¦^¦'»^i^j

UNCLE SAM AT HOME

BY

HAROLD BRYDGES.

?,v

A^

NEW YORK
HENEY HOLT AND COMPANY
1888

COPIKIGHT, 188S,
BY
HENEY HOLT & CO.

CAS 3&0

DEtJMMOND & Ned", TROW'8
ElectroPjpers, printinqand bookbinding company
New York. new york.

CONTENTS.

PAOB
CHAPTER I.
Where He Lives  7
CHAPTER II.
Uncle Sam's Boys  18
CHAPTER III.
^The Family Girls; with a Disquisition on the
American Bonnet  35
CHAPTER rV".
Patricians and Plebeians  49
CHAPTER V.
The Anglomaniac; with a Note on the Functions
OF THE Dude  61
CHAPTER VI.
A Commentary on the Gospel of Relaxation . . 71
CHAPTER VII.
Social Atavism; or, Old Things under a New
Name  86
CHAPTER VIII.
Cities and Social Sets  109 1

6 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX. PAGE
A Modern Race of Cyclops  123
CHAPTER X.
On Things in General  140
CHAPTER XI.
The Profession of Politics; with a Story of a
Dog  160
CHAPTER XII.
Rbcipeocity in Crimestals  177
CHAPTER XIII.
Uncle Sam's Superiority  190
CHAPTER XIV.
Uncle Sam's Weakness  197
CHAPTER XV.
Star-spangled Britons— and Some Others . . 315
CHAPTER XVI.
A Fresh Loos at "Manifest Destiny" . , . 230

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

CHAPTER I.

WHEEB HE LIVES.

minister a take-down.

" Map me no maps, su-; my head is a map— a map of the whole
world. " — Fielding. "VE heard that you have a fence
round England to keep people
from falling overboard during
the night," said one of Uncle
Sam's boys to me, with that
exasperating deliberation with
which the family is wont to ad-
I had been dilating on the gran
deurs of the British Empire, "whose morning drum
beat, following the sun and keeping company with the
hours, circles the earth in one continuous and unbroken
strain of martial airs," whose argosies crowd every port,
and whose flag, unfurled in a hundred lands, is every
where the symbol of constitutional liberty. As I swelled
with patriotic pride, this was the pin with which the
representative of the biggest nation on earth pricked me.
It is anomalous that in caricatures Uncle Sam is in
variably represented as lean and gaunt, while John Bull
appears as a stout, burly giant. For Sam delights in
bulk. He is nothing if he is not big. The biggest
waterfall and the greatest showman on earth are his ;

O UNCLE SAM A T HOME.
and great is his delight therein. He is proud to have
had the greatest fires, and the biggest swindles. The
greatest war, the longest railroad, the highest statue,
the largest rivers, the biggest herds of swine, the highest
tarifE and the biggest piles of grain — all are classified
under one head. Bulk is the measure of superiority ;
and as Uncle Sam has the biggest things in creation, he
has no superior.
Of course he has the biggest continent. There is no
falling overboard there. Hear, ye peoples of the diminu
tive states of Europe! hear a native orator descant on
its wondrous size and beauty!
"The gi'andest empires of the whole world, of ancient or of
modern. limes, sink to petty provinces beside its vast dimensions.
The whole possessions of Rome, when her golden eagles spread
their wings victorious from the burning sands of Africa to the
mist- clad hills of
Caledonia, fell
short of the im
mensity of our
new - world do
main. Russia,
vastest of modem
sovereignties,
could be lost in our half hemisphere, beyond the power of all the
detectives in Christendom to find her. Prance, land of Napoleon,
at the tread of whose legions but little more than a half-century
ago all Em-ope trembled as if taken with a Wabash valley ague,
would scarcely overlap the single ten-itory of Dakota; while Great
Britain, whose morning drum-beat sounds around the globe, would
hardly make a fly-speck on the face of Texas or California.
Do other lands boast of their great rivers? We could take up
all their Niles and Thameses, their yellow Tibers, castled Rhines
and beautiful blue Danubes, by their little ends, and empty them
into our majestic Mississippis and Missouris, Amazons, Saskatche-
wans and De la Platas, without making rise enough to lift an In-

WHERE RE LIVES. 9
diana flat-boat ofE a sandbar. Do they brag of their seas and lakes?
We could spill all their puny Caspians and Azovs, their Dead Seas,
Nyanzas and Maggiores, into our mighty Superiors, Michigans,
Eries and Ontarios, and scarce produce a ripple on their pebbled
brims to wash avcay the eighteen-inch 'footprints on the sands
of time ' left by the fairy-like slipper of a St. Louis or Chicago
girl. Do they prate of their romantic scenery? We have a thou
sand jewel-like lakes that would make all their vaunted Comos,
Genevas and Killarueys hide their faces in a veil of friendly fog.
The thunder of our Niagara drowns out the feeble murmur of
all their cataracts, while the awful crags and canyons of our Yo-
semite and Yellowstone, the prismatic glitter and dash of our St.
Anthonys and Miunehahas, and the lonely grandeur of our hori
zon-fenced prairies, boundless oceans of billovry verdure, dwarf
to insipidity the most famous scenes of Switzerland and Italy,
eclipse the wonders and glories of the Ai'abian Nights, and defy
all the skill of poet's pen and artist's pencil to depict the veriest
atom of their sublimity and their loveliness. Do they prattle
about their ^tnas and Vesuviuses? With our noses turning
somersets of ineffable contempt clear over our heads, we thunder
forth our Cotopaxis, Popocatapetls, Chimborazos and a score of
other jawbreakers whose very names alone are too huge for common
tongues — (I am aware that some of the specimens of national pro-
digiousness that I have mentioned do not just exactly belong to us
yet; but they belong to our next-door neighbors who are not as
strong as we are, and to our gloriously expansive Yankee spirit,
where or what is the difference?) Do other lands and nations talk
of their mines of jewels and gold? We answer with the exhaustloss
bonanzas of California, Colorado, Dakota and New Mexico, where
mountains of gold and silver ore challenge the skies, and where
the ceaseless thunder of the world's greatest bullion mills resounds
in the yet warm lair of the Rocky Mountain grizzly bear. Do
they rave of the harvest fields of Germany and Britain, and the
vine-clad hills of France? We show them half a hemisphere with
soils and climates as varied as the tastes of men, and with capaci
ties for production as boundless as the needs of men; yielding
everything cereal, vegetable, animal, textile and mineral, agricul
tural, horticultural, geological, zoological, pomological, piscatorial
and ornithological, ovine, bovine, capricornine, equine and asinine—

10 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
(the last including most of our alleged statesmen) — that all the wants
of all the races, tribes, kindreds and tongues of earth can ever re
quire. The sun in heaven, in all its grand rounds since ' the.
evening and the morning were the first day,' never looked down
upon a more magnificent domain — a fresh and glorious half -world,
grand in all its proportions and endlessly diversified, rich and
gorgeous in all its adornments, resting like a vast emerald breast
pin upon the bosom of the four great oceans. It is the broadest
land ever given to any people, the grandest and most beautiful,
the most varied in its productions, and the most unlimited in its
capabilities and its future."
And responsive to this burst of true Yankee eloquence,
the peoples of the earth are flying in their thousands to
seize on all this ungarnered wealth. The gaunt N"ew
Englander, the long-headed Scotchman, the progna
thous Irishman, the fat-paunched Briton, the sanguine
Spaniard, the patient Chinee, the heavy-
footed Dutchman, with a brace of Cherokees
are all pic
tured rush-
Ling wildly
westward, to
 gaze on the
Star of Empire which is fast becoming an American
"institootion." A story is told of a number of Americans who, dining
together in Paris, were dissatisfied with the patriotic
toast as usually given—" The United States, bounded
on the north by Canada, on the south by the Gulf of
Mexico, on the east by the great Atlantic, and on the
west by the broad Pacific." As an amendment one of
them suggested "The United States, bounded on the
north by the JSTorth Pole, on the south by the Antarctic
Ocean, on the east by the Gulf Stream, and on the west

WHERE HE LIVES. 11
by the illimitable ocean." Even that did not satisfy
one of the party — a gentleman from Duluth. Said he
grandiloquently, " I propose as toast The United States,
bounded on the north by the aurora borealis, on the
south by infinite space, on the east by the precession of
the equinoxes, and on the west by the day of judgment."
The toast was drunk with an enthusiasm that rolled
across the Atlantic, and spread over the broad face of
Uncle Sam like a genial grin. He does like big things,
does this avuncular relative!
Exaggeration aside, the American continent is not
only a marvel of immensity, but of wealth and beauty.
None but habitual travellers and those who have lived
long in America can form any conception of its size, and
the majority of Americans are ignorant of its vast min
eral treasures and its magnificent scenery. The single
State of Texas is as large as England, France and Ger
many combined. Into California, England and three
other European kingdoms could be placed side by
side and not overlap. Colorado, which in England
is hardly known except in connection with the Colorado
beetle, has nevertheless an area of 104,000 square miles
— ^nearly twice the area of Turkey, which has cost Eu
rope so many millions of treasure and hundreds of
thousands of men slain. New Mexico, Dakota, Arizona
and Montana are almost terrce incognitm in Europe;
and yet they have a total area of 531,000 square miles,
which gives an average larger than Austria, and a total
equal to Great" Britain and Ireland, France, Italy, Por
tugal, Greece, Denmark, Belgium and Holland.
The distances between cities on this vast continent
seem incredible when placed in juxtaposition with
European distances. The journey from New York to

12 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
San Francisco, for example, is three times as long as
that from London to Gibraltar — is, indeed, five hundred
miles greater than from England to Quebec. Eome is
as near to London as Chicago is to Boston. Madeira is
170 miles nearer to Portsmouth than New Orleans is to
New York; while Jerusalem is nearer to Kensington
Gardens than Salt Lake City is to Boston Common.
Buda-Pesth, Warsaw, Stockholm, are not quite as far
from the British metropolis as Milwaukee is from Al
bany; and Madrid is 150 miles nearer. The Londoner
is separated from St. Petersburg by a less distance than
is the Philadelphian from Kansas City; and he might
go to Cairo, and thence by Tunis and Algiers to Moroc
co, without traversing a distance as great as that from
the Hudson to the Sacramento. General Sherman re
cently stated that the northern line of defences during
the civil war exceeded five thousand miles. This would
make a line as great as one drawn from London across
the channel to Paris and Vienna, through Constanti
nople, Asia Minor and Persia to Afghanistan, on through
the Punjab and away down central India nearly to
Madras. Look up your geography, friend! You will
hardly understand such a statement without a map.
I once heard Mr. Lav/rence Barrett say that he had
crossed the Continent in three days and a half. For
long runs without stoppage and good time the trip is
unparalleled in the history of railway travel. The
average run per day was equal to the distance between
London and Naples. From New York to Pittsburgh,
444 miles, across the Allegheny Mountains, and round
curves that would appal a Frenchman, there was not a
single stoppage. Passing one station on the 3300 miles
of line, the train was five minutes behind time; at other

WHERE HE LIVES. 13
places twenty seconds was the greatest deviation from
schedule time. A single engine conveyed the train 800
miles! And all this was across mountains of such
height and down grades so steep that travellers break
fast in the Sierras with twenty feet of snow around
them; four hours later they find wheat four inches high;
and the next day see pear and peach trees in bloom.
The great extent of American waterways is well illus
trated by the following extract from a speech of Henry
Clay, one of a past generation of great statesmen and
orators of the New World:
" ' Sir,' said the custom-house officer at Leghorn,
' your papers are forged ! There is no such place in the
world ! Your vessel must be confiscated ! ' The trem
bling captain laid before the officer a map of the United
States, directed him to the Gulf of Mexico, pointing out
the mouth of the Mississippi, led him a thousand miles
up it to the mouth of the Ohio, and thence another
thousand to Pittsburgh. ' There, sir, is the port whence
my vessel cleared out.' The astonished officer, before
he saw the map, would as soon have believed that this
ship had been navigated from the moon."
In early days, before the railways extended their arms
of steel into every corner of the land, the voyage men
tioned by Henry Clay was a common one ; and many a
good ship has sailed twice two thousand miles before
reaching salt water. Nowadays ships for inland navi
gation are not generally constructed for ocean-sailing ;
and freight is transhipped at sea-ports into sea-going
vessels. But thirty years ago ships which had crossed
the Atlantic sailed through the great lakes, and dis
charged their cargoes a thousand miles inland. And in
a few yea,rs great ships will pass through the deep canal

14 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
which is to join Lake Erie to the Ohio, and thence by
the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico — a total sailing
on fresh water of over five thousand miles. The river
banks east of the Rocky Mountains are said to exceed
80,000 miles, counting no stream less than a hundred
miles in length ; while the whole of Europe has but
34,000 miles. The Mississippi system alone affords
35,000 miles of navigation !
Distance, as such, has lost all meaning in America.
The New Yorker does not say it is 1130 miles to Bur
lington, Iowa, but 30 hours ; not 913 miles to Chicago,
but 24 hours. This circumstance is very striking to a
European, who is constantly puzzled when asking dis
tances by being told "six hours," or "only a day,"
When Uncle Sam visits Europe he retains for a time
the same mode of reckoning distances, and after achiev
ing the nine hundred miles between London and Eome
as he would the trip to Chicago, perhaps congratulates
himself that he has " done" the Continent. A few such
trips, however, teach him that Eouen, Paris, Geneva,
Genoa, Venice and Florence, with all their wealth of as
sociation and historic interest, lie on the route ; and then
he takes a more leisurely course. Distance is now not
even reckoned by the hours required to traverse it : it is
simply ignored. And this is why the American on the
Continent impresses other travellers as affectedly de
spising European distances. At home he thinks nothing
of several days' journey. He has probably crossed more
than once to the Pacific — equal to a trip from England
to the Gold Coast. It is only ninety hours to Denver —
not two thousand miles, remember. So great is Uncle
Sam's indifference to distance, that he is beginning to
regard Japan as a mere suburb of America, as he has
long regarded Cuba and Brazil.

WHERE HE LIVES. 15
Herbert Spencer says that the Veddahs of Ceylon, a.
wild tribe without religion or any social bonds, are so
simple and honest that when theft was described to
them they did not understand it. " Why should a man
take what is not his?" they asked with a bland inno
cence that implied little contact with Christian Euro
peans. Uncle Sam is equally at a loss to understand
the kleptomania which European nations display in
respect of other people's territory. The international
skurry for annexation which is ever going on, in the
Pacific, in Africa, and in Indo- China, is totally incom
prehensible to Uncle Sam. Cuba, Mexico, Panama,
the Sandwich Islands, have all offered tempting baits
in vain. Says he, " Our farm is already too big for
fencing stuff;" and with a shrug he leaves the struggle
to Britons, Germans and Frenchmen. What a blessed
thing it is to know when one has enough! The mother-
country might here learn something from her child.
Uncle Sam has at home the biggest store of minerals
that Nature ever lavished on m.an. His coal field is as
large as Great Britain and France combined, and con
stitutes about three fourths of the world's supply. Yet
he used last year only two thirds as much as John Bull
did. John is getting behind in some things, but he
keeps ahead in this. In Nevada a gold and silver mine
has been yielding a king's ransom every year since 1860.
And some years it would have been a more important
king than any I know of — except, perhaps, the late
Victor Emmanuel — who would have been worth so great
a ransom. In 1876, for instance, this Comstock lode
yielded £2,600,000 of gold and over £4,000,000 of sil
ver! A single copper mine near Lake Superior has
twice produced nearly ten thousand tons of ingot copper

16 UNCLE SAM AT EOME.
in one year. The ore is
so rich in that region that
masses of almost pure
metal are found in all
sizes up to several tons.
The Indians made weap
ons of it without smelt
ing. Iron is found in every State, and it is worked in
twenty-two ! Yet here, again, England keeps ahead, pro:
ducing in 1885 nearly twice as much as America. But
Uncle Sam is "hurrying up," as he says. He has
nearly doubled his yearly product since 1871; and he is
offering wagers to the world to beat every competitor
before 1890.
" And the rocks poured me out rivers of oil," says our
father's brother Samuel, quoting Scripture, as is his
wont when talking '• manifest destiny." The rocks of
Pennsylvania pour out seventy thousand barrels of oil
every day ! The oil is pumped in pipes from the wells
to the seaboard, a distance of three hundred miles.
Then Nature, as if she could not do enough for our
transatlantic uncle, has given him wells of natural gas
— gas distilled in the bowels of the earth, and rushing
to the surface with a pressure of nine hundred pounds
to the square inch, so that engines are some'imes
worked by direct pressure. At one well near Pitts-
bwrgh the daily yield of gas is thirty million cubic feet
— enough to supply half London or the whole of Paris.
Seven such wells would supply the whole of the United
Kingdom. Shades of Watt and Humphry Davy !
Would that we had such wonders in our own little
island ! We would show the world that our manufac
tures, so advantaged, needed no " protection" — no

WHERE HE LIVES.

17

coddling legislation. But Uncle Sam is weak, and re
quires the baby's walking- chair which he has had so long,
and which has grown with his growth. Without it he
thinks he would fall. Maybe he would, poor gentleman !
Crutches are not calculated to develop stout legs.
Such is Uncle Sam's home — such the goodly heritage
that has fallen to our father's brother. When George
the Madman threatened, and the Hanoverian lion
howled. Uncle Sam stood on Bunker Hill, boldly de-
livering himself of homilies on the rights of men by
musket and reaping-hook. At Lexington he fought the
battle of Britons in England. He deserved something
good. He has got it; and we rejoice with him in his
good fortune.

18

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

CHAPTEE IL

UNCLE SAM'S BOTS.
"Traffic's thy god, and thy god confound thee."— lV«io» of
Athens. T Christmastide, in the year 1620, a
babe was born into the family of
nations, destined to preach peace
and good- will to men in a new
voice. No flourish of trumpets
sounded its advent; no glittering
ceremonial marked its coming.
Its cradle was as rude as that
which sixteen hundred years be
fore held the Babe who first
preached peace, personal liberty,
and the identity of human interests the world over.
On the 22d of December, 1620, the Mayjloioer, a ship
of 180 tons burden, landed her living cargo on the deso
late shores of Massachusetts. Weary and worn with a
long voyage, anxious about the future, impeded with
sickly women and children, the Puritan pilgrims bravely
stepped into a new and unknown world, trustful in God,
and full of faith in themselves. Looking back through
the mists of two centuries and a half, we cannot realize
the desolation of their position. In the midst of a nor
thern winter, infinitely more severe than anything ex
perienced in England, surrounded by savages of un-

UNCLE SAM'S BOTS. 19
known character, and with nothing before them but the
gaunt bare trees of the forest and the reach of sandy
shore, along which the wind swept with dirge-like wail
ing, their condition almost makes us weep. To us the
picture is a glorified one, as we look down the grooves
of time at the handful of men, standing with bare heads
that wintry day, offering to the All-father thanks for
safe arrival and for liberty to worship Him in their own
way. Surely had " God sifted a whole nation that He
might send grain over into this wilderness."
It is these brave and hardy sons of liberty who have
given backbone to the American character. From
them is derived the "grit," the energy, the enterprise
of the American character. The spirit which was un
daunted in presence of the wilderness, the savage, and
wild beast during that northern winter, has come down
to descendants, and has even, permeated the whole
American people, diverse as is their origin as individ
uals. A typical example of American endurance and
courage — a credit to his British ancestry — is Stanley,
"the man who found Livingstone." Another noble
type — a worthy follower of Franklin and Eoss — is Lieu
tenant Greely, commander of the ill-fated expedition to
the Arctic regions. In Commander Schley's book we
get a narrative, simple and pathetic, which recalls Liv
ingstone's struggle with death, alone in Central African
swamps, kneeling in prayer at his camp-bed:
"Lieutenant Greely was the first man in the desolate camp at
Cape' Sabine to hear the steam-whistle of the Thetis. He told his
companions that he had heard a steamer's whistle, but ihey
thought it was only the roaring of the wind. Sergeant Long
went out of the tent, but speedily returned with the remark that
there was nothing in sight. Lieutenant Greely settled himself in

20 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
his sleeping-bag, but was aroused not long afterward when Lieu
tenant Colwell cut down the tent. 'Greely, is this you?' the.
gallant rescuer asked. 'Yes,' said Greely in a faint, broken
voice, hesitating and shuffling with his words. ' Yes — seven of
us loft — here we are— dying — like men. Did what I came to do —
beat the best record.' Then he fell back exhausted. Lieutenant
Greely, dying like a man, but proud of his exploit, and conscious
that he had beaten the best record, is a noble type of American
grit." In the attack upon Vicksburg it was needful to trans
port troops through the bristling batteries of that Gib
raltar of the Mississippi. The regular crews of the
transport steamers refused the hazardous service ; and
General Grant called for volunteers. So eagerly did the
soldiers respond that the commander had to cast lots
among the crowds who offered themselves; and one Illi
nois boy, who had drawn the coveted privilege of expos
ing his life, was offered a hundred dollars in greenbacks
for his chance. He refused the money, and held his
post. These are the men who, in two hundred and fifty
years, have subjugated a continent, cleared its forests,
pierced its mountains, bridged its rivers, and built a
network of railways and canals to aid communication
between their thousand wealthy cities. And proud
should England be to claim them as her children. It is
a noble progeny. Pity that the mother and child do
not understand each other better.
But admirable as is American grit, it is one of those
good things of which we can have too much. It devel
oped during the severest struggle with nature that man
has ever undertaken. The original struggle has long
since ceased, and now men are wrestling with each other.

