can use for that time on all the railroads and steam- boats of Switzerland. These tickets are sold at fixed prices, and they have to be ordered at least two hours before leaving time You must furnish an unmounted photograph of yourself, which is pasted on the ticket A two weeks' ticket the Swiss roads costs, according to from $7.50 to $12, and a monthly ticket from $10 to $20. It you travel third-class the price is $10; gocond-class, $14, or fi $20 For three months the rates are $24, $34 and $48, and for the year, $60, $84 and $120. This means that for $120 you could start in on January 1 and keep traveling day and night says, nicest over all class, class, on Swiss trains and steamboats, with the very best accommodations, until December 31, without extra charge. Such tickets are sold to anyone who asks for them I like the Swiss railroads. 'The cars are about the same as ours. There is a pass- ageway through the center, with doors at each end. The seats of the second-class are upholstered in velvet; they are clean and comfortable The windows are in brass frames, and they can be dropped down ou* of sight when you wish to look out. The express trains have dining cars called “wagon restaurants,” and the din- ing car porter comes through and calls out that dinner is ready in French, English and German. The Swiss roads are well ballasted and well kept The tracks are watched for avalanches and landslides, and at every crossing stands a bareheaded girl with a red flag, to warn all that the train {s coming. At every station you find from a dozen to a scare eof hotel porters, in livery, each bearing name of his hotel on his cap. These notes are written at Lucerne, under the shadow of the Pilatus and the Rigi. | went across the lake to Vitznau the othe day and took a ride to the top of Mount Rigl on one of the first of Switzerland's mountain lines. It is built on the same principle as that up Pike's Peak. The cars ere open, and they are pushed by a little engine behind. The views are magnificent There are no sides to the cars and you rise slowly above Lake Lucerne, which flows in and out like a mighty river through the moun- tains you are climbing. Now the view is hidden by trees, tall, lean maples wall the sides of the tracks and the banks are cov- ered with dandelions, daisies and red clover. Higher up the lake view widens, moun- tainous islands rise out of the water like green monsters rearing their heads. Mount Pilatus comes into view. Its sides are gray and hoary and the snow in its crevices marks the wrinkles in its withered old face. You crawl along ravines with preci pices hundreds of feet below you The snowy range of the Alps broadens as you go upward and at last you reach the top, with one of the most beautiful views of the world spread out before you. Just below is the Lake of the Four Cantons with a score of Swiss cities and villages dotting its shaded shores, and all about you, walling the horizon, are the mighty Alps, giving you a view of mountain grandeur at least 120 miles long. The peaks of the Alps are covered with snow and the snow lies in drifts and masses in the rocks. In places it has formed mighty glaciers, great rivers of ice, which are slowly but imperceptibly flowing toward the valleys below. You are so high that everything is dwarfed. The steamers upon the lakes look like toy boats, the barns and houses of the peasants have dwindled to the Noah's arks of the toy stores and the great hotels are dwarfed into cot- tages. What a place for meditation. The gran- deur of the mountains is indescribable and you can appreciate the feeling of the cow boy who, coming into Switzerlard at n'ght awoke to find himself surrourded by theso mighty hills He gazed and gazed, with tears in his eyes, and at last threw up his a “EVERY ALP FENDERS.” NOW HAS A LADDER UP ITS BACK, LIKE A MR. CARPENTER AND ENGINE AT THE FOOT OF THE RIGIL hat and in stentorian tones cried out, ‘Hurrah for God!" The Alps have a beauty of their own which in many respects surpasses that of the Himalayas or the Andes, although the latter ranges are more stupendous in their grandeur. It is only the tops of the Alps that are bleak and bare. The valleys are covered with verdure, and there are nests everywhere in the hills good for pastures and gardens. These mountains are of in- calculable value to Europe. Bleak and bare as the tops look, it is this very cold, evi- denced by the snow upon them, which the rain from the winds, and through the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube and the Po gives Germany, Austria, France and ltaly the water that makes their lands tillable. It is the Alps which furnish the water for the great river trade routes of Europe and which indirectly have made this continent the most civilized and best part of the world The the beauty of the Alps is the Swiss tendency to turn every rock and view and every cubic foot of ozcne over to the traveler at so much per minute, The sublimity in God's mountains is ped- dled out for a consideration. There is not a beautiful view unmarred Svery place has its hotel. On the very mountain tops you find men selling alpenstocks and pic- ture postal cards. On the Rigi I was offered a genuine St. Bernard puppy, and was shown kennels in which the Swiss raise them to make money, out of the legend that they sometimes rescue lost tourists. As for that, however, I learn that the St, Bernard dogs have long since lost their job. The various kept by the monks are now connected with all parts of the moun- tains by telephon and the lost party is squeezes blot on hospices ecasily found by the trackers going from post to post On top of the Rigi is a big hotel, the Rigi-kulm, where you can get a dinner for $1 and full board for about $3 a day, and there are other hotels scattered from the bottom all the way to the top. If you go to sleep at the top you will hear the toot of an Alpine horn a half hour before sun- rise, waking you up for the view, and throughout the day a piper plays to the tourists and comes around and pokes his tin collection plate under your nose for pennies. At every step you meet a pretty Swiss girl in a white cap, who Inveigles you into buying pressed flowers and edel- weis, and the picture postal woman has her stand at every beautiful point, with half tone