Buster Brown's
European Trip.
Saturday, June 11, 1903
manitoba Free Press
BUSTER BROWN’S EUROPEAN TRIP.
Manitoba Free Press, Winnipeg, Saturday, June 11, 1903.
Buster Brown’s father, Mr. R. F. Outcault, the artist whose work delights thousands each week has gone to Europe to spend the summer in the big capitals. His friends gave him an ovation when he sailed on the Kron Prinz from New York with Buster Brown and the dog Tige. Mr. Outcault does not visit the Old World as a stranger, for it was in Paris that he had one of the biggest studios through a two years’ residence in that city.
Now that he has achieved success and fame he hopes to see Europe in a leisurely possible way when not banqueted by friends and admirers of his heart-warming creations. Like many U. S. ---- candidates Mr. Outcault is ---- and Atlantic Coast finish. After graduating from the Ohio university he became a modest playwright and once he had won applause and money then ----(moved?) into art, and after a few year’s stay in France came to New York and began his series of humorous ---(sketches ?) of life and scenes in New York.portraying distinct types of juvenile---(characters ?). With Dickens-like touch he created the Yellow Kid, Poor Lil’ Mose, and finally that unrivalled masterpiece of boy humanity for the New York Herald Sunday edition, Buster Brown, which is the pet of every household and all languages from Honolulu to Paris and St. Petersburg being one of the Sunday Features of the European edition of the Herald in Paris.
Buster Brown in Business.
In the United States Buster Brown has become a fad and fashion in business. First there were Buster Brown books, primers, toys and games of all kinds; now the stores are selling Buster Brown shoes, stockings, shirts, pajamas, caps, sweaters and twenty other articles as necessary as bread and meat, and something that boys and families must have.
Three hundred thousand dozen of buster Brown stockings have been sold in a single week, and that did not supply the demand. One merchant, having a rush order in the west, spent $25 in telephoning from Chicago to New York for a carload of Buster Brown stockings. It was the biggest jobbing order his house had received for stockings in twenty years.
A visitor to the big Arkwright club down town in New York, composed of dry goods merchants, manufacturers and importers, says that the chief topic of conversation at luncheon is the new brand of Buster Brown goods of various kinds. But the Buster Brown craze is not confined to dry goods. fancy groceries are coming into market with the Buster Brown label on specialties from breakfast food to cookies.
The up-to-date citizen rises in the morning, discards his Buster Brown pajamas for a Buster Brown bathrobe, takes a dip in his tub with a new cake of Buster Brown soap, and polishes himself off with a Buster Brown brush. then he breakfasts on Buster Brown breakfast food while he turns to Buster Brown pictures as a "digester" and laughs and grows fat.
Entire factories are running overtime to catch up with the orders for Buster Brown toy books and games. One firm has forty expert salesmen on the road selling Buster Brown novelties and another has an equal number of men out taking orders for Buster Brown shoes.
Angels Know Buster Brown.
A Cincinnati merchant visiting New York went to Flushing to shake hands with Mr. Outcault, the father of Buster Brown, whose popularity had increased his business thousands of dollars. The stranger asked a group of men in a drugstore where the artist could be found. "Never heard of him," chorused three men at once.
"I mean Buster Brown."
"Oh ! Up there - walk three blocks up Main Street, turn to the left and you’ll find his house, number three from the corner."
Every man, woman and child in Flushing and all the angels above know where Buster Brown lives. Buster Brown is now with his father, doing Europe. On the day of sailing Mr. Outcault said : "The boy will have the time of his life. Tige goes with him. Our family doctor advised the voyage ; said Buster had been in so much mischief lately, doing circus stunts, planting ducks in his garden, giving lions red pepper, teaching the monkey to spout red ink through the speaking tube to the cook in the kitchen - these and a hundred other pranks had pulled the kid down a bit, and the doctor thought that a month or two of sea air and European gayety would keep Buster Brown up to his best records in mischief and fun."
B. B. and the Custom House.
Writing from abroad, Mr. Outcault says that when the custom house officials at the Bremen landing discovered Buster Brown was among the passengers, they doffed their hats to, and were wary of examining his baggage. He had seven trunks. They were afraid of dynamite or bear traps, that might cause the crowd to laugh at their expense, so they chalked the luggage "O.K." and Buster passed the custom house with a wagon-load of trunks and Tige riding in triumph on top of them.
On the trip over Buster Brown studied German day and night. The boy already had a fair knowledge of French and by the time the steamer reached Bremen Tige was eating sauerkraut and Buster Brown speaking German fluently. On sighting land he burst into the native language of the country.
They visited Holland, where Buster wore wooden shoes and told stories to the Dutch boys, while Tige made friends with the dogs. They inspected the windmills, and fell into the big canal to see how long the Dutchman on he bank drinking beer would be in rescuing Buster.
In Berlin Buster Brown expects to have a private interview with the little Kaisers and learn what their papa really thinks of the late Bismarck and his policy. In Paris Buster will try his French accent on the confectionary shops. In England he will be the guest of several clubs and perhaps accept invitations to the big palaces where the Prince of Wales’s kids have Buster Brown pictures pasted on the walls.
Saw a Serpent.
During the voyage over Buster says he saw a sea serpent twice as long as Main Street, in Flushing. He investigated and found that the sea serpent drank nothing stronger than water and did not remove the spots from his back nor the rings from his neck when he retired for the night among the willows.
Taken all in all the trip is an event in Buster Brown’s life. He remarked to Tige that none of the great men of the past - Alexander, nor Caesar, Socrates nor Gorman of Maryland - sailed the ocean on a German steamer. Tige listened, wagged his tail three times and barked that every word of it was true. the adventures of buster Brown in Europe will appear in the Free Press during the summer months.