UNCLE SAM'S BOYS. 21
I know of several great traders and corporations who
have deliberately tried to crush out every one whose
business competes with their own; and two brothers in
New York, both wealthy, revile each other publicly: they
are business rivals! So fierce is the competition, so in
tense the pressure, that it is no uncommon thing to see a
young man's hair tinged with gray. I know one whose
hair was slightly silvered before he was old enough to
have a beard. Yet there is no need for all this commer
cial wrestling. Everybody who can and will work is well
off. Poverty is unknown except among those who are so
shiftless that they would be poor and miserable in Para
dise. The root of the evil is the desire of personal ag
grandizement. Every man's efforts are directed to his
own well-being or that of his own family. Selfishness
is supreme. As Dudley Warner aptly puts it, all are
"actively engaged in acquiring each other's property;"
and the sight is not an edifying one. If half the men
tal effort and energy spent in trying to circumvent com
mercial rivals were bestowed on public affairs. Uncle
Sam would not only have the most perfect form of gov
ernment, but the best working political system in the
world. And no one knows better than he the difference
between these two.
Genuine Yankees such as are portrayed on the stage
and in comic journals are growing scarce. Most persons
have never seen one, and believe that the quaint angular
figures, drawling nasal tones, and odd conceits ascribed
to them are the products of the brains of novelists and
playwrights. Nevertheless they do exist, and a writer
in Harper's Bazar lately described one whom he met at
Santiago de Cuba. The city is a very strange one.
The houses and shops are so built that the walls can be

22 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
almost entirely thrown open, while the interiors have
courts that are unroofed and unobstructed to the sky.
The money of the country is strange, and nothing
about the city is familiar to an American. The Yankee
had just landed when he spoke as follows: "Some-
haow I can't tell when I'm indoors and when I'm
aout. I've got a room, or somethin', in a hotel here,
and I've been into it, quandarying araound, but I could
not tell when I was in the parlor or when I was in the
kitchen or back yard, so I'm standiti' aout here in the
park not to make any mistake. I started daown the
street a minute ago, but I got afraid I might make a
mistake and git arrested for bein' found in somebody's
back parlor. I've got a lot of the money of the place,
but I can't make heads nor tails of it. I took some of
it back whar I got it, and passed it over the same coun
ter — so I reckon it's genuine. I could write the history
of the place already. All I need is the dates. It was
evidently built the year after the flood; it's been shook
down by an earthquake, burned up by a volcano, re
settled, and left just as "twas found. The whole coun
try is best whar it's been let alone. Wherever the
people have touched it they've made a mess of it."
I myself have met one or two specimens of the old
Jonathan type, and I have envied them their powers of
expression. For originality of metaphor, quaint phrases,
rough eloquence, and a manner at once ludicrous and
dignified, they are incomparable. One of them speak
ing of a disrespectful hotel-clerk — a type now happily
extinct — said " he oughter be sot straddle on an iceberg
and shot through with a streak of lightning!" I gave
this delicious morsel to a stolid Yankee from the land
of wooden nutmegs, expecting at least a smile. But

UNCLE SAM'S BOTS 23
never a ripple crossed his face as he slowly drawled:
"Eather rough on the clerk."
Another Yankee fresh from the country and surprised
to find a homely dish in a Washington hotel, exclaimed
as he sank his fork into a chicken croquette: " Gosh!
hash!" If brevity is the soul of wit, the American is
the funniest man alive!
In England the term Yankee is thought to be slightly
disparaging — an idea which we probably got from Con
federate sympathizers during the war. Another mistake
we make is to apply the name to all Americans. The
people of the Southern States call all Northerners,
both east and west, " Yankees," but they disclaim the
name themselves. The people of the Western States
call only those living in the Eastern States, or east of
the Hudson Eiver, " Yankees," and these are the only
people who acknowledge the name, and always so de
scribe themselves. A southern planter having business
in Boston, asked his daughter what kind of present he
should bring her back. " Oh, a Yankee dude '11 do!"
she replied with a laugh.
In these days of national self-glorification it may not
be out of place to recall the origin of the name Yankee.
When the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Eock
the friendly Indians asked of what people they were, to
which they replied, " English." But the red man could
not pronounce the word, and " Yengeese" was as near
as he could get to it. The transition from Yengeese to
Yankees was easy. So that the proudest name of the
proudest section of the American people is only a vari
ation of "English"!
The ideal American is tall and gaunt, with promi
nent features, high cheek-bones, and bright sparkling

24 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
eyes. The ideal Englishman is one with ruddy round
face, rotund figure, and a genial smile of contentment at
things as they are — at least at home. It is not difficult
to see how these ideals have arisen. The gaunt, ner
vous type of Englishman in whom the Celt predominates
— Prof. Tyndall is a perfect example — is the one whose
enterprise and restlessness have often taken him from
home and planted him in a transatlantic environment.
The ruddy sanguine Saxon is he who remains at home, a
contented honest old Tory, satisfied with his condition
as yeoman or squire, and too rooted to his beloved land
to think of migration. But the one is as much an Eng
lish type as the other, though our national peculiarities
result from a union of the two characters. It is the
sanguine temperament that gives stability to our insti
tutions and solidity to our works. It is the quality that
makes ours " A land of old and just renown.
Where freedom slowly broadens down
From precedent to precedent."
And it is from the nervous type that the American de
rives his dominant characteristics — the restlessness and
discontent which prompt search for new and better
methods, as of old they gave rise to political and reli
gious dissent. This type of Briton is the same the
world over; but because it is more common in America,
we have got into the habit of speaking of energy and
enterprise as traits peculiarly American. Yet English
men have lost none of those qualities which gave to the
world the steam-engine, the railway, the steamboat, the
telegraph; that first lighted our streets and homes with
gas; that created new breeds of horses and cattle; that
taught the world gravitation and evolutioli; that in-

UNCLE SAM'S BOYS. 25
vented Bessemer steel, the steam printing-machine, the
spinning-jenny, and power loom; that originated clearing
houses, insurance systems, Lloyds, and the penny-post;
that discovered the circulation of the blood, and the
value of vaccination; that gave the world trial by jury,
and habeas corpus acts; and under Cromwell led the na
tions to democracy and free institutions. Englishmen
are still great in enterprise and energy. They have made
railways for all Europe, and are now doing the same for
Mexico and China. They make roads in South America,
and harbours in Siam. Their superabundant energy runs
over into foreign investments to the extent of six hun
dred millions sterling. And to energy and enterprise, they
add a quality that is none the less admirable — ^thorough
ness. It is this which gives to English work, whether
in the Andes or in Fiji, that solidity so eloquent of per
manence, which has become a national characteristic.
The greeting that Uncle Sam gives you is not of that
clammy solemnity which the French say comes from our
damp climate, and which gives you a forlorn feeling that
you are only a unit among a thousand millions — a mere
speck in the universe. He takes your hand in a hearty
grip, calls you by name, and inquires after your health
with a tenderness approaching anxiety, and so encour
ages you in the belief that your existence is a matter
of interest outside your own family. Sam's friendliness
and familiarity make you "feel good," as he himself
says. It is not the least admirable trait in his character.
For there is no earthly reason why two particles of
humanity which chance has brought together for a mo
ment, should spend that moment in revolving around
each other without contact, each solicitous about the

26

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

Whence and Whither of the other. That they find
themselves in the same corner of the universe ought to
be a sufficient basis of sympathy. Our common human
ity is the ground on which Sam says "Come on!" and
John says "Keep off!"
The expression "common humanity" here reminds
me of that very common humanity on the Pacific coast,
the heathen Chinee. And I would add in the most em
phatic way, that it is not Uncle Sam who in this case
says " Keep off!" It is that product of our British civil
ization, the Irish emigrant, whose vote has a value to
the professional politician not easily stated in words.
Keameyism is the local name of the An ti- Chinee move
ment. The ingenuity which Uncle Sam's boys display in
"acquiring each other's property," shows itself in many
curious forms. In advertising, inge
nuity rises to the level of genius.
Never for a moment is the tourist al
lowed to forget that he has a liver, or
a stomach, or chilblains. The very
rocks proclaim the value of Skunk's
Seaweed Bitters, and Hygeia Water.
At Niagara, while your attention is
divided between the mighty flood and
a pestering hackman, the moss-cov
ered bank at your feet invites you to
try Blank's Little Liver Pills or
Smudge's Kidney Invigorator. Every
fence as you dart along the railroad
or glide down the river extols the
virtues of Gargle Oil. Even Liberty herself has been
in danger; for an enterprising quack offered to build

UNCLE SAM'S BOTS. 27
the pedestal in consideration of the privilege of paint
ing the Statue with his advertisements. But even
Yankee enterprise refused to sanction the desecration.
A summer excursionist lately wrote to the Chicago Cur
rent that in looking over the side of his canoe, he espied
a snapping-turtle at the bottom of the lake, and on its
horny back was
painted the adver
tisement "Gents'
Eeady-made Cloth
ing marked down
Low." The annexed cu
riosities are from
advertisements of western graziers' cattle-brands.
Here is another curiosity:
BEAUTY FADES, like Broadway $5 suits. Cameron sells
all-wool ones for $5. 202 Flatbush ave.
C-^OME YE WHO LABOR and are heavy laden and get a
J complete suit at Cameron's for $2.50.
CLEOPATRA'S HISTORICAL beauty is nothing compared
to Cameron's $20 nobby all-wool check suits for $8. 202
Flatbush ave., Brooklyn.
pop DEAD'S indestructible $8 corduroy suits are just the
thing for country romping, $3 to $4.

D

GIVE to the poor and you lend to the Lord. Diagonal pants,
50c. ; wool ones, $1, at Cameron's.
JONAH'S PREDICAMENT in the whale was nothing com
pared to the feelings of clothiers who pass Drop Dead's and
see the business he's doing now.
KING HUMBERT works from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. Cameron
never sleeps, studying how to give customers $2 for $1.
302 Flatbush ave. , Brooklyn.

28 UNCLE SAM AT HOME

M

ONEY is the root of all evil; 98c. of the root will buy a de
sirable $2.50 child's suit at Drop Dead's.

o

VER the hills to the poor-house is the way Broadway cloth
iers lead. Cameron leads to prosperity.
)ALMA HOUSE, 92 Bowery— 50 men wanted; rooms 25c.
per night; all modern improvements.

P

UT MONEY IN THY PURSE and get a $60 satin-lined
suit for $20 from Drop Dead, Brooklyn.

PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT are commonplace to the all-wool
youths' suits at Drop Dead's for $2.50.
WHAT'S THE MATTER with your hands? It's the dye
from a New York $5 suit. Why, I got one from Drop
Dead for $3.50, and it don't fade like that."
In the windows of city bar-rooms the eye of tlie
stranger is frequently caught by the announcement
" Free Hot Lunch, all day." If he enters he will prob
ably be invited to take a bowl of soup pr chowder — soup
made of fish or clams — while temptingly displayed along
the counter are bread and cheese, ham, sardines, pickles,
corned beef, perhaps pickled oysters. I have seen
twenty different dishes so displayed, including the costly
caviar; and the guest is at liberty to help himself to any
or all. This is another kind of advertisement. The
San Francisco free lunch is really a first-class repast;
and is in great favor. I have seen it stated that the
free lunches served in the saloons of New York cost
nearly twelve million dollars a year. It would be inter
esting to know how the estimate was obtained.
Here is an example of American ingenuity in another
line, copied from a Pittsburgh paper:
"Dalton, Ga., Jan. 1. — Edward Pickens and Jennie Allen
eloped on Wednesday night. They had no license, and the bride
was under age, but these dilBculties were surmounted by the

UNCLE SAM'S BOTS. 29
pastor, Silas Jasper, who had been requested to perform the cere
mony. At his suggestion the party went to a point where the
counties of Gilmer, Gordon and Murray join, and with each party
standing in a different county and the preacher astraddle of a
county line the ceremony was performed. The question now is
which county has jurisdiction of the case."
I read a short time ago in a Florida paper of a local
judge who, being arrested and locked up while intoxi
cated, called for pen and paper when he got sober, and
issued a writ of habeas corpus directing the sheriff of
the county to bring the body of himself before himself
as a judge; and on the perplexed officer's refusal to obey
the mandate, fined him for contempt of court. If the
sheriff had had the usual humour of Uncle Sam's boys,
he would have refused to pay the fine, so that he might
commit himself in default to his own prison. In this
way he might have amused his district by a judicial
complication as ' funny as that which Gilbert's Lord
Chancellor outlined in lulanlh".
This ingenious judge reminds me of another judge
who "got badly left" by an ingenious negro. The fol
lowing is the story, told in the quaint language of one
of the actors:
" As we got into South Carolina we were joined by a judge from
Pittsburgh. I forget just what court he was judge of, but he had
been travelling South for his health, and had just figured up that he
had paid out twenty-five dollars in fees to waiters, and was mad all
the way through. He vowed by his baldness that he wouldn't pay
out another red cent, and we encouraged him as hard as we could.
When we went up to the hotel the landlord gave us a big room
with three beds in it. A big negi-o brought the trunks up, and
when he was ready to go the judge called to him and began:
' Colored person, stand up ! Now I want to say to you that I shall
expect prompt service without fees. You have brought up my
trunk; that's all right— it was your business to. I shall want

30 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
water, and I may want a fire, and I shall probably ask you to go
of errands, but if you even look fees at me I'll throw you out of
the window! ' We were there two days, and the waiter was vigi
lant, humble and willing ; but as we made ready to depart the
morning of the third, in comes a constable with a warrant to arrest
the judge for threats of personal violence. It had been sworn out
before a justice ten miles away, and the complainant was the first
negro waiter. It took the two of us to hold the judge down on
his back during his paroxysm, and when he had cooled off a little
the negro slipped into the room and said: ' White man, stand up!
Now I want to say to you dat a five-dollar bill will settle dis yer
case jist as I feel now, but if you goes to callin' names, or puUin'
hair, or kickin', I'll stick fur twenty five dollars! Dat justice am
my own brudder, and he's jist achin' to send some white man ter
jail fur six months!' We sat on the judge again for about
twenty minutes, at the end of which time he handed over the
amount and was pronounced sane."
When Matthew Arnold first visited America, to shed
on Uncle Sam a benign effulgence
of sweetness and light, his hyper
sensitive soul was often vexed by
the Philistinism which is inevitably
associated with great material de
velopment. Here is a bill of fare
which is said to have caused the
sage so much pain "on board" a Western train:
CHICAGO & ALTON R. R.
train lunch.
Bill of Fare.
" Tho' we eat little flesh and drink no wine.
Yet, let's be merry; we'll have tea and toast.
Custards for supper and endless host
Of sandwiches and jellies and mince pies
And other such ladylike luxuries. — Shelley.
Coffee, with Cream,  . 10c.
" Coffee which makeR the politician wise,
And see ihro' all things with his half-shut eyes."— Pope.

UNCLE SAM'S BOYS. 31
Rolls,  10c.
" Hot or cold, white or brown, but all as sweet
And dainty as you'd surely wish to meet."
Ham Sandwich,  . . lOc.
" An essay, a taste of heaven below."— Wa/!ei-.
ToNQtrm Sakdwioh,  lOc.
" Tlie deligiit of old and youug."— Swift, An Echo.
Pie,  lOc.
" Who'll dare deny the truth: there's poetry in pie V "— Long feUow.
Milk, per Glass,  5c.
" He drank of the milk foaming fresh from the cow."— T. D. English.
" Serenely full, the epicure would say,
' Fate cannot harm me, I have lunched to-day ' "
— SydTiey Smith.
Hard-working and ingenious boys are the sons of
Uncle Sam. Less work and more play is what they
want: not so ingenious but more ingenuous, they would
make better citizens and happier fathers and husbands.
It is a trait of undeveloped races that they are incapable
of prolonged effort, especially when the reward is remote.
In America men seem to have been overdeveloped, and
to have gone to the opposite extreme. Their applica
tion is unceasing. The savage works only when the
reward is visible and immediate: the American works
even after he has secured the object of his labour. It is
unfortunate that it is not the custom s
in America, as it is in England, for '^ •'^^> ^
a business man to retire after attain- '.^
ing a competency. This would make l(^
room for other men, and reduce com- ^t",iy i
petition. But in America if a man
makes a fortune in one business, he often goes into
something else, and aims at success in that. Americans
are beginning to regard mere commercial success as the
standard of a man's value to his country, forgetful

32 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
that under conditions of such keen competition as now
prevail one man's success often means another man's
failure. There is still a good deal of quiet satire indulged in
by Uncle Sam's boys when they speak to an Englishman
about the Eevolution. At the Centennial Exhibition
the occasion lent itself to this kind of humour, and, with
out abating their characteristic politeness and hospital
ity, the Americans made it slightly uncomfortable for
some Englishmen who remain sensitive on the subject
of British prestige. I have just been reminded of this
by re-reading in Fischel's English Constitution that,
despite the king's intention, the war was brought to a
close by " a resolution of the Commons, March 4, 1783,
declaring that 'all those who should advise the con
tinuance of the American war were to be treated as
enemies to the king and country.' " I quote this ancient
item to help to rectify the confusion which still exists
in the minds of some of Uncle Sam's boys concerning
the popularity of this war.
At the completion of the Statue of Liberty there was
a good deal of talk about the brotherhood of men in
general and republicans in particular;
and some very acute Yankees exemplified,
as their grandfathers had done before
them, that it is easy for Uncle Sam to
mistake French Anglophobia for love of
t-he abstractions — liberty, fraternity and
, equality. The mistake is excusable, for
-'"— • the French constantly make it them
selves. At the time when Franklin was being feted
in Paris, and Lafayette was fighting the battles of en
slaved Americans, the condition of Frenchmen living

UNCLE SAM'S BOTS. 33
under Frenchmen was infinitely more degraded than
that of the Boston men who threw the tea overboard.
The Bastile still stood, the symbol of despotism; and
the sound of the cheers that greeted the American rep
resentatives passed through its barred windows to the
unjudged captives within. Outside the city, peasants
dared not weed their crops for fear of disturbing the
young partridges; while limitations were imposed upon
the use of manures, lest the flavour of the game killed
and eaten by nobles should be injuriously affected. A
hundred and fifty years after Cromwell, French workers
were forced into the marshes at night, to beat the frogs
into silence, because the lady of the seigneur- was ill;
and the great lord sold to the wretched peasant permis
sion to crush his handful of wheat between two stones!
If charity begins at home, what a golden opportunity
was missed by Lafayette and the other young noblemen
of France, when they undertook to vindicate the rights
of man against hereditary despotism on American soil
instead of in their own loved land!
The Americans were lately told that they ought to be
for ever truly grateful that they are essentially British.
This is like sapng that an orange ought to be for ever
truly grateful that it is not essentially a cocoanut. Of
course Americans are of English stock; but no one is to
thank for that any more than any one is to thank that
we are not all Chinese or Bosjemans. No one could
have made it differently. If the Americans had not
been of English origin, they would not have been
Americans. Their country might have been filled with
Mexicans, Greasers, French half-breeds, but not with
Americans, — Yankees, as we call them, with all the high
qualities which the name connotes — the inherited love
3

34 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
of freedom, energy, enterprise and ability of the Eng
lish, intensified by a new environment. Contrast the
devout, sturdy, independent Puritans with the first
colonists from Spain and France, whose only legacy to
America is a degenerate race of half-breeds. Compare
Quaker Penn's treatment of the Indians with the treat
ment which has exterminated the ancient Mexicans and
Peruvians, and destroyed their hign civilization. The
difference in character shown by the contrast is the
difference between the grandsons of Englishmen in the
United States and the men who might have occupied
their place. And it is this difference that has made
America. To be grateful that New York and San Fran
cisco are not the squalid camps of French and Spanish
half-breeds, is like being thankful that the laws of
gravitation are as they are, and that men, wheiT they
slip, fall down and do not fall up, into infinite space!

THE FAMILY GIRLS.

3£

CHAPTER in.
THE tAMILT GIRLS, WITH A DISQUISITION ON THE
AMEEICAN BONNET.
" Thou living ray of intellectual fire."— Falconer.

S Boston City is the un
disputed hub of the
universe, so the Boston
girl is the unquestioned
centre of every female
virtue, attraction and
accomplishment. This
sounds like an axiom,
and it is one. The
Boston girl shines in
the social firmament as
Venus in summer skies. Her brilliancy gives a shadow
to everything it falls upon. Other stars, even those of
first magnitude, wax faint and dim when she sheds her
pure white light on mankind. America has much to
be thankful for, but for nothing so much as for the
Boston girl.
The Boston girl is as peculiar to the Hub as is Bun
ker Hill or Beacon Street. She is the product of an
intellectual atmosphere so rare that ordinary girls wilt
and wither in it, and become strong-minded female
suffragists with corkscrew curls and goloshes. She

36

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

is the brightest and prettiest creature that ever bathed
in the sunlight of knowledge. She is a very humming
bird in beauty, a dove in gentleness, an owl in wisdom,

A very humming-bird in beauty.
and a swallow in physical motion. She is — ^but let me
specify: All studies, from ecclesiastical history to the theory
and practice of the banjo, come within her range.
Equally expert at composing a bonnet or a sonnet, she
is likewise at ease when discoursing on the morals of the
ancient Huns or the domestic habits of the Bosjemans.
Biology, Psychology, Sociology come to her as naturally
as Huyler's candy and coquetry to other girls. In-
the giddy whirl of the dance she will look up into your
face with a soul-entrancing gaze that is peculiarly

THE FAMILT GIRLS. 37
Bostonian, and whisper: "What do you regard as the
real bases of Schopenhauer's ethics?" You softly con
vey to her the desired information; while the fragrant
odours from her breastplate of flowers float up and
make you feel that Mahomet was inspired when he
made houris in green silk the attraction to Paradise.
"What do you consider the best test of the authenticity
of a Mexican chalchihuitls f" Again you respond; and
so throughout the dance. Under the charm of the
Boston girl the waltz becomes an intellectual exercise,
and the polka the intercommunion of sympathetic
souls. Lest the reader should think my faint eulogy of the
Boston girl overdone praise, I beg to quote the testi
mony of an observant writer who says:
" I sat between a couple of them the other night at that same
symphony concert, and came home in a sort of daze as to how
any two creatures could know so much about so many things and
carry it all off so easily under that graceful garb of simplicity and
unaffectedness which fits the Boston girl as if it were made to
order. They knew the special style of every man in the orchestra,
from the leader, Listemann, to dear, departed Lichtenburg, of
happy memory; they could tell if the oboe fell a sixteenth part of
a half-tone from the pitch, or if the furthest kettledrum was
snared an infinitesimal atom too tightly. When the andantino of a
Tschaikowsky concerto was fainting away in a strain of delicious
sweetness that you or I would as soon think of analyzing as an
echo from Paradise, it reminded one of 'that staccato study of
Rubenstein;' when the andante confuoeo began it recalled to the
other something of Brahms. They discussed the relative merits
of the Lang school and the rival clique with a discriminating
justice that would not have shamed Solomon; they gossiped in
German and translated the French song on the programme; they
spoke of one woman's back hair as ' a study,' and another
woman's bonnet as ' a daisy,' so that they were human after all.

38 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
They knew the genealogy of every one in the hall, which is an
other essentially Boston accomplishment; and I found out in
the pauses for intermission and breath that they hammered brass
work, wrote essays, painted in oil, read Wagner's music at sight,
went to the theatre every other evening, kept up an intimate
acquaintance with five hundred friends, and had their own ideas
on the subject of housekeeping. And
yet, I give you my word of honor,
they looked as pretty and as artless
and as quiet as if they had not
two thoughts in their two heads;
and, although they whispered a great
deal, they managed to do it without
disturbing any one but myself, who
rather enjoyed it. For, thank Heaven,
their voices were free from the usual
American shrillness. You think, perhaps, that I have been
sketching an isolated type? My dear friend, my style is as
plenty as peas on the Fourth of July."
Yet withal, the Boston girl is so modest of her intel-
y lectuality that she has been known to put paper covers
on her Balzac, Lessing or Kant, in the originals, and
ostentatiously label them "Called Back"!
When the telephone joined Chicago to New York,
the first words that passed along the wire were: " Is it
true that Chicago girls have big feet ?" A pause.
Then, sad and low came the answer: "Alas, it is!"
And so it is, if journalists' statements, reiterated a
thousand times a week, are to be trusted. But journal
ists' statements are not to be trusted — in America.
Newspaper writers there have been classified by one of
themselves into liars on space, and liars on salary. As
a matter of fact, Chicago girls have not big feet.
Neither have the girls of St. Louis, though every liar

THE FAMILT GIRLS.

39

on space and time from Babylon to Yazoo City says
they have. The reader
P^'^ will remember that even
— ' that spread-eagle orator
quoted in the first chap
ter could not resist the
temptation to allude to
"the eighteen-inch
' footprints on the sands
of time ' left by the fairy
like slipper of a St.
Louis or Chicago girl."
Gentle reader, this is an
exaggeration. The fairy-
slipper incases a fairy foot, and that supports a fairy
form. For all American girls, whether Bostonians,
Chicagoans or St. Louisians, hailing from the Monu
mental City or from Oshkosh, are bright, pretty and
graceful, without pedal deformity or abnormal digits.
I have sometimes thought that American men are
unable to appreciate the glorious girls of the Republic.
Engrossed in business pursuits, ever engaged in the
mad race which has for prize the omnipotent greenback,
the average American man is intellectually the inferior
of the average American woman. Of course he is
quick and clever at his business. That is as needful to
his survival as fleetness is to a deer which lives where
beasts of prey abound. But in the gentle arts which
make up the brightness of life, the American man is
generally inferior to his sister or his wife. She can
chat with you about anything, from the exorbitant
charges of the English tailor in New York to the
evidences of the nebular hypothesis; and this with a

40 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
piquancy that is irresistibly attractive to a Briton.
At the Tower of London a small cannon is shown which
was taken at Bunker Hill. A party of Americans were
looking at the gun while a sergeant related its history.
" Yes," said a lady, "you've got the cannon, but I guess
we've got the hill." As a patriotic epigram this would
be hard to beat even by a Boston girl. The brother or
husband will " talk shop " if you understand it, or
express a strong opinion on the last unnavigable addi-
tiortto thfi_American_nayy. But in art, music, litera
ture, he is conspicuously deficient. This is probably a
reason why journalists delight to ridicule the Boston
girl: male readers buy the paper and laugh at the absurd
intellectuality of women. As these same women are to
be the mothers of future American men, we may confi
dently hope that the next generation will not despise
mental activity in females, and may even encourage it in
men. President Cleveland's sister, contemplating some
such ideal, exclaims: "What a world of enjoyment and
improvement would spring up! How Athenian would
Yankee life become! A Socrates
at every doorway, an Aspasia — ¦
without Aspasia's reproach — at
every tea-urn, full of discourse
that -vfould exclude the weary
pettiness of thoughtless talk."
Notice that Aspasia is here
the ideal — not Xantippe. The
virago, indeed, has little scope
for development in a land where
a divorce can be promptly obtained, without scandal or
publicity, for incompatibility of temper, or "for such
other causes as the court in its discretion may deem
sufficient."

