Continental Excursions. Cautions for the First Tour. By Viator Fenix,
M.A., M.R.I. (Ridgway.)-The object of this pamphlet is to warn all gentlemen who may be intending to travel on the Continent with ladies, of "the annoyances, shortcomings, indecencies, and im- positions," to which they will be exposed. Many of Viator's troubles are of an absurdly trivial kind, as, for instance, when he complains of the "annoying publicity" of the walk from the steamer to the Custom-house at a French port, and of the existence in French hotels of clocks that don't go and bells that won't ring ; and, although many of the inconveniences which he mentions are of a less unimportant nature, still their existence is invariably so well known as to render any description of them a complete work of supererogation. But the portion of Viator's pamphlet which is at once the most objectionable and the most elaborate is that which treats of the want of proper sanitary arrangements in most foreign hotels. That such a deficiency is almost universal is so well- known a fact that it was scarcely necessary to mention it at all ; and we might, at any rate, have expected that, if it were noticed at all, con- siderations of common decency would have led to its being indicated in the most cursory manner. Viator, however, prefers dwelling upon it with an almost incredible minuteness of detail, and winds up by pro- posing a remedy which many travellers would, we imagine, consider worse than the disease. The two most important of Viator's grievances are the Judas notes and the cheating propensities of foreign railway clerks, to both of which public attention has frequently been directed by letters to the Times.
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