reproductions of the same, which she offers you for two cents aplece. Indeed, the postal card business is fast becoming an important one all over Eu- rope. There are thousands of stores on the continent which sell nothing else, and in Switzerland you cannot travel five miles without seeing a postal card stand. Postal cards are sold at the railroad stations, at the drinking places, at every hotel and restaurant and even in the postoffices themselves. I mean by this there are stanas in the pcstofices, separate and apart from the stamp windows, which sell cards bearing pictures upon which you must put an ad- ditional stamp before they can go. Such cards are found in all the department stores at reduced prices, and boys and men peddle them about the streeis. In Geneva 1 saw a woman pushing a cart which loaded with such cards, and while eating my dinner at restaurants outside the hotel I frequently have a package of cards on the table, telling me leok them over and see if I don’t want to buy. These cards have half tone engravings of the public buildings and views of the vi- cinity. Some bear the coat-of-arms cf the town, as in Berne, where the bear is the mascot for everything. Some, beautifully colored, represent the types and costumes of the neighborhood. Others are comic and some are fancifully artistic. Some, especially those of France and Germany, are indecent, and of such a character that they would not pass through our mai's but others are as beautiful as chromos and suitable for framing. The cards sell from 1 to 10 cents. Some are in sets and others single. Such cards are now made was made a man drop down Ficld for Trust Operations in every country, and you can buy Ger- man, English, French and Italian cards almost everywhere. The most of the cards have little more than a place for the stamp and address upon them, the other side being given up to a picture, with only room for one or two lines in writing. The card saves the trouble of writing letters to your friends and at the same time en- ables you to show that you remember them I have said that the busine It brings the government more than ‘w""""" a year The ¢ ss is a big onc of Switzerland in extra stamps untry uses about 40,000,000 postal cards for internal communications and 13,- (00,000 for the foreign mails. This, at 2 cents apiece, brings in an annual revenuc of $310,000, and the car ell for at least that much more The people here use more postal cards in proporiion to their numbes than any other nation of Eurdpe Switzerland has as good a postal service as you will find anywhere It has about 16,000 postoffices and abeut 2,000 letter boxes, and it deliver mail to the very tops of the Alps. The po:tal service does many things that our officials would not think cf doing. It acts as banker and ex Press compi for the peopl It will col leet your bi for you and bring the mouy to the house. If you live in Switzerland and a man cwes you, say $2, all you have to do is to send him a bill for the amount in a sealed letter with a word or two to the postoffice on the oulside of the en- velope, and in addition a 2-cent stamp This stamp pays the postoffice for its trouble in collecting and delivering the money to you. The charge is 1 per cent of the amount collected. If the bill is §$10 you pay 10 cents, and if $50, 50 cents, and will be collected in any 1d. If payment is refused for this the mone part of Switzerl: however, the government will not enforce the collection. After the same manner all sorts of goods are sent out C. O. D. by the stores and farmers. You can order gcods of any stor in Switzerland and the postman will bring you the package and €end back the money. Farmers forward their butter and chick- ens through the mails, and I know of two American consuls who thus order live tur ul Lieber Thanks- chickens and ducks. Co1 knecht of Zurich got his last year keys, giving turkey from Austria thrcugh the mails and sent back the money in the same way, and Consul Frankenthal gets 1 his fowls from the lower Danube They ar shipped through the postoffice and the post- men being the live fowls to his door and returns the money to the Hungarian farm ers who raise them. If this could by our postoffice what an opening it would give the American farmer in the direct of his products to the consumers. FRANK G. CARPENTER be done sale Pointed Paragraphs Chicago News rank is some Every man knows that a other fellow. A rcpe often gets tight because that is the way it is taut. The man willing to usually unable to help himself. who is help you is It is a curious psychological fact man can be in a dozen different Some men into the world asking “Why?" but no one is able to answer. It is the wh 5 are on some other that a minds come easy to have n the boi patience of Job fellow. The politician absorbs a lot of liquids in crder to make himself solid with the boy \vcid abbreviations in wriling you will get into the otherwis: habit of breaking your word. Employes may not be meddlescme, yeot they are always minding somebody els business. Policemen should be successful specula tors; so many servant girls let the ground floor. Death struggles nothing in of some them in on are comparison people to live sad, with but they are the struggles Don’t snub a man because he A watermelon has a similar usually all right at hecart When some men talk, others are apt o regret that automatic ear-closers have not yet been placed upon the market Time flies- believe it minutes for leoks gre look, but it is n. but you can’t who is make compelled to a train at the wait a country station man five Uncle Ephraim’s A catfish on de watah. Ef yo' don't pull dig up a crap Maxims line is wort a whale in de up de weeds yo' won't De highah de white collah, de colahed pussen looks. blackah de De biggest shoutah ain’'t de de contribushun plattah man what sees When de 'possum thinks he's slyest he closest to de fryin' pan Sleep’s mighty good, but de rabbit ain't a-gwine to wake de gunnah Emptyin' de pantry for dinnah ain't a gwine to set de table fer suppah Cole pertaters from yo' own patch is bet- tah dan chicken from yo' neighbor's coop Youths' Companion: D is greenest in de rind may heart watermillion dat hab de reddest De man what's allers gibin' away giner ally has to go a-borrowin' to de keeps what he gits man what