THE FAMILT GIRLS. 41
So much has been said of the Boston girl that the
reader may not unnaturally conclude that the Hub is
not only the centre of female intellectuality, but the
periphCTy as well. This, however, is not the case. Men
tal activity is filling the gap in women's lives made by
the commercial engrossment of men; and this extends
from Massachusetts to California; Indeed, as one
moves westward, one finds men's mania for dollars
ever growing more frantic. It is an admirable trait
in American women which leads them to fill lonely
hours with worthy pursuits. Indianapolis is thought
of by English people as being in the backwoods, far
from civilization. Even by eastern Americans it is
looked down upon, and the inhabitants slightingly
spoken of as Hoosiers. Here are the heads of a few sub
jects discussed in the session of 1885-1886 at the In
dianapolis Woman's Club:
Our Southern Stories and Story tellers, by May Louise Ship;
A Symposium on the Puritans — In Literature, by Elizabeth
Cleland; In Politics, by Arabella C. Peelle; In Social Life, by
Janet Douglass Moores; — John Milton, by Margaret V. Marshall;
A Study of Paradise Lost, by Elbizaeth Kicholson; Conversation
on the man Milton as shown in his Works, led by Catharine
Merrill; Sir Christopher Wren and his Monument, by Marga-
retta Elder; The Cartoons of Raphael (illustrated), by Harriet
McI. Poster; Cavalier Songs* (illustrated), by Nannie I. New
comer; Conversation on the Women of the Time — The Queen;
the Princess; the Court Beauty; the Brave Wife; the Good
Daughter; the Literary Woman; — The Stuarts as Authors, by
Martha H, Bond ; The Royal Society, by Flora McDonald
Ketcham; Conversation on Literary Patronage, led by Sarah
Wallace ; Wit and Wisdom of Fuller, by Eliza G. Wiley;
Jeremy Taylor, by Amanda W. Wright ; " The Country Par
son," by Kate K. Winters; Nature and Poetry, by Jennie T.
Hendricks; The Decay of the Drama, by Eliza C. Bell; Con-

42 UNCLE SAM AT EOME.
versation on Histrionic Art, led by Marie Louise Bright; Victor
Hugo, by May Wright Sewall; Conversation, led by Helen B.
Holman; " Comus Crowned," by Julia D. Butler; The Regicides
and their Fate, by Mary Harrison McKee; Conversation on Super
stition Now and Then, led by Mary Stewart Carey; Scottish
Bards and Ballads, by Mary A. E. Woollen; Celtic Element in
English Literature, by Ellen F. Thompson ; Conversation on
National Characteristics of Wit; John Dryden, by Harriet Noble;
Conversation on Consistence in Change, led by Mary E. N. Carey;
George Elliot, by Mary A. McGregory; Conversation on Ano
nymity, led by Hannah G. Chapman.
De Tocqueville, speaking of Americans, said: "If I
were asked to what cause
I think the singular pros
perity and growing power
of this people should be
attributed, I should answer,
'To the superiority of their women.'"
The personal relations of men and women in America
are in many respects unique. The sex is awarded great
liberty from the earliest age, and this induces an inde
pendent bearing which is in attractive contrast with the
timid, unreliant manner often seen in Europe. As a
result, the men seem more chivalrous than those of any
other nation — for chivalry is compatible only where the
sex is allowed great freedom. A woman may travel
alone from Maine to Mexico, not simply without moles
tation, but everywhere receiving acts of kindness from
her male fellow-travellers. If she gets into a crowded
street-car, S9me man invariably offers her his seat, while
he rides for the rest of the way hanging on to the roof-
straps, and bumping against the knees of the seated
passengers at every curve and stoppage. The American
excels as an indulgent husband — so I have been told by

THE FAMILT GIRLS.

43

English girls who have married Uncle Sam's boys.
American women themselves are not unappreciative of
the high quality of American husbands, though many silly
girls are found willing to marry some European fitznoo-
dle with a title. " Let me see, dear, what is Clara's
fiance baron of ?" asks the proud prospective mother-
in-law of a title. "Bar
ren of funds!" growls
paterfamilias, who had
to supply the dot.
This dot, by the way,
becomes an object of in
terest even to the gov
ernments of some Euro
pean countries. If an
American girl is unfor
tunate enough to fall in
love with the uniform of
a German or French
officer, she must furnish
a dot of ten or fifteen
thousand dollars before
she can marry it. And
while she is doing this
under the immediate di
rection of the European
Minister of War, her
family and home -sur
roundings in America
become objects of dip
lomatic interest to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. If
the dot is forthcoming, and if investigation of the sup
pliant's family and personal history has revealed nothing

It becomes hers.

44

UNCLE SAM AT EOME.

to make her unworthy of the high honour she aspires to,
the uniform is brought out, and after an appropriate
ceremony it becomes hers. If she or her English cousin
marries a Frenchman of any degree, she is liable to re
pudiation after a while — except she notifies her mar
riage to a French consul or some other government
official of authority. These are facts which it would be
well for the publishers of Baedecker and Murray to put
into their guide-books. They are much more important
to American girls than the circumference of the tower
at Pisa or the height of the Trocadero.
A couple of years ago a professor in Vassar College
stated that the number of pupils in the institution was
little more than half what it was in 1875. " The trou
ble is," said he, "that Vassar has become a thing to
poke fun at. Half the jokes about girls are put upon
Vassar students. Their doings are ridiculed, exagger
ated, falsified, and the very name of
, Vassar is a synonym for feminine
foolishness. The consequence is that
girls are beginning to dislike to go
there. I would not be surprised if
the college were closed in five years.
The newspaper paragraphists will
have done it." I cannot believe that
a result so deplorable could have such
a trivial and absurd cause. That a
great institution, celebrated through
out the world, could be closed by the
gibes of a needy penny-a-liner is as
incredible as that a Cunarder should
founder by collision with a jelly-fish.
Amongst some things by which Uncle Sam's girls

l':\ i'«-=-

A graceful pose.

THE FAMILT GIRLS 45
show their good sense is a corsage which allows free
play to the lungs. Wasp-waists, the pride of many Eng
lish girls, are conspicuously absent in America. The
result is a graceful pose and easy carriage altogether in
compatible with tight-lacing. In this particular Fashion
would do well to cross the Atlantic eastward, instead of
to the west as she usually does. Curiously enough, an
American manufacturer. advertises "Her Majesty's Cor
sets." What are they?
But the English girl displays better sense in her
choice of boots. Broad soles and flat heels are in
favour with most of the daughters of Albion; while
American girls -often affect the French chaussiire,
with high curved 
heels placed near the
middle of the sole,
and as little like the
human foot as a dress
maker's model is like
the Venus de' Medici.  ^_
Still this fashion is
rapidly giving way to the English style. Two or three
years ago an .^merican girl with comfortable-looking
boots was a rare sight; and the improvement has already
manifested itself in the increased exercise which Uncle
Sam's girls now take.
In several of the extensive valleys of California, where
the climate is equable and moist, there is rapidly develop
ing a race which in appearance is an exact counterpart
of the English people. Ruddy complexions and ample
forms give the people the appearance of having lately
arrived from Kent or Sussex. If Uncle Sam's girls
generally added the fresh clear complexion of an Eng-

46 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
lish girl to their numerous other charms, there would
be a stampede of men from Europe for wives. Only
two things would then be wanting to make her at once
fit for Paradise: a pair of wings and a softer voice.
The Boston girl often has a voice of un-American sweet
ness. Her sisters in other towns invariably speak in such
loud tones, that it takes a Briton a long time to get
acclimatized. Those who have been taught that American women
are tall and gaunt, like the, schoolmistress of amateur
theatricals, will be surprised to find how many fine
buxom matronly women there are in eastern cities. In
deed, Americans themselves are expressing surprise at
the change — ^for such it is. A few years ago, I am told,
American matrons looked as ill-fed as some of the care
worn business men look now; but at present they suffei"
no lack of that healthy adipose tissue which gives ampli
tude to the figure and geniality to the face. As the struggle
with nature— or rather with each other — becomes less
keen, we may expect similar changes in the physique of
American men. The jolliest among them have already
acquired a pleasing rotundity of figure. May their
shadows never grow less!
As a bonnet is to the female mind the physical expres
sion of every happy emotion, the embodiment of all
poetry and beauty, the crystallized result of ages of sen
timent, and the highest product of feminine ingenuity,
I have left all mention of it to the last as the boy leaves
the most savory morsel of his dinner — "that he may
have a good taste in his mouth." Though a description
of a bonnet is more difficult to write than the descrip
tion of a battle, or an essay on Dolichocephalic Crania

THE AMERICAN BONNET.

47

and their owners, it is clear that any chapter on Uncle
Sam's girls would be incomplete without some notice of
their bonnets. For the American bonnet is of a very
unusual kind. In the first place it is bigger than its
European prototype. As the English hare has acquired
great size, strength and fieetness since its transportation to
Australia, so the European bonnet has advanced to per
fection in America,
There it has reached
the acme of size
and of elaboration of
parts. It rises from
the curl-crowned
brow in majestic
height, a fitting cap
ital to so glorious a
column. But its
greatness is not with
out inconveniences.
" Madam, if you
would kindly remove
your hat, I should
be able to see the
stage," remarks a The acme of size.
gentleman at the theatre to a young lady who is in front
of him. No reply. " Madam, I cannot see anything
at all on the stage." No reply. " Madam, if you don't
remove your hat, you'll be sorry." Still no reply. The
gentleman deliberately puts on his own hat — a heinous
offence in any room where ladies are. "Take off
that hat, take off that hat!" immediately resounds
through the theatre. The young lady, in great con
fusion, instantly removes her bonnet, and the gentle-

48

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

man behind her settles down complacently to enjoy the
play. Not only does the American bonnet excel in size: its
shape is as varied as the feats of a contortionist. Spiral,
circular, triangular, quadrangular, orbicular, cunei
form, fusiform, dendriform, curviform, polygonal, mul
tilateral, elliptical, vaulted, hooked, conchoidal, heart-
shaped, bell-shaped, pear-shaped, oblique, flat — every
form to which there's a name, and many forms to
which there are none, does this mystifying head-gear
assume. Ribbons, flowers and feathers are arranged
over, round and un
der it in labyrinthic
disorder. To a man
it appears as confused
as a sermon in a
strange tongue; to a
woman as coherent
and orderly as the
same sermon to a na-
y \^ ¦ tive. It is like one
At a Bonnet Show. of those mysterics
which, while puzzling half the world, the other half
calls an "ism," and then thinks it knows all about it!

PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS.

4£

CHAPTEE IV.

PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS,
" My shield is Or, sir, and the arms I bear
Three mushrooms rampant ; motto. Here we are."
Thorold Rogers.
HE Republic of America is a vast
hive of industry. Every honest
man in the community is en
gaged in some gainful occupa
tion. Such idlers as exist are
of a very different type from
those who in Europe eat up so
large a share of the produce of
the workers. The difference has been well indicated by
an American lady, who was commiserated on the ab
sence of an aristocratic class, " who have no occupation
and go about from place to place enjoying themselves,
you know!" "Oh," said she, "we have such persons,
but in America they are called tramps."
Uncle Sam has the biggest farm and workshop in the
world. His farm comprised in 1880, 837,628 square
miles — an area greater than the United Kingdom,
Prance, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Holland and Bel
gium collectively. This mighty farm is divided amongst
four million of Uncle Sam's boys, giving an average of
134 acres to each. Its value is estimated at two billion
4

50

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

The American Aristocracy
(None other genuine).

sterling. Its yearly produce is worth £1,106,370,000,
His grain-field, exclusive of cotton, tobacco and the
like, is greater than
the whole of Spain,
or half as large
- again as England,
Ireland and Scot
land. His hay-field
covers an area as
large as Portugal
and Belgium; while
he gathers cotton
from plantations as
large as Holland.
How little some of
the kingdoms of Europe seem in the light of such a
contrast! His potato-fields, sugar-brakes and tobacco-
plantations would hide many of the old-world monarchies
beyond the power of their kings to find them again. A
great landowner is Uncle Sam !
Mulhall says that the farmers of Red River, Minne
sota, can send their grain for VZd. a bushel to New York,
or 15fl to Liverpool (say 4700 miles); while the citizens
of Athens pay ZQd. a bushel from Marathon, a distance of
only 15 miles.* The full importance of this fact is seen
only when placed by the side of another, also borrowed
from Mulhall: Nearly one third of the grain of the
world is grown in America! Truly the world would go
ahungered without America. Malthus did not take
the Republic into account when he made his famous
calculations.

* Balance sheet of the World, page 14.

PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS. 51
With live-stock, too, the national farm is supplied in
proportion to its great size. For every sheep, cow or
horse in the United Kingdom Uncle Sam has ten.
His twelve and a half million horses would make a
double procession from America to Egypt. If his 48
million mules and asses, oxen and cows, joined the
ranks, the procession would be equal to the journey from
London to Sydney, thence across the Pacific to Valpa
raiso, and through South America to Rio. If the proces
sion were augmented by his 45 million sheep and 57
million pigs, the ends would overlap after twice putting
" a girdle round the earth."
Uncle Sam's workshop is on an equally gigantic scale.
Sixty millions of people live within the limits of the
United States, and a big workshop is required to keep
them all supplied with boots, clothes, houses, furniture,
railways, and all the"other essentials to nineteenth-cen
tury happiness. England was the workshop of the
world a few years ago, and headed the nations as a
manufacturer. This honourable position she has had to
resign to her precocious child. It is difficult to compare
the relative positions of the two countries in this par
ticular, because the American returns include as manu
factures the products of the corn-mill, the slaughter
house, and the forest. But the estimates of British
manufactures as recorded in 1883 are nearly three hun
dred million sterling less than those of Uncle Sam in
1880. The number of workers in the census year was
more than seventeen and a quarter millions, or 34 -es
per cent of the whole population. That is, one person
in every three, including women and children, was at
some gainful work.
¦ In America many kinds of work are open to women

52

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

.--^-

which are closed to their sisters in Europe. The half-
million women-workers in 1880 included nearly three
thousand barbers, three hundred
journalists, seventy - five lawyers,
two thousand four hundred physi
cians, one hundred and sixty-five
preachers, and over three thou
sand printers. There are many
signal-women and female detec
tives, and at least one female Mis
sissippi pilot. But our dainty
country bar-maids, and those mag
nificent creatures who with queenly
dignity minister to thirsty Lon
doners, are equally unknown in
America. Uncle Sam regards this form of female
servitude as degrading as the field-work of French and
German women.

When we remember that a century ago, the American
continent was practically a terra incognita with the
exception of a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast,
the change seems almost miraculous. Who can estimate
the work that has been required to change the wilder
ness into a populous continent, dotted over with cities,
covered with a plexus of railways and canals, and dis
playing in every part the evidences of man's activity?
The vast shipments of grain and cattle, the endless
columns of statistics of manufactures, give no adequate
idea of American industry. For this we must follow
the progress of the country from its condition of savage
wildness to its present advanced position as a leader of
nations. In the building of great cities where forests

PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS. 63
lately stood, in the growth of farms where a few years
ago wild beasts and wilder men engaged in a fierce
struggle for existence, in the development of perfect
political institutions, cemented in blood, and made
strong and enduring by prolonged effort — such are the
things which bear the most eloquent testimony to Ameri
can industry. The American colonies had an industrial
origin; they fought for industrial freedom; by industry
they grew into a great nation; their consolidation was
effected by labour, not by militancy. Work, not war,
has ever been their watchword. By this have they at
tained a prosperity which the warlike nations of the Old
World will strive for in vain, until their young men ex
change the musket for the hammer, and drill in the
workshop and forge instead of in camps and barrack
yards. Every European nation has passed through a stage
in which it was held that war was the only honourable
calling, and that work of every form was degrading.
Our Norse forefathers, from whom we have inherited
many of the traits that have given the choicest parts of
the world to our English race, believed so thoroughly
that fighting was man's proper business and that work
was fit only for slaves and women, that they conceived
heaven as a place where their time was to be passed in
daily battles with magical healing of wounds, and hell
a place for women and workers. And we see the in
fluence of these and kindred sentiments in the contempt
that has grown around many once-excellent words.
" Villain," " churl," " boor," and " clown " were once
the simple designation of peasants; and equivalents of
two, " Kerl" and "Bauer," have survived dishonour in

54 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
Germany. " Clodhopper " and " groundling " further
testify to the degradation of that form of labour which
was not personal; while the elevation of " knight " and
*¦' esquire " show how much more honourable were menial
services — those performed by the moins ne. And not
only was labour despised: learning too was put under a
ban, and "crafty" and "cunning," once meaning
skilful and knowing, now connote deceit and strategy.
Even yet the business of war is held in highest esteem
in Europe; and though there are many estimable men
who cannot understand the pride with which Voltaire's
Frenchman declared, " Mon metier est de tuer, et d'etre
tue," it is still to soldiers that public monuments are
pftenest erected. We continue moreover to invoke the
divine anger on the Queen's enemies with the same
Norse ferocity with which we invite the Lord to smite
his own enemies " on the hinder parts." There is surely
a good deal of the old ferocity in the modern North
man's religion.
A London journal recently offered a prize for the
best list of the twelve greatest living men. Nearly
eighteen thousand voters considered General Wolseley
greater than John Bright or Prof. Huxley! Surely
we deserve the charge of eccentricity which other
nations make against us. And the really greatest
living man — the man who will leave the deepest per
sonal impress on his age, who will live longest in the
hearts and minds of men of all nations, who has helped
mankind the furthest onward, is not named at all—
did not receive a thousand votes! And while Herbert
Spencer is thus ignored, Bismarck receives 32,245
votes, Moltke 13,968, and Churchill 13,117 ! !
A curious commentary on social gradations is sug-

PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS 55
gested by Roget's Thesaurus, where " flunkey, jockey,
cad, swineherd" are given as correlatives of "emperor,
king, majesty," etc. "Scullion, charwoman, gyp,"
are stated as the opposites of "empress, queen, prin
cess," etc. As the list proceeds with " hireling, para
site, mercenary, puppet," as correlatives of "duke,
doge, seignior," one cannot help thinking that those
who acquiesce in such a classification deserve it. But I
suppose most people will here claim to belong to " the
middle class," which Roget leaves comfortably vague.
A friend, who I fear is more dogmatic than accurate,
says that the patrician " Howard " is derived from
"hog-ward"! If true, here's confusion for the Buggs!
But how consoling to the mass of plebeians, who are
derived from conditions of like humility! That a
despised Saxon swineherd should be the forefather of a
Howard of Effingham, while the product of a long line
of kings may be a libertine Stuart or an imbecile
George, is certainly encouraging to the plebs.
I wonder if any "old aristocrat," such as Thackeray
describes in his Book of Snobs, "swelling with pride,
the descendant of illustrious Norman robbers, whose
blood has been pure for centuries, and who looks down
upon common Englishmen as a free-bom American does
on a nigger" — I wonder if such a one ever had the
curiosity to calculate how many ancestors he had, say
six hundred years ago. If he did, the result must have
astonished him. Everybody knows that we each have
four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen
great-great-grandparents, and so on for a few genera-
.tions; but few probably have ascertained that this ratio
taken back twenty-five generations gives each of us one
hundred and thirtv-three million ancestors — ^a rather

56

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

startling result in view of the fact that twenty-five
generations ago the entire population of England was
probably not more than three million. Of course the
calculation is fanciful, but not more so than the notions
of blue blood and pure descent prevailing in aristocratic
circles. At this day the blue blood of those who
" came over with the Conqueror " must be millions of
times diluted, and fortunate its possessors that it is so.

It is common to find in American novels such expres
sions as "great families," "best society," "long de
scended;" and we hear of the " exclusiveness " of the
"fastidious American aristocracy," "who think as
much of their positions as the haughtiest veille noMesse
in Europe." "A patrician crush" is according to one
writer the synonym of what another calls "a toney
gathering." These crushes and gatherings have, how
ever, little of the aristocratic element in their com
position. They are for the most part but fashionable
circles in which prevails the milliner's estimate of life.
It is into this society that the young lady makes her
, .ji^ "deb-bew," — as de-
vS" . lutiB startlingly pro
nounced in America.
In no other English-
speaking community
do the people stickle
so for the titles
" gentleman " and
"lady." I was told
by my Irish-Ameri
can laundress that
"the lady what did
the clear-starchin' got twelve dollars a week." And I

Her " Deb-bew."

PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS. 57
have heard of a cabman who asked: "Are you the
man as wants a gentleman to drive him to the depot?"
During an investigation concerning the Cambridge
(Mass.) workhouse, one of the witnesses spoke of the
"ladies' cell." And a newspaper reporter, writing of a
funeral, had occasion to say how the " corpse of the
dead lady " looked.
The plebeian who by dint of hard work has accumu
lated wealth, often aspires to patrician distinctions.
Tiffany of New York is said to have a pattern book of
crests, from which the embryo nobleman may choose a
scutcheon emblematic either of his business or of some
less worthy characteristic. A shirtmaker of Connecticut,
having made a fortune by an improved cutting machine,
announced his intention of getting a coat-of-arms. An
unappreciative commoner asked him if the design would
be a shirt, rampant. "No," he gravely replied; "it
will be a shirt pendant and a washerwoman rampant."
This was possibly suggested by the attitude of the
washerwomen who called upon the President to de
mand that the towels of the
Treasury Department should
be " laundried " by native
talent and not by Chinamen.
A successful dustman adopt
ing a crest chose the motto
Fidelis ad nrnam, which by a very free translation was
made to read, " Faithful to the Ashes."
Byron said that families with long pedigrees are very
much like growing potatoes: the best part of them is in
\the ground. This is one of those truths which are so
self-evident after you have heard them, that you wonder
you never thought of them before. In no country is
this dictum so true as in America. The children of the

58 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
successful merchant or manufacturer expect to begin
life where their fathers ended. They are brought up
extravagantly, in full knowledge of their fathers' wealth,
and with no incentive to effort. But in a society which
has no idlers these young men soon tire of their own com
pany, and longing for a new sensation, enter busi.ness.
There they have to compete with men who are working
their way up, and in doing so have developed traits
which the rich man's son sadly lacks. He " gets left,"
as the American phrase well describes a defeat, and
pretty soon he proves the truth of the Byronic simile.
A good story is told of an old senator from Kentucky,
a lover of those old-fashioned virtues that went along
with " Jeffersonian simplicity," who delighted in snub
bing the dude of his day. Meeting one of these one day
in the street, he was accosted with "How d'y do. Sen
ator? I called on you yesterday."
" Yes, I got your card. By the way, what jvas that
horse's head on it for, and the letters?"
The youth laughed airily.
" The head, judge, is my crest — the steed which some
of my ancestors rode to battle ; and the letters E. P.
mean en personne — I left the card myself."
" Oh! I see," dryly replied the judge.
A day or two later they met again. "I got your
card, judge, this morning. But what do those extraor
dinary figures on it mean?"
'^Oh! the mule is »?,«/ crest. I sell mules in Kentucky;
and the letters S. B. A. D. mean that the card was sent
by a darky."
I think it could be proved, if data were obtainable,
that those who have the most right to these emblems of

PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS. 59
nobility are least mindful of them. In his thoughtful
little book entitled " Old World Questions and New
World Answers," Mr. Daniel Pidgeon relates that at
Great Barrington, Connecticut, he was hospitably en
tertained by a widow, the mother of a female compositor,
whose ancestral chart included William the Conqueror,
Matilda of Scotland, Alfred the Great, Henry I. of
England, Lewis the Fair, Charles the Bald of France,
and Charlemagne and Hildegarde of Swabia, his wife.
Remember, these are from the genealogy of a working-
woman who still lives in an obscure town in New Eng
land. Mr. Pidgeon says: "The fervent desire of every
New Englander is to trace his lineage to one among
the handful of God-fearing and courageous men who
first colonized America, and rarely seeks to lengthen
his pedigree by research in England, content if he has
sprung from the virtuous fathers of his own country."
A desire of this kind is in the highest degree praise
worthy: it does not express itself in those ostentatious
crests and emblazonments that seem to proclaim their
owner better than his fellows.
Armorial bearings were originally the signs which
warriors placed on their shields or habits, in order to be
distinguished from enemies in battle. A
genuine coat-of-arms, therefore, implies
descent from some old-time barbarian.
By negative evidence, the families with
out crests descend from the herd of re
tainers, or from the masses of workers.
It is a curious survival of the barbaric
instinct which causes men to prefer
(where they have the choice, as in America) a descent
from some feudal tyrant and murderer, as all those

60 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
fellows were, rather than an ascent from an honest
swineherd or serf. If in these days it is nobler to suffer
wrong than to be an evil-doer, surely it must be more
honourable to have had a wronged and suffering an
cestor, than a barbarous tyrant, practising on his trem
bling dependents his horrible droit de seigneur and the
like.

THE ANGLOMANIAC.

61

CHAPTER V.
THE anglomaniac; with a note on the functions
OF the dude.
" Thou damned antipodes to common-sense!" — Rochester.

F the visitor to New York will walk
down Fifth Avenue any fine Sun
day morning after church-time,
he will see a crowd of fashion
ably-dressed young men standing
under the portico of the Wind
sor Hotel, sucking wooden tooth
picks, and watching the people
as they come from church. Others may be seen at the
windows of a certain club in Fifth Avenue which has
often been mistaken for a boys' school. These young
men are dudes, the American variety of the London
masher. They belong to that large class which scoffers
call Anglomaniacs. They do not live at the Windsor
Hotel; they merely get their toothpicks there, and once
in a while patronize the hotel bootblack, just to give
countenance to their loafing in the halls and on the
porch. It was probably the sight of some such exquisite
that evoked from Puller the trite remark : " Nature
generally hangs out a sign of simplicity in the face of a
fool."

62

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

The Dude is the Anglomaniac par excellence. He has
the cockney drawl which actors in
America affect when representing an
Englishman; and though he does not
drop his h's in the traditional British
style, he walks with the Piccadilly swing
or the Pall Mall glide, whichever hap
pens to be the passing masher fashion.
He takes his father's cuff, and wears it
as a collar; and putting a pane of glass
in his eye, ogles with true masher-stare
the ladies who pass him in the street.
The Pall Mall glide. ^.^ ^^j^^^.^ ^^^ imported, as are also
his gloves and his hat. He affects the society of such
scions of British nobility as are attainable; and boasts
of his acquaintance with the Earl of Rottenville and

The " Masher-stare."

Lord Gumboyle. Every change of gait, attire or occu
pation of the masher is quickly imitated by the dude.
Life, the American Punch, has made many a laugh at
the dude's expense. According to this journal, the

THE ANGLOMANIAC.

63

dude's representative in London not long since sent to
his club-friend a cablegram which read:
" Dust-carts are all the style. Get one, and tell the
dear boys."
Forthwith dust-carts became the rage in New York.
The office of chief scavenger was besieged by a crowd of
young men wearing loose trowsers
and single eye-glasses, demanding
corporation dust-carts. The com
missioner could not supply more
than half the required number; but
those of the disappointed dudes
who could afford it bought private
dust-carts and harnessed them to
high-stepping horses, and had a
tiger on the back of the cart with
folded arms in the regulation Hyde
Park style. The poorer dude bought
a wheelbarrow and shovel, or a dust-pan and brushes/
Life says the craze was at its height when consterna
tion was produced in the ranks of the gilded youth by
another cablegram:
" Mistake of telegrapher. Dog-carts fashionable, not
dust-carts. Great
laughter in Lon
don." With amusing
seriousness. Life
adds that Fifth
Avenue was then
free of the dude for a month.
A philosophical contemplation of the
dude, in the plenitude of his powers of

64 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
dispersion, fills one with admiration at the economy of
nature. Nothing is allowed to run to waste — not even
a dude. His place in nature, like that of the mosquito,
is unperceived by the common mind; but the philoso
pher sees that both dude and mosquito fulfil important
functions. The mosquito nourishes itself at the expense
of others: the dude nourishes others at the expense of
himself. He is the rich man's son, who distributes his
father's wealth, and ssts it circulating in a health-giving
current throughout society in general but amongst pub
licans and sinners in particular. The dude is a pro
vision of nature against the prolonged accumulation of
great wealth in families. Owing to this bland-looking
type, there is hardly a great fortune in the United States
which has passed as a whole beyond the second genera
tion. " In America," says an observant writer, " there
are but three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt
sleeves." While the dude does his appointed work so
well, there is no danger of an Aristocracy of the Dollar
in America. A territorial class such as we have in
England is impossible where free laws allow wealth to
pass from the hands of the idle and luxurious into the
hands of the industrious and frugal.
Let us respect the dude, then. Though he appears a
noodle whose only soul is that supplied by his tailor, his
mission is of great importance to society, and he fulfils
his task far better than might be expected from his
vacant looks. The dude is really a benefactor to his
race. All glory to the dude!
The dude's sister has no specific name.* She is sim
ply an Anglomaniac; though in her, as befits her su-
* " Dudine" has been coined since this was written.

THE ANGLOMANIAC.

65

perior nature, the malady is not so acute. She wisely
refuses to make a martyr of herself to acquire an Eng
lish waist; and she i
declines to corrupt
her native American
speech by a mongrel
cockney. She thinks
as an American, and
talks as an American
— though I have
heard of her breaking i
an engagement be
cause her lover called
trowsers "pants."
Only does she dress
as an Englishwoman. He called trowsers '
And this is really not a bad thing to do. American
ladies are tempted by their bright climate into showi-
ness, and a little English corrective,
in the shape of sombre colours and
less ornamentation, will do good rather
than harm. But the styles which Eng
lish tailors impose on a credulous wo
mankind are often appallingly ugly.
Here is a sample taken bodily from an
English tailor's advertisement in a
New York paper. What curious ideas
will Americans have of English girls
if this deformity is to be considered a
fair sample! Nothing illustrates so
well the absurdity of Anglomania in America as the fact
that an English tailor should find it profitable to adver
tise such caricatures. And the prices this audacious
5

An English girl !

66

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

A Du<line.

Briton demands for his wares! I dare not repeat what
some of my friends tell of his charges: it is almost
incredible. Surely no ridicule can be
too great for such a craze. American
papers are full of it. Perhaps some
good might be done if English papers
took up the cry; for Americans are
sensitive to English criticism. Indeed
it is the only criticism to which they
are sensitive. For a Frenchman's
ridicule they do not care a red cent, as
they would say; and no other Continen
tal nation sees anything in America
to laugh at.
It is said that one has to go abroad
to learn all about one's own country.
In America I learnt many things
about England of which I had previously no knowledge.
One discovery was that the Prince of Wales introduces
all changes in dress, manners and social arrangements.
I suppose he has as much to do with such changes as
anybody; but I conformed for many years to dicta with
out knowing who gave the orders. It was from a publi
cation of Harpers' that I first learned to whom I am
indebted for lengthening the lappels
of my coat and giving a curve to the
rim of my hat. I am duly grateful —
nay, more, for I had often declaimed
at fashion when the tailor assured me
that my new coat must differ from the
old one, though the latter satisfied me
in every particular. The paragraph in
Harpers' which revealed my obligations to royalty ends

THE ANGLOMANIAC. 67
with a thought worth quoting: "It was said that the
dropping of a pebble in the ocean produced a move
ment which was continued to the utmost confines of
the sea. The whim or the comfort of one exalted or
dandiacal personage may likewise, in the cut of a coat
or the form of a shoe, go round the world. Uncon
sciously even we republicans are subjects of a king,
and the severe and scornful defier of the authority of
the British crown defies it in a coat whose 'cut' is a
docile acknowledgment of that crown's resistless power.
The influence of a social leader is shown in nothing so
strongly as in his ability to make two continents wear
clothes cut as he chooses."
The picture of the defiant republican declaiming
against royalty in a coat fashioned by a king is good. I
am glad I saved the extract.
A paper that delights to make fun of that part of the
British constitution which is most conspicuous to a re
publican is the Neiv Orleans Picayune. A tirade against
Anglomania in that paper, which is now before me, ends
with the terse comment: " A troublesome corn on a royal
toe of England will change the gait of every society
idiot in New York!" This is Carlylean — but not truth
ful. There is another type of Anglomaniac. He is not a
dude or fashionable exquisite. He is simply a good-
hearted, generous fellow, anxious to be hospitable and
friendly to a people whose ancestors were also his own.
It is hard that such a man should be dubbed a maniac,
but it is the truth. The madness, however, lies not so
much in the hospitality which he displays as in the
worthless character of the guest upon whom it is lav
ished. I should deplore saying anything that could

68 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
make the relations of Englishmen and Americans less
friendly; but I do not think these relations are any the
more cordial because the good-natured Anglomaniac
takes up and entertains with lavish hospitality every
lordling and snob who visits the Republic. It would be
all right if the titled idiot had the heart and head to re
ciprocate the attention when his American entertainer
visits England. But on such occasions we have an ex
hibition of snobbishness greater than anything Thack
eray described. The following is an American's protest
against this form of inhospitality. I think it may be
read with interest and even profit by certain sections of
our fashionable society:
INTERNATIONAL COURTESIES.
The incident of the blackballing of sundry inoffensive and eli
gible Americans, as Americans, at a London club stimulates re
flections which even Mr. Henry James has not exhausted upon
the international aspects of " society."
The complications of which the shutting of the doors of the
Bachelors' Club against these New Yorkers is the latest, are such
as inevitably arise in the intercourse of a strictly classified people
like the British with .an unclassified people like ourselves. A
Briton's social status is very largely fixed by external conditions
with which his personal character has little to do. A man of
genius may be patronized by members of the class above his own,
but if he be also a self-respecting person the patronage will be too
obvious to be agreeable. He is admitted on sufferance, and not on
the same footing with the persons who belong to "society." The
anxiety to appear to be one step higher in the social scale than one
really is is the essence of snobbishness, and the snob is distinctly
indigenous to Great Britain, being the product of the social envi
ronment there prevailing. As a rule an Englishman accepts that
station in life, as the English catechism puts it, in which he has
been placed, and makes up for the necessity of truckling more or
less to people stationed above him in the privilege of bullying

THE ANGLOMANIAC. 69
more or less the people stationed below him. An English " swell "
looks upon Americans as Mr. Matthew Arnold did before he came
here. To him they are so many members of the English middle
class. Mr. Arnold's presumption did not survive his visit, but the
English swell is a much thicker-headed person. As Mr. Arnold
himself has said, he is inaccessible to ideas, and his notion that the
United States are populated by degenerate English tradesmen is
ineradicable. He lives with Americans when he is in America, see
ing that there is nobody else to live with, but he has not the slight
est idea of living with them when he is at home. What they re
sent as snubbing, when he ignores instead of reciprocating their
hospitalities, is to him merely a necessary measure of self-protec
tion. If a New Yorker should be hospitably treated by guides
and trappers in the Northwest he would feel decently grateful to
them, no doubt, and if he revisited their country he would be at
pains to look them up and receive some more attention from them.
But if the trappers and the guides should come to New York and
expect to be asked to dinner he would be apt to resent their intru
sion as an impertinence. This is very much the unfeigned feeling
of the British swell toward his American entertainers, and it is
the feeling which the British snob pretends to feel in order to pro
mote the illusion that he, too, is a swell.
Americans who extend courtesies to Britons who have handles
to their names or who are nearly allied to Britons so equipped are
much deluded if they imagine that these courtesies are received
as courtesies between equals, to be repaid in kind when occasion
offers. A visit to London has wrought a disillusion in the minds
of many of them. It is unfortunately true that many specimens
of the rising generation of the British nobility are as thorough
going blackguards as incumber the earth, and some of the most
unsavory among them have visited this country. Of course, who
ever countenances a notorious blackguard by entertaining him
because the blackguard has a title is a snob, and when he is
snubbed and blackballed by the blackguard and the blackguard's
friends a righteous retribution has overtaken him. Not infre
quently the travelling Briton does not wait to reach home before
showing himself ungrateful to his American hosts, but abuses hos
pitality even when he is in the act of soliciting or of absorbing it.
Such was the case with the Briton whose impudence caused not

70 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
only his American entertainers, but his respectable English fellow-
travellers, to stand aghast upon a memorable excursion two years
ago. But, then, it is not just to call an English swell a blackguard,
nor even to accuse him of being in a general way an ingrate, be
cause he declines to associate on equ.il terms at home with the
persons with whom he was compelled to associate when he was
abroad. He may sincerely consider that these people are not his
social equals, though he condescended to their society when there
was no other to be got. The frankness with which he makes this
belief manifest is peculiar to him. But this is connected with one
of his most respectable qualities, and that is his indifference to
what other people think of him so long as he thinks well of him
self. His bump of approbativeness is very small. " What I ad
mire about your Lord Hartington," a foreigner in England is re
ported in a late book as saying, " is his youbedamnedness." If
any American wishes to fathom the depths of the youbedamned
ness of the British swell, he need only show social attentions in
New York to British peers, and afterward visit London in an in
nocent expectation that these attentions will be returned.

THE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION.

71

CHAPTER VI.

A COMMBNTAEY ON THE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION.

" There is pleasure sure
In being mad, which only madmen
know . " — Dryden.

F Mulhall is to be trusted as
a statistician, there are
more insane people in the
United States in propor
tion to population than
in any other country ex
cept Ireland. The ratio
per thousand inhabitants
in Europe is 1*6; in the
United States it is 3 • 3. Looking back, we find that this
remarkable figure is the product of late years. In 1850
the ratio was only 1-36; in 1860 it was 1-39; in 1870,
1'61; and in 1880 it reached the alarming figure 3 '30.
By contrasting the conditions of life in America with
those of countries where the insanity rate is low, we
have prima-facie evidence that the American high rate
is due to commercial competition and high-pressure liv
ing generally. In Spain and Portugal, for example,
where the people are a happy-go-lucky race, and care
little for industrial success, the rate is 0* 7. In Switzer
land, where the people live simple lives, free from business

73 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
worry, the rate is 1*1. Similarly in Austria and Russia^
the insane rate is low; for though militancy there is a
cause of much suffering, the people are free from the con
tention of an active business life. In Great Britain, how
ever, where the conditions of life are nearest allied to
those in America, the insanity rate is very high, though
not so high as in Ireland, where emigration of the
healthiest men and women leave the defective to swell
the returns in undue proportions. In Canada the peo
ple have less "go" in them than in the States; and there
the insane rate is little more than half that of the Re
public. The ratio of increase in America is sufficiently start
ling; but when we look at the bare figures the contrast
is appalling. Observe the difference between 1850 and
1880: Ye^'-- Totallnsane. ^^^^^Zts.
1850  31,400 1-86
1860  43,970 1-39
1870  61,900 1-61
1880  168,880 3-8
Of course this tremendous increase has not taken
place without remark; but with the fatuity with which
men habitually obscure the cause of a disaster, they are
explaining the increased madness by saying it is due to
the wind! In the cities around the lakes the favourite
theory is that the moist winds from the great fresh
water seas are causing the trouble; but if this were so,
Canada's insanity rate should be even higher than that
of the Republic, since a greater proportion of its popula
tion lives on the lakes. The explanation is suggestive
of the German schoolboy's song,
" Du bist veiTlickt, mein Kind;
., Du hast ein Kopf voll Wind ! "

THE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION.

73

The fierce struggle for existence in America is shown
not only by crowded madhouses. It is conspicuous
in the wild rush of
the city streets, and
in the careworn
faces of men.
Herbert Spencer
told the Ameri
cans, when he
preached to them
his gospel of relax
ation, that persis
tent activity had
with them reached
an extreme from
which there must
begin a counter-
change — a reac-
tion. "Every
where," said he,
' ' I have been
struck with the
number of faces English methods.
which told in strong lines of the burdens that had to be
borne. I have been struck, too, with the large propor
tion of gray-haired men; and inquiries have brought
out the fact that with you the hair commonly begins to
turn some ten years earlier than with us." I have
several acquaintances in America whose hair was tinged
with gray before they were thirty years of age. Every
where one meets men who have suffered from nervous
collapse, or hears of men killed by overwork — " died in
harness," as they say in America. Even children in

74 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
schools display "the same feverishness and absence of
repose," to borrow the expression of the Rev. Mr. Eraser
who reported on American educational systems to our
government a few years ago.
And what is the good of all this strife? Well may
the astonished stranger ask, when puzzled natives thus
speak: " The United States is a paradox: forty-three billions of wealth;
yet work is hard to get, and leisure scarcely exists. The nation
grows richer, but the individual works harder. The problem of
living gets more complicated, instead of getting simpler. Mr. At
kinson tells us that we have saved fifteen billions of dollars since
1860. Where are they? Have they earned us any leisure? Have
they quieted our anxious business won-ics? 'Ten men can now
feed one thousand, one man shoe a thousand;' why do not the nine
hundred and ninety -nine have time for rest and culture? 'We
produce enough in six months to last for a year'; why have we
not six months every year for education and enjoyment? 'We
make two billions now for every billion made twenty years ago;'
why do we still have but $119 apiece a year to live upon? It
is not our wealth that needs to be explained, but our poverty."*
The evil consequences of this absorption are further
seen in the stunted forms and pale faces of the children
of nervous men. They are seen in the solitary lives of
the women. In summer women crowd the mountain
hotels and seaside resorts; their husbands visit them
from Saturday till Monday, and hammer away at busi
ness during the week. They are seen in the success of
political jobbers — low foreigners who find the misgov-
ernment of a city or a State more remunerative than
carrying mortar and bricks up a ladder. ''The best
men of America are absorbed in the struggle for wealth;

* Herbert Putnam in Citizen^ Aug. 1886.

THE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION. 75
the government of the city and State is left to bar-room
politicians! and peculating officials. ' Here it is that the
gross selfishness of the American business man is seen
at its worst. He is aware of all the corruption and dis
honesty that pollute the City Hall or the State legisla
ture. He occasionally swears a great oath when a piece
of jobbery of unusual magnitude and audacity becomes
known; but he goes on making his personal pile bigger
and bigger, committing the government to Sheol and
the Irish.
Examples of official incompetency and worse can be
gathered from every newspaper; yet such is the pub
lic indifference that in every city there are thousands
of citizens who do not take the trouble to be registered
and to vote. And of those who do vote, the majority is
so completely controlled by one or other of the party
machines, that the real voice of the people — the Vox Dei
— is completely stifled in the ballot-box. Occasionally
the citizens rise up in anger and abolish the corrupt ad
ministration. Then they settle down again to acquiring
each other's property, and soon another "ring" is gild
ing itself with taxpayers' dollars.
The man who thus sacrifices wife, children, city and
State to his desire to "get on" does not escape the sear
ing of the finer feelings inseparable from prolonged self
ishness. Add to this the effect of forty years' indus
trial campaigning, with little relaxation and no cultiva
tion except that found in morning newspapers and daily
price-lists, and we get an ideal "successful business
man:" " Through life's dark road his sordid way he wends,
An incarnation of fat dividends."

76 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
The superabundant energy of Americans, which so
often takes the form of commercial wrestling, is some
times attributed to their bright invigorating climate.
And that there is some truth in the explanation is ob
vious to all who have had opportunities of contrasting
the listless condition of mind and body engendered
by a damp, muggy day in England, with the exhilarat
ing glow excited by the crisp atmosphere of an Amer
ican winter's day, when the heart beats a joyous tune
to which every fibre responds in unison. In Cali
fornia one constantly experiences this delightful buoy
ancy of mind and body; and many a gigantic bubble-
scheme has been floated into its rare atmosphere, which
has hopelessly collapsed as soon as it passed into the
denser air of other regions. In Denver, at some seasons,
solid-looking business men trip along the streets with a
lightness that is almost sylph-like; and frequently in
New York one feels like Tommy Upmore, when his ex
panding joyousness carried him over the tree-tops like a
balloon. But though climate may account for much of
the overflowing energy of Americans, it does not account
for the limitation of effort to personal ends. The fact
is that work has become a kind of war; and the average
Yankee values an industrial victory as highly as the red-
skinned American prized his enemy's scalp-lock. They
are both successful competitors; and there is not much
difference in the character of their rewards.
The spirit of competition pervades every detail of the
American's life. Not only is his business-life ruled by
it: it gives form to such amusements as he allows him
self. If he owns horses, they must be able to trot as fast
as those of his business rival, and to that end his buggy
or sleigh is made as light as possible. Everywhere box-

THE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION. 11
ing-matches are well attended; and pugilists sometimes
receive homage rarely accorded to more worthy men.

Bliss— long drawn out.
Here is a description of the home-coming of a Phila
delphia pugilist, after an encounter with the Boston
champion: " Cleopatra her.self when she went sailing up the Cydnus to meet
Antony hardly travelled in more state than did Mr. McCaffrey in
his journey from the Broad Street station to his Eighth Street
saloon. If his name instead of being Dominick had been Hora-
tius, and if instead of fighting a fellow-creature for money he had
been saving Rome by keeping a bridge over the Tiber, he could
hardly have been decorated with more signal marks of admiration.
A cheering crowd met him when the train stopped; triumphant
music announced his presence; a band of enthusiastic friends,
while the strains of ' Hail to the Chief ' floated away on the Penn
sylvania air, lifted him bodily from his feet and bore him aloft on
their shoulders to a splendid carriage drawn by four prancing
horses; a body-guard of eight hundred devoted fellow-citizens fol
lowed the carriage down Chestnut Street; directly in front of the
imposing chariot ran a goodly number of the youth of the city,
making constant proclamation as they ran that tho Chief was
coming; at Eleventh and Chestnut streets three fair Philadelphia
maidens — of course intended to typify Faith, Hope and Charity,
although none of the local papers say so— waved their handker
chiefs at the Chief, who in turn 'bowed modestly.'
Thus came the pugilist home. So Philadelphia welcomed the
return of Dominick McCaffrey. John Welsh had no such a re-

78

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

on his return from Europe. But then he had only been
Minister at the Court of St. James. Benjamin H.
Brewster had no such reception on his return from
Washington. But then he had only been Attorney-
General of the United States. Daniel Dougherty
had no such a reception on his return from his most
successful lecturing tour. But then he is only a
great orator. Dominick McCaffrey is a pugilist.
The rising generation in Philadelphia can draw its
own moral."

It need hardly be said that " the rising generation of
Philadelphia" here meant is that portion of it which
makes the most noise and does the city the least credit.
Corresponding crowds would greet with enthusiasm a
native pugilist in any city; but to admit this would have
spoilt the laugh which this New York journalist wished
to raise at the expense of the Quaker City.
Athletic clubs are common enough in American
cities; but the competitive instinct crops out even in
these. Professional walking- and skating-matches some
times partake of the nature of a horrible torturing, so
prolonged and keen is the struggle. Here is a descrip
tion of a victim of a six days' walking-match :
' "Fitzgerald's face— unshaven, uncouth, distorted and ungainly,
withered by the tremendous strain and lined like a cobweb —
was a more repulsive sight dur
ing the last three days of the
match than anything in the
Eden Musee. His eyes were
sluggish, bloodshot and heavy,
and encompassed by huge pur
ple circles. His cheeks had so
sunk iu' that the contour of the
teeth could almost have been seen
through them, and every move
ment was an illustration of acute agony. He swung his arms

THE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION. 79
painfully, his head dropped on his chest, his shoulder-blades,
stuck out sharply from his attenuated body, his legs dragged lamely
one after the other, and the muscles of his neck twitched nervously
at every step. He dragged himself steadfastly ahead, never turn
ing his eyes to the right or left, until he came to the scorer's stand,
when he painfully and laboriously turned his face toward the
figures to see that they were correctly given."
Others are described as even more pitiable. The
analytic journalist adds:
"Night after night and day after day thousands of people
poured into the garden and hung for hours over the rail staring
at the faces of the poor wretches who were dragging themselves
around the track. There seemed to be a sort of morbid fascina
tion in it for the crowd. A man would get a position along the
rail where he could see the walkers for an instant as they passed
on theu- rounds. Here he would stand for five or six hours in the
stifling atmosphere, pushed and jostled by the crowd, just for the
chance of catching a glimpse of the faces of the toiling pedestri
ans as they came around the track. Everybody who came in ex
claimed at the revolting appearance of the men, and then crowded
eagerly for a place where they could catch a closer view of them."
There is surely not much difference between our nine
teenth-century humanity and that humanity of Roman
days which found its most inspiring diversion in watching
men and beasts flght to the death. The amusements of
a people are always in harmony with its conditions. The
conditions of the old Romans called for great personal
courage, prompt decision in danger, unswerving devotion
to the state, and even cruelty. In the amphitheatre these
qualities were exhibited in their highest degree. In
America in modern days, the qualities most admired are
those which have made it the most industrial of nations;
and exhibitions of energy, perseverance, endurance, and
that indefinable mixtureof them all, "grit," will continue

80 • UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
in favour as long as the present conception of success pre
vails. A couple of years ago a man skated on roller-
skates 1055 miles in six days, and died a few weeks later
from exhaustion — it was called by another name by his
friends. The tortures which this wretched creature
and his competitors underwent were described in ghastly
detail by the principal New York papers. The horrible
looks of the men, the pressing forward of the crowd —
every revolting circumstance was printed in newspapers
which in America hold the position of the Times, Stand
ard or Daily News in England.
Every amusement which allows betting is in favour in
America. Baseball- and trotting-matches, horse-races,
boxing-matches, iceboat-races and yachting are favour
ite sports. Betting on the exchange is not an amuse
ment in America
any more than it is
elsewhere. It is a
grave soul-killing
business, as repug
ns: nant to every fine
sentiment of human
ity as slaughtering cattle. That it should prevail to the
extent it does in America implies a depth of commercial
degradation discouraging to those who are ever looking
for signs of progress in the race. This aspect of Ameri
can life is as repulsive as its walking- and skating-
matches. Perhaps nothing so well illustrates the difference be
tween the English and American character as the na
tional games of cricket and baseball. The British game
is slow and irksome to an American. The deliberation
with which the "overs" are made is insupportable to

THE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION. 81
one of his quick, time-sparing habits; while the long~
drawn contest, often lasting a couple of days, is simply
impossible in a country where time is so valuable that
love-letters are said to be written on the type-writer.
The finest game of baseball — which is the lineal descend
ant, improved by careful breeding, of the children's
game of "rounders" — is completed within two hours;
and every emotion from exultation to despair may be
crowded into that short time. Baseball is short and ex
citing; cricket long and often monotonous, like the per
formance in a Chinese theatre.
That sparrows fight is a fact known to every people
among whom this domestic little pet makes its home. A
philanthropist introduced a number of English spar
rows into America, and the people welcomed them with
the heartiness they extend to everything English.
Houses were placed in trees and on telegraph-poles for
the accommodation of the little Britons, who prospered
and multiplied at a rate which put the German immi
grant to shame. Before the sparrows came, it was im
possible to walk with comfort under the trees which in
American towns are planted along the streets: ugly
worms and caterpillars dropped down, and crawled over
woman's bonnets and down men's collars. The spar
rows ate up the worms, and thus fulfilled the task ex
pected of them. Then the great American nation dis
covered that the sparrow was a nuisance. It fought
everything that could fight, and drove away the things
that could not fight. With shocking lack of filial re
spect, it hesitated not to fight its own father and mother,
and attacked its cousins, and its sisters and its aunts. In
brief, it was a demoralizing influence; and a wail went
up from the press of the land. But the sparrows had
6

82 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
settled down for life, as is the habit of English colo
nists. It is this simple trait that makes English colonies
permanent and successful. The Frenchman goes abroad
to make money which he intends to spend in Paris.
The Briton settles down and makes his home in the new
country to which he goes, and henceforth regards Eng
land only as his headquarters. If the American philan
thropist wanted colonists of itinerant habits he should
have introduced French sparrows. To introduce
Britons was a grave oversight of first principles — a mis
take possible only to a philanthropist, with his love of
direct remedies.
The pugnacity of the now-acclimated sparrow has
been turned to good account by the American Chinee.
He has made it a means of relaxation from the wash-tub
and ironing-board. He has trained the sparrow to fight
scientifically. A Philadelphia reporter who saw such a
prize-fight says:
" The sparrows' wings were cut and their tails were cropped
close. Their bills were almost white where they had been sand
papered to make their little beaks as sharp
as a needle's point. One of the sparrows
had a little piece of red ribbon wrapped
around its leg to distinguish it from the other.
Hop Chung Lung, who is one of the silent
partners of the gambling house, then sized up
the birds with a sporting man's eye, and of
fered to bet ten ' plunks ' (dollars) that the bird
with the red ribbon on its right leg would
kill the other. There were no takers until
Bun Sun Low had dropped the birds in the
pit. The moment this was done the sparrow
that had no ribbon on it plunged at the other and pecked a mouth
ful of feathers out of its head. This caused a chuckle all around,
and Charlie Lee, the Tenth Street laundryman, covered Hop Chung

THE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION. 83,
Lnng's ten ' plunks. ' This added fresh excitement to the flght. The
bird with the red leg was the gamest, and made a lunge at his
antagonist. In another moment he pecked the other bird in the
throat, and his needle pointed bill did deadly work. The one-
eyed bird toppled over and fell on the sand dead. Other fights,
followed, and when the fourth brace had fought for three or four
minutes Chung Wat told Bun Sun Low to stop the fight, and the
spectators were told the sport was over."

There are two sections of the American people to
whom the preaching the Gospel of Relaxation is a work
of supererogation: the western farmers and the coloured
people. The ambitions of both classes are narrowly cir
cumscribed. That of the western farmer is well indi
cated in the following catechism:
Q. What is the American farmer's ambition?
A . To buy more land.
Q. What does he want more land for?
A. To grow more corn.
Q. Why does he want more corn?
A. To raise more hogs.
Q. Why does he want more hogs?
A. To sell, in order to buy more land, to grow more
corn, to raise more hogs, to sell in order to buy more
land. And so in monotonous round the western farmer's
ambition passes from land to corn, and hogs, and land.
There is nothing wearing in this; and the farmer lives
a quiet happy life which is unknown to dwellers in
cities, with their ceaseless strivings, disappointments
and heart-burnings.
The coloured people are a happy contented race.
Wherever they are one hears their merry chatter and
the loud yah- yah of their laugh. With song and jest

84

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

they kill time and dull care, as they lounge in groups on
southern wharves and levees, or sit idly swinging their
feet on the edge of a railway platform. Oarlyle gives a
funny picture of the negro who eats the inside of a pump
kin, puts half the empty rind on his head, sits in the
other half, and then blinks at the world in satisfied com
fort. Carlyle was angry at the picture. He wanted
this ruminating animal to come out of his pumpkin, and
work. " Every man has a right to be forced to work,"
scolded the philosopher, with his usual contempt for
logic. But then he had scolded the workers; and when
told that Americans double their numbers every twenty-
five years, doubted if to have forty million dollar-hun
ters in the world were any better than to have twenty
million dollar-hunt«rs. Poor old man ! He hunted too
^.,^ — and lived long enough to
see the futility of his own
particular chase. For my
part, the picturesque darky
in his pumpkin is a more
agreeable sight than the same
darky perspiring in the noon
day sun, exercising his "' right
to be forced to work."
Most of the personal service
is in the hands of coloured
people. The hotels are every-
^ where full of them; and they
^' make cheerful, ready servants
2" in a house. They are very
^' musical. A score of coloured
waiters at a summer -hotel
often contain enough talent to form a glee club; and

THE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION. 85
during the warm evenings their plaintive songs, still
tinged with the melancholy of slavery, awake the echoes
of the woods, and thrill the listener with that luxurious
sadness which so often characterizes the music of a
conquered race — like the minor music of the Irish peas
antry. The prettiest song that ever originated in
America — "'Way down upon the Suwanee River" — is
of this character — in which are interwoven "les pleurs
du peuple et les fleurs du pri7itemps." With a skiff
moored in some quiet creek, the darky fisherman sym
bolizes his race: perhaps asleep, but always happy and
comfortable, caring little about the scaly tribe until
forced to care by hunger. An infusion of negro con
tentment into the Yankee character would do Uncle
Sam good. His energy and enterprise and industry re
quire to be tempered by that quality which the French
call insouciance.

' '¦• ".j^ ^.

5 *

6

86 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

CHAPTER VII.
SOCIAL atavism; OE old things UNDER A NEW
NAME.
" To tear down the sky in order to catch larks is wasteful ex
travagance, and should be forbidden by law." — A
New Lapuia.
T is well known to breeders of pigeons,
. rabbits and dogs that the offspring of
^^S> pure-blooded parents often shows a low-
^^' breed taint. The litter of a high-bred
lop-eared rabbit often contains an ani
mal possessing the appearance and character of a remote
wild progenitor. The new-born ass sometimes shows
the zebra-markings of a distant ancestor, and horses are
sometimes born with three toes. In plants, too, the
same tendency is observed: peaches sometimes appear
on a nectarine-tree. Men and women, too, revert to
ancestral types. We all know some one who is the im
age of his grandfather, and not a bit like his father.
And ancestral character, as well as appearance, is apt
thus to break out in later generations. Some men, in
deed, seem to inherit with great directness the instincts
and desires of some ancestor who lived among the cave
men in a paleolithic age, while others, with some traits
adapted to nineteenth-century civilization, are ever
ready to drop into the habits and feelings of that hairy
ancestor who lived in tree -tops, ages before the cave men.

SOCIAL ATAVISM. 87
This reversion to ancestral types Mr. Darwin called
atavism. Societies as well as individuals sometimes display a
retrograde tendency. Laws and customs which they
have outgrown, and which are no longer fitted to their
advanced condition, grow up afresh, just as the canine
teeth of men occasionally acquire the prominence of
fangs. In America the highest social development the
world has ever seen is accompanied by the most con
spicuous examples of social atavism.
And let me here explain what I mean by the highest
social development. I do not claim for America the
highest development of literature, music, or the fine arts.
Such a claim would be absurd. Neither do I claim for
it the greatest diversity of social elements; for I believe
the differentiation of parts has proceeded to a greater
extent in England or even France than in America.
The highest social development here meant is that im
plied by the term " industrial," which has been so often
used to characterize the Republic.
The lowest forms of society are those simple com
munities in which all men are equal; just as the lowest
forms of animal life are those of which the parts are
alike. A chicken with its great diversity of parts —
bone, muscle, nerve, claws and horny beak — is more
highly evolved than the Qgg, with its simple division
into yolk and white. So is it with societies. Progress
begins when men cease to be equal — when the best,
bravest, or most cunning become leaders. It continues
as these leaders acquire power to coerce the other mem
bers into united action. And when at last we reach a
point at which men have lost all individuality and have
become merely parts of a complex machine, directed by

88 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
one mind, we get a perfect example of the militant
society. Germany and Russia are the nearest of modern
societies to this type. To see that such a condition is
essential to the existence of the society at some stages of
its growth, we have only to imagine what would happen
to Germany if the condition in which Tacitus found it
could be suddenly renewed. The great empire would
be split into multitudinous fragments, none larger than
an American township. These fragments, corresponding
to the old tribid divisions, would be further subdivided
into clans, and these again into families; and the mem
bers of the families, owning but partial allegiance to the
patriarchal head, would act as their idiosyncrasies
prompted them. It is absurd to ask if such a Germany
could withstand for a moment the onslaught of a united
France. Forty-six million Germans with forty-six mil
lion notions as to the relative merits of the chassepot or
mitrailleuse, would be wiped out of existence while dis
cussing means of defence. But forty-six million Ger
mans with only one opinion, can certainly defend them
selves successfully against thirty-eight million French
men with opinions as numerous and varied as their
political parties. This greater unity of mind and pur
pose is a factor which will tell in favour of the Father
land in the next war.
But this type of society is not a final one. When a
nation has acquired the right to live unmolested, its
progress begins to take a new course. The individual
gradually regains his individuality; for now his person
and property are less frequently taken for the defence of
the State. The society now advances from militancy
towards industrialism; from socialism to individualism.
England is advancing along this line; and owing to her

SOCIAL ATAVISM. 89
immunity from invasion, she is in the van of European
progress. America is the only nation which has reached
a stage in which industrialism predominates over mili
tancy. England annually spends about sixty-three mil
lions sterling on war, and debts incurred by war, while
her civil charges are less than twenty millions. America
spends but ten millions on war preparations; while her
civil and pension lists amount to over seventy millions.
Her police army of twenty-five thousand men is scarcely
to be reckoned a sign of militancy. And this is what is
meant by assigning to America the first place among
nations. The absence of rank is another sign of America's
superiority. A concomitant of declining militancy is
the transfer of power from the ruler to the people; and
if this process goes far, the ruler falls into the ranks
again, and equality results. An illustration is at hand.
The Czar of Russia lately killed an officer who put
his hand to his breast as if to draw a revolver. Under
a military regime there is no tribunal to judge and
punish this man who kills another in misapprehension
of his purpose. But under an industrial regime the
President of the United States or the Prince of Wales
would be tried even for assault, and punished equally
with any other citizen if found guilty.
With decreasing demands upon the individual come
decreased restraints upon his actions. No longer re
quired to repel invaders, he is at liberty to move about at
will, to make contracts with other men, to engage in
manufactures, to buy and to sell; and under the perfect
industrial regime, he is subject to no restrictions except
those imposed by the equal freedom of others. And
thus is reached the political ideal of equal rights.

90 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
If such an industrial community suddenly begins to
make elaborate preparation for war, it reverts to an
ancestral form. If it establishes ranks, or grades of
men, its return to a less perfect type is none the less
marked. If it deprives individuals of that liberty of
action which is limited only by the equal rights of all, its
atavism is again conspicuous. The reader will now see
what is meant when it is said that in America the
highest social development the world has eyer seen, is
accompanied by the most marked examples of social
atavism. And now let us look at these examples — political,
social and personal.
When English writers on political economy wish to
illustrate in the clearest way the mischievous effects of
governmental interference with commerce, they go back
several centuries to quote the usury laws. In every
part of America the usury laws are operative just as they
were in Moses' time or in the time of the Stuarts. And
can their absurdity be better marked than by the fact
that different States have different rates of legal in
terest, ranging from five to ten per cent?
Congress recently undertook to regulate commerce be
tween States. It was thought by sapient legislators
that managers of railways and steamboat companies did
not know their business; so they passed the Interstate
Commerce Bill, which among other things fixed the
charges of railway companies and other carriers. The
act has operated mischievously in numerous unforeseen
ways. It is oppressive to theatrical companies; it is.
ruining some branches of trade with Canada; it has
crippled many forms of business, and produced com
plications of the most unexpected character. Many of

SOCIAL ATAVISM. 91
its clauses cannot be enforced, and it is a complete vindi
cation of the saying that restrictions will not " stay put."
The prophet runs little risk of being discredited when
he predicts that this meddling piece of legislation will
have to be annulled.
In April, 1887, over one hundred persons were arrested
in New York for Sunday trading. Policemen in plain
clothes went about the city, tempting
people to break the old Sabbatarian
laws which had almost become a dead
letter. Some persons were arrested for
shaving policemen; some for selling
them liquor; some for selling them
such essentials to Sabbath cleanliness
and comfort as a handkerchief; and
one poor old woman was locked up for being persuaded
to sell a lamp-shade! For be it known that in the
Republic a disguised policeman may incite to wrong,
and then arrest the wrong-doer without the formality of
a warrant ! And by a curious course of reasoning, the
one who incites to the wrong, and in its commission
acts as accomplice, is rewarded rather than punished!
This method of assisting crime, by treachery, deceit and
other detestable means, is the way in which the law tries
to keep the Sabbath day holy !
In several States men are prohibited from buying
alcoholic beverages at any time. A man who wants
brandy, say for his sick wife, must go to a magistrate,
and swear an affidavit that he does not intend to drink
it himself, before he is permitted to buy a stated small
quantity at the druggist's. This is to train men to self-
control and temperance!
A spirited foreign policy moulded after that of

92 UNCLE SAM AT EOME.
Beaconsfield, is a clear case of retrogression in the peace
ful industrial republic; but the United States has its
Jingo party, headed by a candidate for the Presidency.
If this enterprising leader should ever be elected, we shall
have our list of examples of atavism greatly prolonged.
In the county of Columbia, Pennsylvania, a young
man recently brought an action against his mother to
recover damages for the loss of a dog, which he claimed
she bewitched, so that it ran in a circle until it died of
exhaustion. Shades of Cotton Mather and Judge
Jeffries, are ye not happy again! The trial showed
that there is an almost general belief in witchcraft,
charms and magic spells among the farm population
in these localities, and that there are many old women
who are regularly consulted by young and old, and in
whose arts and supernatural powers they put faith.
About a year ago, at Mount Morris, Michigan, a
whole family of sixteen persons went crazy over the
belief that their premises were bewitched, and began
cutting nicks in the ears of their pigs and cows to let
the devil out. In Danbury, Connecticut, at the same
time they were curing long-standing rheumatism by
the charms of black snakes.
Every day, advertisements worded as below appear in
newspapers throughout America. These are from a
single day's issue of the Neio York World :
" At her parlors, 63 4th ave., between 9th and 10th sts.-, Mrs.
Dr. Hill can be consulted on all affaks of life, being a celebrated
business clairvoyant, astrologist and palmist, who has a reputation
throughout the world for her accurate and truthful readings of the
past, present and future; removes evil influences and family
estrangements; unites the separated and causes speedy marriage;
brings success to the unsuccessful, and tells when to make profit-

SOCIAL ATAVISM. 93
able investments; consultations $1; also tells full name and shows
picture of the one you will marry, for $1 ; strangers from other
cities will save time and disappointment by calling on this genuine
clairvoyant before going elsewhere; life reading and picture by
mail on receipt of $1; lock of hair, full name and date of birth."
"Arrived from Europe. — Mme. De Varney,thc world renowned,
highly celebrated clairvoyant; seventh daughter; born with veil
and second sight; while in a trance will truthfully reveal every
hidden mystery in life; removes troubles, evil influences; settles
lovers' quarrels, brings separated together, causes speedy and
happy marriages, and tells if the one you love is true or false;
advice given to gentlemen on business, and to young men what is
best adapted for speedy riches; if you have been disappointed by
others, judge not all alike. All in search of truth and satisfaction,
call at 413 6th ave.; calls received Sundays."
"Mme. Zingara, gypsy, 289 6th ave., cor. 18th St. It is well
known throughout the world that gypsies are only reliable;
removes evil infiuonces, causes love, marriages; advises in busi
ness, law, contracts, wills, divorces, absent friends, health; lucky
charms free; seen on Sunday."
"Zibola, clairvoyant, will read your destiny, good or bad;
withholds nothing; if in trouble, call at once; seen Sunday, 239
8th ave., near 22d St.; fee, 50c."
"Attention!— Consultation on business, lawsuits, absent friends,
deaths, separations, date of marriage, everything revealed; no
equal; fee moderate; satisfaction or no pay. Mrs. Pierce, cele
brated clairvoyant, 457 3d ave., near 31st St."
"Mme. Bennett, celebrated clairvoyant and palmist, consults on
all matters. 74 3d ave., near 11th St., one flight; hours, 9 to 9."
"Mrs. Arnold, reliable trance medium; satisfaction guaranteed.
137 West 23d St."
" Dr. Laroche, French trance clairvoyant, asking no questions,
gives the names of his sitters, ladies their married and maiden
names; reunites the loved who are separated; tells whom and
when you are to marry; advises in business, law, contracts, wills,
divorces, absent friends, health, etc. ; 9 to 9. 177 3d ave.,
above 16th."
"Edith, colored clairvoyant; great secret discovered; private
advice given. 216 West 28th st."

94 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
" Lady Stanley, only true, gifted, rhost wonderful English
¦palmist, reveals past and future; satisfaction, no pay. 366 3d ave.,
near 27th st."
Her ladyship must find the Republic a palmy place
after England, where she and her craft must hide in
holes and corners with the constant fear of arrest. For
at home the Government kindly protects us from witches
and wizards, as it used to protect us from Quakers.
At the time of writing I am constantly hearing of a
man in New York who is telling fortunes by palmistry,
and getting scores of otherwise intelligent people to
cross his hand with a ten-dollar bill. But here I ought
to be silent; for this clever personage, who is being
received into good society, is an Englishman. And is
there not an English guide-book to palmistry "dedi
cated by permission to Her Serene Highness Princess
Victoria Mary of Teck "I 0 land of anomalies!
The whipping-post survives in the south, and is about
to be revived in Pennsylvania. Though England has
not abolished this remnant of the mediaeval torture-
chamber, the retrogression is none the less marked in
Pennsylvania — the Quaker State. Centuries of judicial
torture have not taught us that men cannot be whipped
into a high morality. The rod which produces venge
ful feelings and a surly temper in the schoolboy is not
more soothing when laid across the back of a mani
Judicial methods will have to be very much reformed
when men better understand men's natures.
Here is a suggestive newspaper item concerning this
mode of torture:
"Wilmington, Del., Nov. 21, 1885.— A large crowd, includ
ing seven amateur photographers with cameras, attended the

SOCIAL ATAVISM. 95
whipping at New Castle to-day. William Turner (colored), for
larceny of a watch, took five lashes; Alexander R. Fields, charged
with larceny, ten lashes; and John Manlove and William H.
Morris, colored burglars, stood an hour in the pillory and received
twenty lashes each."
It reminds one of the Parisian photographers who,
with the most improved instantaneous arrangements,
were present at the public execution by shooting of the
bishops, and the communists. The ages clasp hands!
Civilization reaches across the gulf of time, and receives
a sympathetic handshake from the grizzly spectre of
barbarism. We can imagine with what satisfaction
these amateur photographers would have exposed a
plate on Attila's pyramid of skulls, or the burning of
Latimer, or Nero's living torches; and we are justified
in supposing that if they felt any sorrow at all, it would
only be because the flames were not actinic. These are
the men who can leap across the dead centuries into an
earlier age: who display the zebra-markings of remote
ancestors! In a land that claims to be the freest in the world, it
seems an anomaly that you may not cross the road at
some parts of Central Park. You are " positively "
forbidden to do so, lest you be knocked down by a
passing vehicle; and if you persist you will probably be
taken to jail by a policeman whose powers of arrest are
limited only by his physical strength. This is nearly as
funny as a cricket-match in France I once heard of: a.
gendarme stood by the bowler, and cautioned him not to
send swift balls, because they would hurt the batter if
they struck him! And I have heard some timid people
plead that football ought to be forbidden by law, as a dan
gerous game. It would hardly be more absurd to de-

96 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
mand that shin-pads be provided for the players by
government and paid for out of the taxes.
This prohibition from crossing a carriage track, is
curiously incongruous in a country where locomotives
dash through towns and over level crossings with little
or no warning. Writing of this, Mr. Archibald Forbes
says: "The American theory, bluntly put, is that
since it may be presumed a man has a greater interest
in keeping alive than any one else has in his doing so,
the onus of self-preservation primarily rests on himself.
The Australian theory, on the other hand, is that it is
the duty of the State by every possible precaution and
enactment to take care that the citizen be protected
from his own carelessness. As in England so in
Australia, every railroad is fenced, and every level
crossing protected assiduously by gates." Here is a
strange confusion of ideas! Mr. Forbes has completely
inverted the positions. A person has either a right to
pass along a public street or he has not. [The proposi
tion seems absurd — out of America.] If he has, he
ought to be allowed to do so without the danger of
being knocked down and killed by a locomotive. If he
has not, he should be excluded from the street. Surely
no reasonable being will contend that the English and
Australian methods are not better than those of America.
In American towns you sometimes hear a bell, a sudden
rush, and before you know what is the matter, a train
dashes through the street you are about to cross. And
how about level crossings ? Here is no question of "his
own carelessness." No care will prevent accidents.
Horses will take fright, people will stumble, or be hard
of hearing, or blind. That some Americans do not live
up to what Mr. Forbes calls the American theory is

SOCIAL ATAVISM. 97
proved by the frequent protests which find their way
into newspapers.
" During the past year The World has chronicled the death of
at least one person a day at railroad crossings in New Jersey. In
consideration for killing this number the railroad companies have
paid a sum wholly inadequate to the loss— probably not over twenty-
five thousand dollars altogether. . . . The effect is apparent. Grade
crossings— an abomination in an age of progress— exist without
number. Gates are few, far between, and generally cumbersome
and rotten. Trains dash across the crowded streets of Newark,
Jersey City, Camden, Elizabeth and New Brunswick with little
if any diminution of speed. Human life is placed at a discount.
These facts are well known. Instances are too numerous to re
quire specification, and yet nothing is done to check this daily
slaughter. This is a cold and unfeeling earth upon which we
live, but there is no reason why the railroads should have the
whole of it."

Indianapolis has been called the City of Concentric
Circles, because of the many railway girdles which sur
round it. Every approach to the city is cut up with
level crossings. Some friends of mine who live just
outside the city, have to send the children across these
railway tracks to school. When they are safely over,
the children telephone home that they are still alive.
Between a compulsory law requiring attendance at school
and half a dozen railway crossings forbidding it, the
American parent is sometimes in a pitiful dilemma.
In towns the danger is increased by the frequency of
tram-lines, for which a railway track may be easily
mistaken. Indeed they are practically the same, and
are called by the same name — railroads. In many towns
the train goes right through the streets, sometimes — as at
Syracuse — behind a tram-car, and running so near the
7

98 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
sidewalks that you might toss a coin into a fruit-shop
and receive your purchase through the car window.
A bill was not long since introduced into the Georgia
legislature (as a jest, it is said) to impose an annual tax
of $2.50 on bachelors. It was considered such an out
rage, that the member who introduced it was challenged
by an editor to a duel. There are scores of bills intro
duced into the State legislatures more outrageous than
this: so many, indeed, that there would be initiated a
state of private war if every foolish bill-maker were
challenged to a duel. Even at this late day we find
legislators so ignorant of higtory, as to attempt to fix
prices by enactment. The rates for telephones, the
price of gas, the dividends of corporations, are thus
fixed in New York State. There, too, a compulsory
Saturday half -holiday has been legalized; an attempt
has been made to erect free Turkish baths supported by
taxation; a law has been passed against catching trout
less than six inches long, so that you have to take a
foot rule with you when you go a fishing; a bill has been
introduced to build grain elevators to be operated by
the State; and, as if to make the As
sembly at Albany seem ludicrous as
well as ignorant, a leader of the legis
lature has just had passed a bill mak
ing it a misdemeanor to feed or har
bour sparrows ! Why don't these sages
make it penal to feed and harbour
Legislates drafting mosquitocs, or to havc the small-pox?
a bill, ° -^Yeii mg^y p^gjj exclaim, " What fools
these mortals be !" They look to the law for protection;
but what is to protect them against the law ?
It has been frequently noted that men will act col-

SOCIAL ATAVISM. 99
lectively in a manner which each, as an individual, would
consider foolish or despicable. Not long since I saw the
students of Columbia College — a set of well-bred young
gentlemen — march, at night, through the streets of
New York wearing night-shirts over their clothes. They
were celebrating the anniversary of their college. But
there was unquestionably not an individual among them
who would have walked down Fifth Avenue alone in his
night-shirt. When a man makes a fool of himself, he
likes to have company. It must be an allied reason that
allows so much folly to crystallize into laws.
Many obsolete offences are preserved in America.
These, as survivals, are not examples of atavism; but
they are of the same nature, and are too interesting not
to be mentioned here.
At Washington, Pennsylvania, a man was recently
tried and found guilty of barratry. The newspaper re
port defines this strange offence :
" It seems that the defendant has for years made himself prom
inent as a mischief-maker, and the practice has become so fre
quent that the good citizens of the neighborhood deemed it neces
sary to sit down on him."
Here is another legal curiosity :
EA VESDR OPPING.
PhiI/ADBLPHIA, July 8. — Assistant District Attorney Kinsey
sent into the Grand Jury to-day an indictment in the following
word«: "That Louisa Ehrline on the 21st of June, 1886, and on each
and every day thence continually until the day of the finding
of this indictment, was and is a common eavesdropper, and on
each and all of said days and times did listen about the houses and

100 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
under the windows and eaves of the houses of the citizens then
and there dwelling, bearing tattle and repeating the same in the
hearing of other persons, to the common nuisance of the citizens
of this Commonwealth and against the peace and dignity of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."
The grand jury returned a true bill.
Scolds are still amenable to law in Pennsylvania:
" Philadelphia, Oct. 23 [1886] {SpeeiaT).— On the evidence of
fifteen people at the Central Station this afternoon Mrs. A. Clauden
and Mrs. Kate Lee were held in $600 bail for being common
scolds. The testimony showed that the women were fighting all
day and half the night, and made the lives of their neighbors
miserable." Actions at law are often instituted to' recover damages
for alienating a wife's or husband's affections ! And I
once read of a woman who sought to recover five thou
sand dollars damages, because her husband, an expert
swimmer, was drowned while bathing from the defend
ant's pavilion !
A short time ago two young girls in Connecticut hav
ing been seen at a roller-skating rink in defiance of their
mother's orders, and being afraid to return home, took
train to New York. The sweetheart of one of them
telegraphed to the New York police and had them
ai'rested, and held until he came to take them home.
Here is a wondrous power given to an individual. A
person may telegraph, in an assumed name if he likes,
to some distant town, and cause the arrest of anybody
he wishes to annoy ! A lunatic with a mania for having
people arrested might create some curious complications
under this system of primitive officialism. In America
arrests seem to be the panacea for every evil. Is a per-

SOCIAL ATAVISM. 101
son a gambler and likely to impoverish his family; his
wife has him arrested. Is a lover backward in fulfilling
his promise; his sweetheart has him arrested. Does a
woman suspect her husband of an inten
tion to elope; she has him arrested. Is a
man rude to a policeman, or does the
policeman think him so; he is arrested.
I have seen in Chicago a driver taken from
his cart and lodged in jail for telling a
policeman to go to Sheol; and in New
York a gentleman was recently arrested
because his horse ran away with him, and
after throwing him, knocked down a road-
mender. And when arrested what be- ^^^
comes of all these people ? Well, the a moral prophy-
gambler is made to promise to mend his
ways or make provision for his family; the lover must
show cause for his delay, or else marry the girl, often
on the spot; the suspected husband has to declare his
faithfulness; the man who had the temerity to brave a
policeman is cautioned or " sent up," as seems best
suited to his degree of offence. As a curious bit of
romance and an illustration of grandmotherly republi
canism, I quote the following from a New York paper.
Similar cases can be found any day.
AUGUST MUST MARRY.
A YOXJNa GEHMAN DETAINED IN THE TOMBS UNTIL HE AND
CHRISTINA ABE MABEIED.
When Christina Swan and August Morio eloped from Hamburg
together three months ago they came to this city with the inten
tion of marrying at once. August took his sweetheart to the home
of his brother, in First street, and not having sufficient money to

102 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
enable him to support her he requested that she wait a few weeks.
Christina secured a situation as a domestic and August remained
at the home of his brother, Henry. The latter being quite poor
and August being an experienced carpenter, August managed to
assist his brother in maintaining his household and supporting a
remarkably pretty wife. The wife recognized August's genius and
admired him, while the newly arrived brother fell desperately in
love with Henry's wife. He forgot all about his sweetheart,
Christina, and she, discovering how matters stood, applied at
Castle Garden for assistance in compelling August to keep his
promise to her and marry her.
August was arrested on Christina's complaint and lodged in
Ludlow Street Jail. Promising to marry her he was released,
but he failed to keep his promise, and ridding himself of the girl
he induced Henry and his wife to move to No. 37 First street, a.
few blocks from their former residence. Christina, after vainly
endeavoring to find her lover, again applied at Castle Garden, and
Detective Groden was detailed to find the recreant lover. Testerday
he arrested August just as he was entering his brother's home in
First street, and was taken to the Tombs Court, where he promised
to marry Christina to-day.
" I would have married her before," said August, " but my
sister-in-law induced me not to do so."
" And he won't marry her now," screamed Henry's wife, who
was present. " He loves me, and I won't have him marrying a
woman he does not love. He is mine."
"But you are married," interposed Justice White.
" It don't make any difference," screamed the excited woman.
" August is too good a m.an to marry his Swan woman, and my
husband and I want him with us."
Christina was not present in the Court, and for fear August would
again try to escape from her. Justice White held Morio until to
day, when he will see that the couple are m.arried. August is only
eighteen years old, but is an experienced workman. His brother
is a shoemaker, and business being dull he finds it hard to support
his wife without August's assistance.
August, married at eighteen against his will, by the
magistrate of a republic, may rub his eyes and fancy hir- .

SOCIAL ATAVISM. 103
self back in Germany, under an even more paternal
regime than he knew there. When we read of Fred
erick the Great going about Berlin, berating the apple-
women who did not knit as they sat at their stalls, or
flogging other idlers with his cane, we may admire the
energy and watchfulness of the old man without admit
ting the divine right of kings to administer personal
chastisement at discretion. So, too, we may admire the
official benevolence that would ease the heartache of
Christina, or save from potential harm the gambler's
wife, without admitting the right of republics to arrest
people ad libitum. It is common to place witnesses under
arrest in free America; and a judge in New Jersey as
sures me that the thief who steals my watch may be
bailed out of jail, while I am held in durance vile as a
witness against him ! *
The American's motto is " hurry up;" he applies it
to every transaction of his life. He skips half the mar
riage-service, and leaves out the long prayers at funerals.
In his legal affairs he is equally quick. It is handier
when you have your man, be he witness or offender, to
clap him into jail than to go through the trouble of
taking his name and address, and serving at his house a
magistrate's summons. Such things may do for an old
effete monarchy; but in the new republic things have
* ' ' We have frequently called attention to the inconsistency of
the law which allows a person charged with crime to remain at
large and locks up in prison an innocent witness to the offence.
Not long ago a man who was arrested for assaulting a woman he
was alleged to have enticed into his house was liberated on bail,
while his victim was held a close prisoner in the House of De
tention until the trial took place." — The New Torh World, June 21,
1887

104 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
to "hurry up," and individual rights often get jostled
in the rush. Remember, America is five hours be
hind England, and men have to put in all they know
to make up those five hours. A New Yorker who gets
a splash of oil on his hat when passing under the elevated
railway simply runs into the nearest hatter's and buys a
new tile. An Englishman would spend several weeks
waiting about the law courts, and pay two or three
pounds in lawyer's fees, in order to make the railway
company pay for the damaged hat.
As a rule the Englishman is phlegmatic and cold
blooded; but if the incident described in the following
extract had happened in Berkeley Square or Porchester
Terrace, there would have been a small revolution :

" A small regiment of Italian laborers, with picks and shovels
on their shoulders, marched noiselessly into Thirty-fourth street,
between Fifth and Sixth avenues, just as darkness was setting in
on Wednesday. A moment later the aristocratic quiet of the
street was broken by the sharp contact of steel picks with Belgian
blocks. Toil-hardened hands rapidly piled the blocks into long
heaps on the south sidewalk, and mounds of dirt looking like
miniature mountain ranges sprang up in the street. One by one
the doors of the fine houses in the street were opened, and floods
of light streamed out with indignant citizens, who demanded from
the foreman of the laborers what authority he had for digging up
the street. The foreman showed a permit from the Department
of Public Works, and introduced the indignant citizens to In
spector Mconey. The permit allowed the Thirty-fourth Street
Railroad Construction Company to lay tracks in Thirty-fourth
street. The road got the consent of the Board of Aldermen several
months ago. The indignant citizens denounced the work as an
outrage, and hurried around among their friends and neighbors
asking and making .suggestions as to what they ought to do.
They finally concluded that, as the courts were closed then, they
would have to wait. So they all went to their homes and tried to

SOCIAL ATAVISM. 105
sleep. They were unable to do this, however, as, in addition to
the sound of picks and shovels and the clatter of Belgian blocks,
they heard the buzz of the cross-cut saw going through joists and
sleepers and the jangle of steel rails on the stones. At midnight
the noise ceased, and the laborers shouldered their implements and
marched away. "
In this instance the residents took such a vigorous
course that the rails were taken up and the road is still
clear. But in the case of Forty-second Street the people
were powerless to prevent the laying of the tracks; and
the jingle of the carbells now sounds night and day
through this once-fashionable street. Such occasional
awakenings are good for the New Yorkers. They serve
to divert their attention from business to local politics,
and remind them of the class of men they are governed
by. They serve also to show the true character of the
political fetish from which, by some kind of Mumbo-
Jumboism, they expect to get " the greatest happiness
of the greatest number."
The history of social progress is the history of the
emancipation from tyranny. In America and in Eng
land, the individual has freed himself from the tyranny
of nobles, kings and other species of despots; but he is
now being enslaved by a new oppressor — the will of the
majority. The old Grecian theory that the individual
has no rights against the State has been rehabilitated
by modern politicians; and in the two foremost coun
tries of the world, the proposition has acquired the
reputation of an axiom. "The greatest good of the
greatest number" is an admirable thing to legislate for;
but when every man differs from every other man as to
what really is the greatest good, and as to what really is

106

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

the best means of achieving it, the crystallization of
opinions into laws is apt to display irregularities, causing
flaws, fractures and failures of all kinds. There never
was a time when political theorizing was carried to such
an extreme as at present, nor a time when more good
and thoughtful men were working out what they think
is the political salvation of the race. But unity of
opinion amongst these workers does not exist. There is
no common political creed. All are dissenters — except
in one particular, and here all are agreed. Socialists,
anarchists, communists, land-nationalizationists, protec
tionists — all agree that the individual has no rights
against the State. And in conformity with this belief,
law-makers are at work in parliament, in congress, and
State legislature, creating
greater happiness for greater
numbers by depriving the
units of the power of mak
ing themselves happy in
their own fashion. In short,
there is being created a type
of citizen wholly without
self-dependence — one who
lacks initiative, and who
constantly expects govern
ment to do things that
ought to be done by himself.
Human nature is plastic and
Legislator modelling a citizen, lends itself readily to legis
lative moulding. It is a questionable kindness of the
law-maker, however, to fashion the citizen after the
model of a mendicant.
The affectionate cruelty of governmental methods re-

SOCIAL ATAVISM. 107
minds one of Isaac Walton's funny directions for fishing
with frogs. Says he: " Thus use your
frog: put your hook, I mean the arm
ing wire, through his mouth, and out
at his gills, and then with a fine needle
and silk sew the upper part of his leg
with only one stitch to the arming wire
of your hook, or tie the frog's leg above
the upper joint to the armed wire; and
in so doing, use him as though you, loved Mm" !
The modern legislator is the angler. Lovingly,
gently, firmly he takes the citizen for bait, passes a
hook through his gills, sews him up with a fine needle
and the prettiest colored silk, or ties his hands to his
feet with red tape, and affectionately dangling him into
the stream of human perplexities, waits for the greatest
happiness of the greatest number. Atavism? Atavism
is much too good a name for it!
There is much laudation of direct methods nowa
days. If you see an evil, go for it! Go for it by the
shortest cut! In Felkin's Uganda there is a fanny
story of a direct method:
" We went one day," says he, " to pay a visit to a [Soudanese]
officer, and to our surprise found him lying on a bed with his
head hanging over the end of it, having a small paper funnel
stuck into one nostril, and at the same time chewing something.
On our asking the meaning of this extraordinary proceeding, he
replied that he was suffering from headache, and wished to grease
his brain, so was pouring oil down the funnel into his nose, under
the impression that it would find its way into the skull; and he
said, pointing to his temple, 'You see, if I chew at the same time,
it makes the brain work, so that it will be more quickly greased.' " *
* ii. 160.

108 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
This is the kind of pathology legislators practise when
Society's head aches. To alleviate pain in the body politic
this is the order of intelligence used, the quality of
scientific knowledge displayed. And yet, forsooth, men
speak of the government as they speak of Wisdom, Jus
tice, or any other abstraction, forgetting that "the
Government" is but Some-of-us elected to serve All-
of-us. So completely are men dominated by this gov
ernment superstition that one rarely hears condemnation
of a stupid meddlesome law; they accept it as natural
and inevitable, as they would bad crops or a tornado.
A man who had legislatures at his beck and call is re
puted to have said : " The public be damned!" It is
nearly time for the public to reverse this saying on the
government both in England and America, even with a
rumbling double-bass accompaniment from anarchists
and nihilists.

CITIES AND SOCIAL SETS.

109

CHAPTER VIII.
cities ajtd social sets.
" In men this blunder still you find.
All think their little set mankind." Hannah Moke.
HO was the
first man ? "
asked a
teacher of
his class.
"George
Washing
ton !"prompt-
ly replied a
bright-eyedboy; adding
in an under
tone the oft-
quoted lines
—"First in
peace, first in
war, and first
in the hearts
of his coun
trymen!" "But did you never hear of Adam?" queried
the surprised teacher. " Oh yes, hut he was a foreigner."
Concerning national institutions — and George Wash
ington is one — the American people display complete
unanimity of feeling. This bright boy's answer is one

110 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
that might have been given in any schoolhouse between
Kennebunkport in Maine and Kewaskum in Wisconsin.
On the general excellence of the United States as a na
tion, or of America as a continent, no difference of opin
ion exists from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or, as our
friend of the Paris dinner-party would say, from the Au
rora Borealis in the north to the precession of the equi
noxes in the south. Indeed it is only by a supreme effort
that politicians can get up any difference of opinion on
questions of national policy. Parties like our conserva
tives and liberals with strong dividing lines, are unknown
in America; the nearest approach to them being the tariff-
reform party, generally identified with the democrats,
and the iron-bound protectionists, led by a few promi
nent republicans. Except on this question, Americans
are unanimous that as a nation they have nothing to de
sire, nothing to amend, modify or reform. As a result
nobody takes any interest in the doings of Congress —
except in the periodical discussions of the silver ques
tion and the tariff. The governmental machine is per
fect and automatic; and so it is allowed to run along
without the constant jolting and frequent stoppages of
older machines with their intricate equipment of cabi
nets, executives, oppositions and the like.
But with perfect unanimity about things national
there goes complete dissent about things civic. The
rivalries of cities are carried to a ludicrous extreme.
The Philadelphian has nothing favourable to say of
the Bostonian; and both agree that no good can come
from Gotham. While Chicago hates St. Louis with a
hatred that is qualified only by the pride of having sur
passed her, she is willing to agree with her quondam
rival in despising Detroit or Milwaukee. Minneapolis
and St. Paul, originally situated a dozen miles apart.

CITIES AND SOCIAL SETS 11 1
now mingle their suburbs, and hate each other worse
than Sparta detested Athens. Each charges the other
with copying into the census names from tombstones,
and duplicating living citizens, so as to appear greater
than its rival; and it is averred that young men living
in either city marry by preference girls belonging to
the rival city, so as to decrease its population by one!
These towns will awake some morning to find them
selves wards of a greater city than either has yet
dreamed of.
This rivalry takes a strong hold of journalists, and
newspapers are made spicy with quips and quirks about
neighbouring cities. In a list of recipes to keep cool
with a ninety-nine thermometer given in Life, two are
jokes aimed at rival cities. One way to keep cool is to
"talk to a Boston girl;" another is to "go to Philadel
phia." Bostonians say that people often die in Phila
delphia of sheer inanition — the place is so dull; and it
is asserted that strangers visiting the Quaker City and
going into society are literally bored to death. Philadel-
phians retort with stories about the Boston girl, or re
late how cows coming homewith dreary windings, laid out
Boston streets, and
gave them that crook
edness which is so re
freshing after life in
cities built in geomet
ric figures. "Bute
you will admit that!
our city is at least;
well laid out," said a
Philadelphia girl at
Bar Harbor, playing " weiiiaid out."
her last trump in a game with one of the elect from Bos-

112 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
ton. "Well laid out? Oh yes; but Boston would be
better laid out if it were only half as dead !" and she
calmly wrote " Hub " on the sands. It really seems that
Philadelphia always gets the worst of these contests; and
the result is that she is more subject to attack than any
other city. This was neatly expressed by a young lady
from Cincinnati with whom I was talking at Washing
ton. I was saying that Philadelphia was a city of homes,
not of apartment-houses: "it spread over a far greater
area than New York with less than half the inhabitants."
" That's because it has been so much sat upon," promptly
replied the fair Cincinnatian. I once innocently asked
a lady from Detroit what sort of a place was Kalamazoo.
"Oh," said she, with ineffable scorn, "Kalamazoo is a
little one-horse place where they raise celery and have a
lunatic asylum." The imputation of large feet to Chi
cago and St. Louis girls by other cities is another out
come of this rivalry; but this, the girls of St. Louis pro
test, is "carrying a joke to extremities." I lately read
in an Eastern journal that railway conductors now an
nounce the arrival of the train by crying "Chicago!
twenty minutes for divorce!" But Chicago rarely "gets
left" in this kind of banter. A stranger visiting the
Garden City went to the theatre, and thinking he would
get a better seat if the clerk in the box-office knew that
he represented a great community, said: "I come from
Boston." "Boston!" repeated the clerk as though he
imperfectly remenibered the name; "is not that the
place where they spell ' culture ' with a big C and ' God '
with a little g?"
Americans cry "Chestnuts!" when they hear the be
ginning of an old story. Englishmen wait to the end,
and then with a smile say: "I always liked that story."

CITIES AND SOCIAL SETS. 113
It is hard to say which is the more discouraging; but I
am willing to risk both in the hope of occasionally giv
ing a new form to an old joke or telling an old story to
a new hearer.
Much has been written by English excursionists to
the United States in deprecation of the custom of nam
ing towns after historic places in the old world. If the
excursionists stayed long enough they would outgrow
this feeling. Babylon on Long Island has the pleasant-
est of memories for me; and I know some excellent men
of whom I am agreeably reminded by the names of their
homes at Syracuse, Utica and Goshen. The index to
stations in an American railway-guide is one of the fun
niest bits of reading — after Johnson's dictionary — that a
picnic party ever indulged in. Mixed up with names
such as Nazareth, Jericho, Rome, Carthage, are Indian
names such as Koshkonong, Ty-Ty, Wahkiakum, Sno
homish, or Klikatat. Then there are samples of native
ingenuity like Hookium, Nenolepops, Lick-skillet, Hog-
eye, Shirttail Bend, Puppytown, Squitch Gulch, Toenail
Lake, and an infinity of Smithopolises, Jonesopolises, or
Robinsonvilles! At our picnic " Manly Junction'' raised the sugges
tion that it be changed to " Gentlemanly Junction" — as
sounding better; while the name of a California town
recalled a story which the lady who told it said was
a very naughty one. It was of a man, who having
asked a demure-looking girl, a small boy and a sad-eyed
clergyman, "What town is this?" concluded from their
answers that the whole population was vulgar, rude, and
addicted to profanity. The town was Yuba Dam.
Nineveh, Athens, Corinth, Memphis, Cairo, are repre
sented on the American continent, some by " little one-
8

114 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
horse places" as my Detroit friend would say; some by
towns surpassing in size and wealth their historic proto
types. One would naturally think that the association
ht such names with little dingy towns of unpainted
wooden houses and plastic roads, would deprive Ameri
cans of that mingled reverence and awe which old places
and historic names inspire in us. But no such effect is
seen in Americans abroad. Indeed their delight in his
toric places is greater than that of those who live sur
rounded by the evidences of past ages and generations
of men. An American after visiting London usually
knows more of the haunts of Johnson, Goldsmith,
Dickens and other writers whom he has known since
boyhood, than does the native Londoner, to whom
Fleet Street is peopled with active business rivals
rather than with the spirits of departed authors.
American cities usually have some nickname, derived
from their most striking peculiarities. Brooklyn — called
after Breukelen, a little village near Utrecht — is the
City of Churches. Gotham is an old nickname for New
York which is sinking into forgetfulness. In old files of
newspapers I have seen many a laugh at the Gothamites.
Still " I ween that more fools pass through Gotham than
remain in it," for it is a delightful city. Washington,
laid out on paper as an immense city, remains the City
of Magnificent Distances, though it is rapidly fulfilling
the great expectations entertained of it. Chicago is
prettily called the Garden City; but it has a rival for
this name in the toy city built on Long Island by
Stewart the millionaire haberdasher. Boston, besides
being the Hub of the Universe, disputes with Edinburgh
the name of Modern Athens. Mushroomopolis is the
awkward-sounding cognomination which Kansas City

CITIES AND SOCIAL SETS 115
has earned by its rapid growth. Cincinnati is called by
residents Queen City. Non-residents and scoffers used
to call it Porkopolis; but Chicago has deprived it of its
claim to this as first pig-sticking city in America. Du
luth while it was a city mainly on paper and laid out in
the backwoods, became the " Zenith City of the Un-
salted Seas," and its growth from almost nothing to
thirty thousand in fifteen years justifies some such
appellation. The rivalries of Italian cities in medieeval times have
rarely given origin to a more romantic story than that
of Duluth's contest with its quondam rival Supferior,
concerning the canal across Minnesota Point. The
Northern Pacific Railway made Duluth its lake termi
nus, but soon experienced inconvenience because it had
no harbour save the shallow upper end of the Bay of
Superior. Fearing that the railway people would move
their terminus, the citizens of Duluth decided to make
a canal across the narrow sandspit of Minnesota Point,
so as to connect their harbour directly with the lake.
But the town of Superior, which occupied a position at
the mouth of the bay, alleged that the waters of the St.
Louis River would leave their natural channel through
the bay and fiow out through the canal, if it were made,
leaving their town high and dry; and they made such
representations to the government that an injunction
was granted forbidding the canal. The lawyers had to
go for their injunction to Topeka, Kansas, where the
United States Circuit Court was sitting. The news was
telegraphed to enterprising Duluth, and while the papers
were speeding northward in the train, the canal was
commenced. Every man, woman, and child in Duluth
who could handle a spade or shovel, or beg, borrow or

116 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
steal a bucket or basket, flocked down to the point, and
dug, scratched, burrowed at the canal until it was
finished. Before the lawyers reached the Zenith City of
the Unsalted Seas, the citizens and their wives and
children were celebrating the accomplishment of their
great work. The result predicted by Superior followed:
a strong current set out through the canal, and the old
entrance to the bay shallowed three feet in the next
gale. Rivalry between the two towns has now ceased.
Superior belies her name and remains the village she
has been for a quarter of a century. Duluth is great
and prosperous. Wharves and grain - elevators are
springing up on her sandy point; and a busy com
mercial centre has leaped into existence. A dozen short
lines centre there already, and six great railways will
soon be pouring into Duluth, the vast commercial drain
age of the great northwest. Bravo, Duluth!
The society of each town is not homogeneous. There
are strata in republican society just as there are in
aristocratic communities. But
a man is not born into a rank,
and taught by the catechism to
remain there : to do his duty
in that state of life to which
it has pleased God to call him.
In America, he passes up and
down, though with some limi
tations. His position is often regulated by his balance
at the bank. At other times the nature of his business
indicates his social peg-hole. The society of Cin
cinnati, for example, was found by a Bostonian to be
divided into Stick-'ems and Stuck-'ems. The former
class consisted of those who still stick pigs; the latter

CITIES AND SOCIAL SETS 117
was made up of those who have stuck 'em, but who
stick 'em no longer: retired pork-packers — not butchers
— and their children. Similarly in Pittsburgh, I was told
by a resident that one's father must own a blast-fur
nace to secure one's admission to the ultra-fashionable
set. The grade immediately beneath this, I was told,
was formed by those whose fathers had ceased to work
in shirt-sleeves. It was a Pittsburgher, by the way,
who said that in America there are only three genera
tions from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves. In Washington
the society is mainly political, and the grades are there
formed by ministers, senators and congressmen. Except
among the ladies there is little attention paid to rules of
precedence. American men have no time for such
nonsense. In Philadelphia a few old Quaker families
who do not go much into society, monopolize the
glamour that ancient birth confers. For the rest, the
society is commercial, the strata being those common in
England, of which the most conspicuous are the "re
tail" and the " wholesale." New York is a cosmopoli
tan city. Indeed Chicagoans deny that it is American.
An Irishman landing there cries, "Be dad! it's fur all
the wurrld loike Corrk!" A German exclaims, Ganz wie
Berlin; the Chicagoan bluntly asks: " What's the next
train for the United States?" The society of New
York may not be representative of American society in
general; but it is very enjoyable. After London, New
York! After New York, the Del — I mean Boston! In
the Empire City the social strata are not horizontal
and superposed, but vertical and side by side. There
are many " sets," but it would be difficult to indicate
the highest. Perhaps the one which is all-powerful in
Boston and which is pretty large in New York, should

118

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

be named first, the intellectual set. The nucleus of this
is formed by the Nineteenth Century Club, a society of
some hundred and fifty members of both sexes, before
whom every conceivable subject from Christian dogma
to Free Love is discussed without fastidiousness and yet
with sensibility. It is a curious amalgam of fashion iand
intellect. Its meetings take the form of social recep
tions held until lately at the house of the president in
Gramercy Park, now at the art-galleries in Madison
Square. Writers of repute from other cities and mem
bers of the club read papers or make speeches on all
conceivable topics, while the members and their friends
to the number of about five hundred sit around on camp-
chairs in all the glory of swallow-tails and decollete
dresses. Here in
tellectual gems vie
in brilliancy with
diamond bracelets,
and shapely necks
and heaving bosoms
divide your atten
tion with glowing
thoughts and well-
turned phrases. It
is a heavenly com
bination! The club
has no constitution.
Its motto, "Prove
Discussing the lecture. ^11 things; hold fast
that which is good," indicates the width of its hearth.
Round it in friendly converse, gather Catholic priests.
Unitarian and Baptist ministers. Free-thinkers, Agnos
tics, Positivists, Socialists, Cremationists, and thinkers

CITIES AND SOCIAL SETS.

119

of everj possible type, but always of good calibre. It is
indeed n microcosm of the world — except that grumblers
are excluded. I never heard of any similar society in
which envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness
were so conspicuously absent. Neither are there any of
those little jealousies which make up the irritants of
life. Round this centre of light, gyrate smaller social
systems, with all their attendant orbs and satellites,
spreading far across space — from Madison Square to
Harlem and Hoboken — and dotting the intellectual
firmament with an infinitude of lesser lights.
Next should be mentioned the Knickerbockers — the
descendants of the Dutch squatters of New Amsterdam
before the British took it
and called it New York.
These are hardly to be
called a set. Though
proud of their lineage they
are not at all exclusive,
and may be found in every
circle. Their old Dutch
names have rarely been
anglicized, as is often the
case with French and
German names, and in the New York directory may be
found such jaw-dislocators as have been strung together
in the following rhyme:

a Dutcli squatter.

¦ Where be the Dutchmen of the olden time.
Who saw our ancient city in its prime?
The Vander Voots, Van Rippers, and Dycks;
The Vanderheydens, Slingerlands, Ten Eycks;
The Knickerbockers, Lansings, and Van Burens,
Van Dams, Van Winkles, Stuy vesants. Van Kewrens;

120 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
The Hoffmans, Rosbooms, Hogebooms and Schroders,
Van Valkenburghs, and Stoutenburghs and Schneiders,
Van Sohaacks, Van Vechtens, Visschers, and Van Wies,
Van Tromps, Van Schoonhovens, and Vanderzees,
Van Zandts, Van Clarcoms, Schuylers, Van Schellynes,
Douws, Hooglands, Waldrons, Vanderburghs, and Pruyns.
De Witts, Hochstrasses, Bontecous, Van Uiesons,
Van Gaasbecks, Grosbecks, Bensons, Van and Hiesons:
Where are they all, those men of sounding name.
Of pipe, knee-breeches and round- bellied frame?"
The authors and artists of New York have their clubs,
but they form no set. Their periodical meetings are
merry gatherings of the free-and-easy kind; and here
one may learn that great men can drop their dignity,
and revel in lager beer and chipped beef like ordinary
mortals. The Century Club is the Athenaeum of
America. It has a very stately look after the Author's
Club. The Lotus corresponds nearest to our Savage.
The brightest of Bohemians make this their resting-
place. One hears in New York of a small set of ultra-fashion
ables, who are said to be so exclusive that it is only by
reading the social items in the Home Journal or the
World that one can know what is going on in it.. This
set consists of the few to whom wealth has survived
descent through two generations. I have met several
members of this circle. There is nothing remarkable to
report about them. They incline to ape the British
aristocracy; and of this their exclusiveness is quoted as
a sign. Some members of this set were, a few years ago,
publicly rebuked by the director of the opera for loud
talking during the performance. It takes more than
three generations for some natures to get accustomed to
wealth.

CITIES AND SOCIAL SETS 121
This reminds one of the great change which has taken
place in American manners since Mrs. Trollope's day.
Mrs. Trollope wrote her impressions of America fifty
years ago, and, joined with some exaggeration, told
so many unpleasant truths that her name in Ameri
can mouths has not yet recovered its naturally sweet
savour. One of the truths she told was that at the
theatres of certain western cities, men were in the habit
of taking off their coats during the performance, and
sitting on the front of the boxes with their backs to the
people. In consequence of this criticism, the manners
of theatre-goers were much improved; and it became
usual for the audience to cry "Trollope! Trollope!" at
any man who took his coat off during the performance,
sat on the edge of the box with his back to the people,
or otherwise publicly misbehaved himself. In the news
papers of fifty years ago I have several times read of
this cry of " Trollope! Trollope!"
Nowadays Americans are much more careful to
avoid little rudenesses than Englishmen. Indeed, the
positions are reversed on the wandering Briton, who can
invariably be known by his remaining covered in places
where Americans always remove their hats. It may not
be amiss, and is certainly not superfluous, to tell English
men who intend to visit America that it is the custom
to remove the hat in any building where ladies are.
This applies especially to an elevator, and the passages
and halls of a hotel. Another much-needed hint to
Englishmen abroad is, " Don't grumble very much —
aloud!" I once saw a party of Englishmen, directors of
a Canadian Railway, enter the dining-room of the
Windsor Hotel with a greater clatter than the advent of
a great Bashaw. They loudly insisted on having a par-

122 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
ticular table, though told that it was reserved for a
family that had lived in the hotel for many years; and
when they finally did get seated, nothing appeared to
give them satisfaction. A man who will grumble at the
table of the Windsor Hotel will complain about the fit
of the heavenly halo, or say that his cloud-throne in
Paradise is damp!

A MODERN RACE OF CTCLOPS.

123

CHAPTER IX.

A MODEEN EACE OP CTCLOPS.

Cyclops, " an insolent lawless race" —
"giants with only one eye." — Webstek.
HEN Herbert Spencer was in Ame
rica, his experience of journalists
reminded him of a witticism of
the poet Heine: "When a woman
writes a novel, she has one eye on
the paper and the other on some
man — except the Countess Hahn-
Hahn, who has only one eye." In
American journals everything is treated in connection
with the doings of individuals. The leader-writer, dis
cussing some question of state, has one eye on the gov
ernmental department, and the other on the person
who presides over the department. If he has only one
eye, he fixes it on the person. It was such a one-eyed
journalist who, a week or two after the inauguration of
President Cleveland, expressed his indignation in the
Galveston News because a salute was fired at Fortress
Monroe " in honor of Mr. Chester Arthur, a New York
attorney." The small invasions of personal liberty to which one
is often subject in the freedom-loving Republic take
a specially aggressive form when conducted by jour-

124 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
nalists. A citizen is practically without rights when
confronted by a reporter. If his daughter or his wife
elopes, if his house takes fire, if the bank breaks with
his savings, or his son absconds to Canada with the
property of trustful clients, the interviewer, who has
the effrontery of a brass sign and the persistence of a
Nasmyth hammer, stands before the victim note-book in
hand ere he has time to estimate his misfortune. Like
the holy inquisitors of mediaeval times, this child of
freedom scruples not to torture his victim, worming out
his secrets, and quietly menacing him with unnamed
terrors until he is ready to cry :
O God, defend me! how am I beset—
What kind of catechising call j'ou this?
Nothing is so grateful to the interviewer as scandal.
He thrives in it like eels in mud. He revels and rolls
in it until it covers him like a coating of slime, obscuring
every vestige of the man. He often infiicts cruelty to
see his victim writhe, that he may turn an honest penny
by describing the agony he causes. In pursuit of newsy
items he adds to persistence a quality which in nobler
walks of life would be called courage: it is the courage
of the flea that fears not to breakfast on the lip of a
lion. If he is kicked down the front steps he crawls
back by the area window and cross-examines the cook.
I know of a case where he got into a house by a back
window and refused to leave until his coat-tails had been
covered with foot-marks. Every man's house is his
castle; but the sheriff, the plague, and the interviewer
have rights of entry that will not brook denial.
English readers lately learnt something about inter-

A MODERN RACE OF CTCLOPS. 125
viewing from a controversy between Mr. Russell Lowell
and Mr. Julian Hawthorne. In America the incident
induced a discussion of this form of social aggression
which has not been without its good results. The Na
tion probably stands at the head of American journalism,
for the integrity as well as ability with which it is con
ducted. Here is its contribution to the discussion:
" The Boston Herald says that the assertion that there is 'a very
large body' of newspaper men who would be guilty of Haw
thorne's offence may be true of New York, but not of Boston,
where ' any newspaper man who did what Mr. Lowell says Mr.
Hawthorne did to him would lose his place and stand a poor
chance of getting another.' The Springfield Republican goes
further, and says the number of new.sipapcr men anywhere who
would commit Hawthorne's offence is not large, but small. There
is no use in continuing or carrying on a controversy on a point
which in the nature of things cannot be decided. But we will say
this, that in long experience of the newspaper press we have known
of scores, if not hundreds, of most shameful and cruel violations
of confidence and intrusions on privacy committed by newspaper
men, and have never heard of one which led to the dismissal of
the offender, if it was one which promoted ' sales,' or, in other
words, brought money into the counting room. Small lies or out
rages, which have no particular pecuniary value, are sometimes
followed by punishment, but it is a well-known fact that managers
are very apt to stand by, to the last extremity, a liar whose lies
feed the popular appetite for amusement. This is not a pleasant
thing to say about ' our profession,' but it is as true as gospel. As
a matter of fact, some of the most highly paid newspaper men are
notorious liars, perverters, and inventors."
It is one of the tokens of a free country that your
sixteen-year-old daughter may go out to post a letter,
and come back in ten minutes to tell you that she has
just married your errand-boy or your footman. While
you are tearing your hair and committing free institu-

126 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
tions to Sheol, a bit of pasteboard is thrust in your hand
announcing the interviewer. You then get another
lesson in freedom. Your domestic suffering is claimed
by the nation, which wants to gossip over your calam
ity. Here is an example extracted from the Neiu York
Triiune for March 24, 1885. I omit the name of the
sufferer, who was one of the best-known men in New
York: " The bride's father was found in his apartments at No. 
Broadway. ' Mr.  ,' said the reporter, ' to morrow's issue of Tlie
Iribune will contain — '
' I know,' interrupted Mr.  , ' a notice of my daughter's
marriage. Suppress it— suppress it if possible! '
The reporter explained that such things cannot be suppressed,
and Mr.  continued: ' I suppose you want to know all about
it, but, I implore you, make as little of a sensation out of the affair
as the facts will allow. I have always tried to appear honorably
before the public, and now this comes upon me with the sudden
ness of a thunderbolt. You can't imagine what a blow the mar
riage has been to me,' continued he in a voice from which the
tears were not far distant. ' I know that my position will remain
the same, but I can't bear that my daughter should destroy her
happiness by a single rash step like this. The whole story, how
ever, is simple, and has really no sensational elements. My
daughter made the acquaintance of this young man in this city.
He didn't dare to pay his attentions openly, for he knew how I
would have regarded them. He met her out of my house and
they got married. I can't give you any further particulars. I
know absolutely nothing about the young man, but I'm doing all
I can to find out about him. That's my present occupation.
The marri.age service was performed by a clergyman regularly
ordained, and I never knew of the matter untU the other day.' "
Here is an interviewer's horror extracted from the
PhiladeliJhia Press, which like the IVibune is a first-

A MODERN RACE OF CTCLOPS. 127
class paper, judged by the American standard. I omit
the victim's name, which the journalist had not the heart
to conceal:
" As they were entering the hearing-room [of the police station]
the Sergeant said: 'There is a case for you,' pointing to a
woman who was speaking to the turnkey. She was a sad speci
men of a dissipated woman. Ragged, filthy and half drunk, she
stood, asking for a lodging, without any shawl to protect her
emaciated form, or hood to cover her unkempt gray locks that fell
down her back.
'You would hardly believe,' whispered the Sergeant, 'that
fifteen years ago that creature was a beautiful young woman, well
educated, the daughter of wealthy parents moving in the best
society in Chicago.'
The reporter looked incredulous.
'Well, she was,' replied the Sergeant. 'Her father, whose
name was W — ^, was one of the richest men in that city, and lost
all he had, along with his life, in the great fire. Just a few weeks
previously, however, his daughter, our visitor here, was married
to a man named R  . He only wanted her money, and deserted
her at the discovery of her father's loss.'
The turnkey was heard gruffly to answer ' Yes,' and pointed to
the stairway. As she turned around she showed a face wrinkled
and grimy, with eyes half closed from drunken stupidity. Grasp
ing the front of her dress that dragged on tie floor, she swayed
toward the door.
'Mrs. R  ,' said the reporter, politely, as she was about to
pass. At the sound of the name she suddenly turned, her face losing
its despair, and stood like a statue, staring at the speaker like one
in a dream. Finally recovering herself, she gTasped the reporter's
arm convulsively, and looking up in his face appealingly, said in
a husky voice: ' Who — who are you? Do you know me? ' She
turned her head and murmured: ' O God, that I should come to
this!' ' I am very, very sorry, indeed, to see you here. How did it
happen? '

128 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
The tears gathered in her eyes and she began to sob violently.
' Oh, I could not help it,' she said, shaking her head. ' When
my husband deserted me so cruelly after my father's death, I tried
to live respectably, but I couldn't find work, and I had learned
to drink before my father died. My only hope now is in the
grave.' With her face buried in her hands and the tears trickling
through her fingers, she slowly walked toward the stairway and
disappeared, as though anxious to hide her misery.
' We often have people among our lodgers who've seen better
days,' commented the Sergeant. ' We get used to them. That
poor creature to-morrow will be about the low saloons trying to
raise enough to buy a glass of rum.' "
I am aware that a stranger's denunciation of this
system will occasion some resentment in America,
especially among journalists. But I trust I have shown
myself sufficiently in sympathy with what is admirable
in the Republic to excuse condemnation of what is
cleariy a lapse from higher to lower forms. In Russia
every family is under government surveillance; in the
Republic of America every person is liable to forms of
espionage far more objectionable. And this is both de
manded and conceded as a right to the press. " The
reporter explained that such things cannot be sup
pressed"! And why not? The sanctity of home, the
feelings of the wretched parents, the future happiness
even of the foolish couple — are all to be subordinated
to an unworthy craving for gossip? It is a saying in
America that personal rights must give way to public
comfort; but surely the public amusement is not in
cluded. Then by what right, republican. Christian or other,
does a reporter interview the occupant of a prison-cell?

A MODERN RACE OF CTCLOPS.

129

Has a drunkard no rights? Is he (or she, alas! in this
case) to be exhibited to needy
penny-a-liners as stock in
trade? If this wretched in
terviewer must live — and I
see no need for it — is it the
duty of public officials to
cater to him? But the sub
ject is too nauseating. That
such things happen without
exciting surprise or protest is
ample proof, if other proofs
were not abundant, that
Americans lack that respect for the rights of others
which ought to go along with insistence on their own.
But perhaps the interview in jail is one of those dis
mal little fictions with which American editors some
times beguile their readers. The Neio York Herald
once startled the city by reporting the escape of the wild
animals from Central Park. The horrible scenes that
ensued were described: nurses were killed, children de
voured or torn in pieces, and the people about the park
were afraid to move out. Many did not read to the end
of the report; those who did found the statement that
it was all a dream or something of the kind!
President Cleveland lately said:

"I don't think that there ever was a time when newspaper lying
was so general and so mean as at present, and thei-e never was
a country under the sun where it flourished as it does in this.
The falsehoods daily spread before the people in our newspapers,
while they are proofs of the mental ingenuity of those engaged in
newspaper work, are insults to the American love for decency and
fair play of which we boast."
9

130 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
Speaking of this indictment, the Triiune, a rabidly
partisan newspaper, capable of ascribing a tornado in.
Texas or a collision of ferry-boats to democratic jobbery,
makes the following very suggestive comment:
" As the President is generally credited with sincerity and good
intentions, it is evident that his acrid strictures upon the American
press are designed to serve some useful purpose. We take it that
his criticisms are meant largely for the benefit of the democratic
press, which aided in electing him in a campaign of reckless and
malevolent defamation unparalleled in the political ann.T,ls of the
country. His opponent was attacked month after month as no
statesman in American public life had ever been assailed before.
Mr. Blaine's correspondence was monstrously perverted, his pri
vate business transactions were ransacked with malign purpose,
and the sanctity of his home wantonly invaded. From beginning
to end it was a campaign of malignant defamation on the part of
the democratic press."
But "from beginning to end it was a campaign of
malignant defamation on the part of the republican
press "as well, and of malignant defamation the Tribune
was not altogether innocent. Indeed then, as ever
since, this otherwise able journal has shown a pitiful
lack of dignity in its criticisms of the democratic
party. Its unreasoning malevolence must inevitably
discredit its own party in the minds of all lovers of fair
play. It will scarcely be credited in England that fictitious
interviews are published by reputable newspapers, in
which f uU names are given. While I write, such a fab
rication concerning the inventor Edison is going the
rounds of the press, having already appeared in dailies
published in Washington, Philadelphia and New York.
The article is extravagant and absurd to the last degree.

A MODERN RACE OF CTCLOPS. 131
being founded on an old hoax which I am informed ap
peared as an April-fool joke nine years ago.
I have found in a California paper an amusing report
of a menagerie catastrophe, evidently prompted by the
Herald's horror. It is a good example of a kind of hu
mour which Uncle Sam has made his own, and worth
quoting: "Cooper and Bailey's menagerie, which will open in this city
shortly, was the scene of a terrifying occurrence, while exhibiting
at Marysville recently. It seems that some mischievous youngster
in the audience inserted a piece of tobacco in a peanut given by
him to the largest of the sixteen elephants attached to the show.
The enraged creature uttered the singular half-human cry peculiar
to its species when aroused, and hurled the boy with great force
through the roof of the tent, breaking every bone in his body, and
an almost new humming-top in his pocket. Bursting the ten-inch
chain that secured its foot like a bit of tvsine, the furious mam
moth seized the clown, and in a second had crushed hini into a
shapeless pulp and old conundrums. The elephant's companions
now became excited, and charged upon the audience, which was
wildly applauding the clown's just fate, little thinking what was
in store for itself. In a twinkling the ring-master had been dis
posed of, and the first four rows of spectators had become a mass
of writhing victims. The ring ran with gore, and the wild shrieks
and roars of the other animals lent additional horror to the terri
ble scene. Presently, several cages were upset in the mfilee, and
the lions and tigers took part in the awful fray. The hippopot
amus bit off the sheriff's head. A frightful contest occurred
between the grizzly bear and one of the largest elephants. The
latter was underneath, and in his struggles rolled over and
smashed flat a' whole half -priced Sunday-school. The rhinoce
ros paid exclusive attention to the deadhead seats, and at one
time was noticed with two editors and a politician on the same
horn. The camels and zebras tore round the ring, uttering ter
rific cries, above which could be faintly heard the agonizing cries
of the County Recorder, who was being skinned alive by a couple
of gorillas on top of the centre pole. In course of time the car-

132 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
nage was quelled, and the animals and curiosities secured, with
the exception of a cormorant, that will go practising law in the
spring, if not detected in time. The remains of the Mayor and
six Councilmen were sent home in the golden chariot (cost $40,000
to build), preceded by the band (seventy-four first class- soloists).
The unrecognized dead were buried in a trench two hundred feet
long. The animals are now secured by chains weighing four
pounds to the link, and iron bars two feet thick. Owing to the
colossal expense attendant upon this mammoth exhibition of the
century, the price of admission has been reduced to fifty cents, chil
dren under ten half price."
In the picturesque American neology, a "deadhead"
means a person with a free pass.
Sensational titles to reports are the delight of the
American editor. A leading Chicago paper paid a large
salary to an alliterative genius who did nothing but
concoct head-lines.- This fellow once had to give a
heading to the description of an execution; and next
morning subscribers were startled on opening their pa-
7<., pers to see in large capitals the words "Jerked to Jesus."
This is a fact, however shocking it may be. Another
heading to a similar account which I have seen is
" Leaped into Eternity." This was the description of
a public hanging in a field near Savannah on June 26,
1885. The reporter ended his description with these
words: "The widow of the murdered man occupied a
seat on the scaffold, and witnessed her husband's assas
sin take his leap into eternity."
It is not easy to think of the American press as a seri
ous institution. What it looks like to a native it is hard
to say; but to a stranger it appears a gigantic farce, un
derstood as such by both writers and readers. Every
body in America reads the newspapers; nobody seems to
believe them. Indeed it is often asked in a quizzical

A MODERN RACE OF CTCLOPS. 133
way: "Is it true, or did you read it in a newspaper?" For
nearly a week after the presidential election, republican
newspapers, led by the Tribune, solemnly assured read
ers that Mr. Blaine had been elected. Rarely is the
love of truth allowed to spoil a fine sentence. In this
particular the American journalist is like Carlyle: if his
nicely-rounded period happens to exaggerate the facts,
so -much the worse for the facts. If you read that " the
awful holocaust leaped with lurid hands to lick the em
blazoned clouds that caught the irradiant glare and hurled
it into the abysmal spaces beyond the paling star," you
may be certain, without reading another line, that a cow-
barn, worth three hundred dollars, has been burnt down.
When General Scott, the conqueror of Mexico, visited
his native village in Pennsylvania, his entrance into the
place was thus described by the local e'ditor: " The gallant
hero, seated in a chariot, led the van. The rosy morn
besprinkled the oriental clouds with effulgent glory, and
the gorgeous sun, at last issuing like a warrior from his
repose, walked up the sky, gilding the vast expanse of
ether, and throwing his broad and splendid rays upon a
line of one-horse wagons and carts filled with individuals
principally from our village."
I have already quoted the saying of a newspaper man
to the effect that all American journalists are liars —
either liars on space or liars on salary. This statement
coming from a journalist must also be untrue. And
here is a dilemma I will leave to the newspapers. But
Thomas Jefferson writing in 1807 shows that the com
plaint of President Cleveland is an old one. Says he:
" Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.
Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put in that polluted vehi
cle. The real extent of this misinformation is known only to

134 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
those who are in situations to confront facts within their know!
edge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration
upon the great body of my fellow-citizens who, reading newspa
pers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of
what has been passing in their time; whereas the accounts they
have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other
period of the world as of the present, except that the real names
of the day are affixed to their fables. I will add that the man who
never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads
them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer the truth than
he whose mind is filled with falsehood and errors. He who reads
nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false."
What Englishmen esteem as dignity is a quality
rarely found in American newspapers. Sensational
news-items have a prominence unknown in the average
English newspaper. Of course I except the Pall Mall
Gazette, which has discredited us in many ways. Dur
ing General Grant's illness bulletins appeared by the
column twice a day. These columns were made up
of the most trivial matters. The Post one day an
nounced that "at 6:35 a servant raised the blind and
opened the window to let in fresh air. Half an hour
later the window was closed and the blind lowered."
Even the best New York papers have a funny column
like the English country weekly; and in their items of
domestic news they compare with the Penny Budget or
the Police News. Murders, elopements, scandal of all
kinds, occupy the front pages of even the most reputa
ble journals. In England we confine our scandal-mon-
gering to the doings of dukes, princes and lords — and
Heaven knows we have more than enough, even thus
limited; but in America, as the Nation complains, "no
body is too low to have his quarrels, sufferings or in
trigues set forth at length; and the papers teem with
'spicy' reports of the elopements of bartenders and ser-;

A MODERN RACE OF CTCLOPS. 135
vant-girls, the scandals of unknown families, and the
divorce suits of people whom nobody ever heard of."
The New York Herald in its Sunday edition of Feb
ruary 7, 1886, contained four columns cabled from Eu
rope. Three columns of this was the description of a
duel between two French journalists, and the other de
tailed the horrors of a French execution!
Of course there is a demand for this kind of read
ing. Servant-girls and labourers have money to spend on
newspapers; and where these are conducted solely on
business principles, that is money-making principles,
editors must cater to all. Then there are hundreds
of hysterical women-readers of whose tastes one knows
nothing, until some interesting murderer like Guiteau
or Maxwell has his cell piled up with letters and gifts
of flowers and fruit. An anarchist condemned to death
for murder is wooed and won by an heiress. In Eng
land if such a class of maniacs exists, it does not betray
its presence by showering favours on murderers. The
nearest resemblance I remember was that of the crowd
of women who lavished dainties and flowers on Jumbo.
•And even about this there was probably a good deal of
"Barnum." A stranger sometimes has his attention caught by an
attractive head-line, and beginning to read gets half-way
down the column before he finds he is reading a quack
advertisement. Readers who are used to journalistic
tricks look first at the foot of the article. There is a
story of a clergyman who was so used to scrutinize the
last line of everything he read, that from sheer habit he
glanced at the end of the Sunday morning's lesson before
reading it in church.
If one were to judge by the newspapers, he would

136 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
conclude that the American people are the most un
healthy in the world. Cures for the ills that flesh is
heir to, and many others that are acquired without
ancestral aid, are advertised in every sheet. America
appears to be the paradise of quacks. A character in
the old play Nice Valor says:
" Never ill, man, until I hear of baseness;
And then I sicken."
The local politics of America probably keep the people in
ill-health. Before I came to America a friend who had lived there
jocularly advised me to go into politics and get rich.
"But," said I, " one has to be a citizen to be able to
take office; and it takes five years to be naturalized."
" Then turn quack doctor for five years. That pays
nearly as well!" In bygone days a man who had failed
at everything else, bought a birch-rod and became
schoolmaster: in America he turns quack and the press
helps him to fame and fortune.
Early last year the Tribune appeared with a detailed"
account of the excision by electricity of a tumour at the
back of the mouth. The next day it had nearly a
column under the following cheerful headings: " Ex
ploring the Intestines: A Serious Wound skilfully
treated: A remarkable operation at Chambers St.
Hospital: The patient cured." This edifying article
began: " The abdominal cavity of man has always been
aivoided by surgeons" — ' and by writers in family news
papers,' might have been added. In such cases the
patient's name and address, age, occupation, are given,
together with particulars of his family, whether he or

A MODERN RACE OF CTCLOPS. 137
any of his uncles and aunts have been divorced, im
prisoned, elected to a public office, or suffered any other
degradation, together with such additional details as
may interest the cooks, chambermaids and male riff-raff
who subscribe to the paper.
If, as it is said, there is always a soul of truth in
things false, there must be a soul of truth in the Ameri
can press. It is, however, unobtrusive, as is the nature
of souls: it does not advertise itself in large caps, like
the more carnal part of itself. For this reason it often
remains concealed from those who do not know where
to seek it. The original thought and writing found in
American newspapers are of the highest order. The
lack of protection to native authors forces men of the
highest ability into journalism. With an international
copyright law we might get more good books from
America, but Americans at home would miss the clear
thought and strong virility of style of many leader-
writers. The Sunday newspapers abound with articles
of great literary merit. Indeed they are more like
our reviews than newspapers; but it is a poor com
pliment to the authors to mix such excellent work with
scandalous personalities and blood-curdling crime-pic
tures. The Tribune has several very able writers on its
staff; but their efforts are weakened by a puerile re
vision, which gives to every editorial the character of an
indictment of the Cleveland administration. An article
on the cultivation of sorghum may end with a lament
that the business is unprofitable owing to the color of
the democratic president's hair. The Sun, which aims
at brevity, is a carefully written paper. Its financial
articles are greatly esteemed. It is somewhat Anglopho-

138 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
bist. The World affords a wonderful example of what
energy and enterprise can do to make a paper suc
cessful. It built the pedestal to the Statue of Liberty,
and was in large measure instrumental in securing the
conviction of the dishonest board of aldermen in New
York. It has a well-managed detective bureau, and has
done much to ferret out criminals of all degrees. It is
sensational, which is one cause of its marvellous success;
but its boldness and persistency in attacking corruption
in high places more than compensate for this. At this
moment its big guns are directed against the corrupt
Commissioners of Castle Garden. The Times is among
the best of New York morning papers. It is well
edited, contains fewer horrors than usual, and its origi
nal articles are of the highest order. I may add that it
is a leading free-trade advocate. On this account the
judgment of an Englishman will be said by protectionists
to be biassed. The evening papers the Post and A d-
vertiser rank very high. The Advertiser's business
columns are specially valuable; while the Post excels in
its leaders and leaderettes. The Nation I have put at
the head of the American press. It is a weekly publica
tion devoted to the purification of politics and the
advancement of free-trade principles. Its original artir
cles are thoughtful, independent and vigorous. It is
conducted in a dignified spirit; and its influence for
good is unimpaired by personalities and harmful news
items. The Citizen, is a publication with the same aims.
The Critic is a weekly review devoted to literature and
art. It is ably conducted, and it includes in its list of
contributors the brightest names of American literature.,
Comic papers are generally bright and clever, though
they seem to be at some disadvantage because every

A MODERN RACE OF CYCLOPS. 139
newspaper has its column of fun, and even serious
matters are often treated humorously. This is the way
in which an editor announces the birth of a son:
' ' The angel of dawn laid at the threshold of Editor P. A. Bar
rett this morning a rosebud culled from the garden of the gods, as
a reward for the energy and enterprise which have given Scranton
a first-class daily. Mother and child are doing well."
Of bright, sparkling descriptions the American is a
far better writer than the English reporter. In sub
editing too, in the display of news and its judicious
distribution through the paper, I think the American
excels. In the leaders there is little difference of merit.
The Englishman is the more dignified, and his style is
in keeping with the grave subjects usually treated edito
rially. The American likes " snap;" and this liking
gives a* precision and a crispness to his leaders, and a
bright semi-humorous sparkle to his reports. It would
be an improvement if some of the American brightness
could be made to illumine our heavy verbatim reports
at home. It would be like the bright crisp sunbeam of
a winter's day falling athwart a London fog.

140

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

CHAPTER X.

ON THIlfGS IN GENEEAL.

' Great Empire of the West,
The dearest and the best.
Made up of all the rest."
Ab. Coles.

:w

^HICH of these
roads leads to
Skunk Hollow?"
asked a pedestrian of a
darky who stood at
the junction of two
mud-puddles. " Bot'
on 'em, boss !" ' ' And
which is the best.?''
queried the traveller.
" Dunno," replied the
sable youth. " Why,
don't you live about
here?" "Ya-as." "Then how is it you don't know?"
"'Cos whichebber ob de roads you take, you'll be sorry
you didn't take de udder one!"
And that is the kind of feeling the traveller has all
over America. When Mr. Freeman visited Uncle Sam,
he told him to mend his ways. But this would be a
woik of generations, and, with a ubiquitous railway

ON THINGS IN GENERAL. 141
system, almost a work of supererogation. An idea of the
character of American country-roads may be had from
the fact that it is not uncommon to go over them with
a plough as a preparatory measure to repairing them,
and sometimes the repairing gets no further.
Not only are the country-roads of America bad enough
to justify the death penalty on a road-surveyor in Eng
land; but the pavements of cities are execrable. New
York, which is by far the best taxed city in the world,
has worse pavements than a German village. The road
is full of inequalities in which the mud accumulates, to
be splashed by horses and carriages over the clothes of
pedestrians. Then crossings — there are no crossing-
sweepers in America— are formed by huge monoliths,
with large gaps worn between; and occasionally the un
wary finds his foot slipping from tne polished stone into
eight inches of slush. The sidewalks are often raised a
foot above the roadway, so that at every crossing one has
to step that distance up and down, and a miscalculation
of the height may result in a fall into the gutter.
Further dangers await the pedestrian as he walks along.
He presently stumbles over a portion of the pavement
which is raised two or four inches above the rest, or
kicks his pet corn against the raised covering of a trap
door. If it has been raining and freezing simultaneously,
as often happens in winter, he may find his feet shoot
suddenly skywards, and before he realizes the meaning
of the movement, his head strikes an iron cellar door,
which instead of being flush with the pavement is placed
at a convenient angle for involuntary gymnastics.
Undeterred by these diversions, the unsophisticated
stranger proceeds, until his progress is arrested, say on
Broadway, by the end of a cart which projects across

142

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

the flags and occupies such portion of them as is not
already covered by the
boxes and bales which have
just been taken from it.
Silently rejoicing in the
briskness of trade, he makes
a detour into the mruddy
road and round the horses'
heads, soon to be stopped
again, this time by the scaf
folding of a new building,
which occupies the whole
of the sidewalk. Possibly
he here has the option of
Incident during a stroll. walking round the obstacle
by the road, or over it, by means of a wooden platform
reached by five or six badly-built steps. If the pedes
trian is a philosopher, and as good-tempered as all
Americans are under small discomforts, he will cheer
fully recognize in his walk an emblem of life with its
perplexities and discomforts alternating with short
periods of ease. He will also recognize and profit by
the intellectual stimulus of such a walk: for one cannot
surmount even trivial difficulties without the exercise of
some ingenuity and intelligence. If, however, our
traveller is an Englishman, with his ever-ready faculty
of fault-finding, or an old gentleman with weak knees,
or an old lady with poor eyesight, philosophy and good
nature will point to the ubiquitous tram-car. Taking
perhaps the only vacant seat, our traveller soon finds
that Americans are not deterred by considerations of
personal or impersonal comfort from entering a car
already full. If one hails a cab, he will probably be

ON THINGS IN GENERAL. 143
jolted stiff, and charged a dollar for a five-minute drive.
Comfort in travelling in an American city is mainly a
matter of chance. If few people are moving in the
same direction, transport is rapid, cheap and comfort
able. If one ventures into a street-car or on the ele
vated railway at the beginning or end of business hours,
he finds a crowd of people wedged together on each seat,
and a third crowd hanging on to the roof-straps, and
convivially rubbing knees with those who are seated;
but every individual amongst them as good-natured and
contented as a boy on a toboggan-slide.
Many tram-cars in America are run without conduc
tor. You place your five cents in a box with glass
sides, near the driver. If you are a stranger to the
custom and keep your nickel in your hand awaiting the
collector, the driver fixes his American-eagle eye upon
you, raps at the window, and tells you to " hurry up
there." Everybody rides in street-cars. The pave
ments are too bad to walk on with comfort, and if they
were better the American's time is worth more than the
twopence- halfpenny charged for riding.
A common midnight apparition in Fifth Avenue is
the machine street-sweeper. The scene in the moon
like brightness of the electric lamps is very weird.
Pedestrians run into the nearest doorway, if a side street
is not available. Then with artillery clatter come three
or four machines, marching almost abreast. The dry
dust rises in circling clouds above the horses' heads, re
mains suspended in mid-air until the sweepers are past,
and falls again on the pavement like the gentle dew
from heaven. The doorways then give up their living,
who proceed along the silent streets, literally making
tracks homewards.

144 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
Ash-barrels contribute much to the variety of a walk
through an American city. These are placed in front
of houses; and when the wind is not blowing, the stranger
may amuse himself and add to his stock of knowledge by
reading the queer advertisements that are pasted over
them. If, however, a strong wind is blowing, literary
diversions are out of the question, for one's eyes are busy
shedding tears and washing out the dust which rises
from every barrel like a pillar of cloud.
One of the numerous traditions that cluster round
the memory of George Washington, is to the effect that
he once threw a dollar from Mount Vernon across the
Potomac; and another tradition which is acquiring the
character of an historic truth, is that Senator Evarts
remarked on this that "a dollar went further in those
days than at present." Truly a dollar does not go far at
present — not further than an English shilling, and not as
far as an Italian franc. The poet who characterized Amer
ica as the dearest land knew
whereof he wrote. It is a
J? II^K^P^ ^^^^ °^ inflated prices and
artificial values. American

productions are sold in
England at half the price
demanded in America.
Among my papers I find
the following extract from a newspaper, which well
describes the facts in New York. I regret that I have
neglected to notice the title of the book from which it
is evidently a quotation:
" Incomes are large, expenditures keep pace, not on the old
scale to which English society clings, but with a recklessness
quite characteristic of the buoyancy of the American temperament.

ON THINGS IN GENERAL. 145
Men seem to compete in expenditure as in trade, and New York
has become the most expensive city in the world.
A modest house for a small family in a respectable locality
cannot be had for less than £400 to £500. In the enoimous ' flat '
houses which are rapidly going up all over the upper part of the
city, an apartment of seven or eight rooms, in nowise luxurious,
costs £200 to £400 [say rather £400 to £1000], and in less eligible
localities, and most moderate in pretension and accommodation,
rarely less than £100.
At a well-known commercial restaurant a lunch off the joint,
with a pint of cider and a cup of black coffee, costs 6s. , and is not
nearly equal to the half-crown lunch of a London restaurant. The
beef that is sent from here to England and sold at M. to IM. a
pound costs in New York twice that. The style of living which
in London costs £1000 a year, here will cost £2000. The large
profits are met by proportionate expenses. A man grows reckless
of the dollars. At the hotels you not only pay enormous bills, but
the greed of the attendants [who are rarely native Americans]
makes it impossible to get decent service without continually
tipping them, and not in the modest way one does in England.
There is no charge made for service, but if you want your lunch
served quickly and well you must fee the waiter when you give
the order. He marks every habitue; who tips him and who does
not; and the tips are on tho American scale— anything less than a
' quarter ' (a shilling) is contemptible, and the true American will
never consent to be contemptible, even in the eyes of a waiter.
He will at all costs avoitl the reputation of meanness, and has little
inclination to distinguish between meanness and economy, and,
being always in a hurry to get back to business, says that he loses
more than a shilling by the delay which the waiter imposes on him.
At the hotel the guest who does not fee in advance soon finds the
zeal of the waiters fall off.
You pay a boot-black a dime (5d), and so on to the end of the
list. And there are no suburbs to cheapen life. The Hudson
River blocks one side with its uncertain winter navigation; and
Brooklyn, across the East River, is as dear as New York (?), as a
furnished flat of several moderate rooms there costs £25 a month.
Everybody is so intent on his getting on that he does not stop to
think that this system of enormous profits for everybody eats up
10

146 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
all his surplus gains; and a man who gets £500 a year here is no
more comfortable than a London clerk at £250. There is the
chance of a great hit, and he believes in his luck. The devotion
to business is certainly phenomenal. If it is wise ^nd healthful
the future will tell better than to-day. "
The difference in cost of living to workingmen, how
ever, is not so great. I have obtained from a Scotch
foreman in America a comparison of prices of food,
clothing, fuel, and of rent, paid by workingmen in
Pittsburgh and an ordinary Scotch town. This shows
that in food the American workman has the advantage
of 26 per cent, and in fuel 64 per cent. In rent the
Scotchman has the advantage of 91 per cent, and in
clothing 34 per cent. Altogether the Scotchman has
a considerable gain. He gets for seventeen shillings and
sixpence what the American buys for twenty-four
shillings and tenpence.
The arrangements of a good American hotel or a
first-class residence are far in advance of anything seen
in the old world. Hot and cold water is found in every
room, and often the electric light. Electric bells lead
everywhere. Nearly all private householders have such
electric communication with a telegraph office, that one
ring will immediately bring an errand-boy, two a police
man, three an ambulance and doctor, four a fire-engine,
and so on. All over the country private houses are
furnished with telephones, and I have heard ladies say
they would as soon be without a cook as without the
telephone. In England the development of this system
of communication has been hindered by the govern
ment, which had a monopoly of telegraphs, and it was
held by the courts that the telephone was a telegraph.
In this instance we have a clear proof of the injury

ON THINGS IN GENERAL. 147
which a government may cause by not minding its own
business. In America private enterprise enables citizens
to send money by telegraph and cable — a convenience
denied to Englishmen at home. In some cities steam is
supplied to houses, as gas and water are; and in Pitts
burgh natural gas is furnished to householders ad libi
tum for what they previously paid for coal. At Lock-
port, power is supplied to factories by over-head cables
at so much per horse-power. Speaking-tubes connect
with the kitchen even in small houses; and a hoist
brings up the dinner piping hot with no tumbling up
stairs and smashing of dishes. Even in the "far west"
these little aids to comfortable living are generally found;
though one may there occasionally discover bits of
Charles Dickens's America.
A newly-imported Scotchman, used to the simple fare
of the Highlands, displayed great astonishment at the
sight of an American table. " Look, Jock, mon!" he
cried to a compatriot, "'taties for bre'kfast!" Sandy
might have exclaimed at many other things on Uncle
Sam's breakfast - table. According to Mulhall, our
avuncular relative eats more than anybody else. He
certainly 'cooks more, but he wastes so much that I
fancy Mulhall's figures are misleading. Dr. Primrose
said that the superfluous trappings of the rich were
more than enough to clothe the poor. The waste of
Uncle Sam would feed the hungry poor of any other
nation. The culinary art has attained a high development in
America. Delmonico's has long held the palm against
all Paris for good cooking; and the Hoffman House,
noted from China to Peru as the most sumptuous res
taurant and bar-room in the world, is now running its

148 UNCLE- SAM AT HOME.
neighbour a hard race for precedence. Nature, having
dealt lavishly with Uncle Sam in so many ways, has
capped her bounty by giv
ing him the best food and
the greatest variety of it.
Indeed it is claimed that
Chesapeake Bay is the
gastronomic centre of the
universe. Everything that
can be grown in Europe,
The National Bird-with Cranberry from OrangeS tO OatS,
®^"''®- Uncle Sam cultivates on
his own farm, and it is as superior to foreign products
as home-grown things proverbially are. In tropical
Florida he raises tropical fruits. In Maine, in Wis
consin, he grows oats that make even Scotch mouths
water. His Texas cattle now go to form much of the
roast beef of Old England; and his Massachusetts
cheeses are sold at the antipodes as Stilton, Cheddah,
Roquefort or Gruyere, according to the taste of the pur
chaser. Salmon literally crowd his rivers, so that some
times horses cannot ford them; and these he puts into
cans and sends them by the ton to Europe, Asia, Africa;
and his California peaches and apricots go with the
salmon. American mutton is decidedly inferior to
Scotch, Welsh, or even Australian; but that is a small
drawback in the land of the terrapin, the canvas-back
duck, that delectable anomaly the soft-shell crab, and the
blue-point oyster. The annual production of the last-
named succulent amounts to nearly twelve billion. New
York alone consumes 810 million, an average of 660
per inhabitant. In winter, blue-points, invitingly lying
on a sparkling bed of crushed ice, form the "grace be-

ON THINGS IN GENERAL. 149
fore meat" at most American dinners. In summer,
people ask a blessing by means of clams. I find that
the prejudice against midsummer oysters is very old.
Butler in Dreyet's Dry Dinner, dated 1599, says: "It is
unseasonable and unwholesome, in all months that have
not an r in their name, to eat an oyster." It is curious
that clams are not eaten in England. They form a de
licious appetizer before the soup; and clam chowder is a
more epicurean dish than green turtle.
River and coast steamboats in America have been
appropriately called floating palaces. In all kinds of
unlikely places one finds rich woodwork, owing to the
great variety and cheapness of timber; but in steam
boats carpentry seems to have reached the dignity of a
fine art. Then, in a clear bright climate where weather-
changes are predicted with greater certainty than the
rise and fall of stocks, there is no difficulty in keeping
everything clean and bright. The difference between
the dirty tug which takes passengers to their Cunarder
at Liverpool and the beautiful steamer which used to
transfer them to the Barge Office in New York, is as
great and of the same character as that between a
Galway peasant on his native heath and the statesman
he becomes in America. A like difference is observed
in the barges and other freight-boats of both countries.
Those of England are black, dirty and often misshapen;
those of America are bright, clean and usually as grace
ful as a private yacht. Charles Dickens's first impres
sion of America was that everything had been newly
washed. He was mistaken: it had never been allowed
to get dirty.
The extensive use of anthracite coal keeps many
American cities clean and free from smoke. In Wales

150 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
there is an extensive bed of smokeless anthracite which
would supply London for a century or more; but it
would seem that the owners of the dirty, cheerful,
bituminous coal have the market and are likely to keep
it. Two and a half millions of people are clustered in
and around New York; yet the air is as pure, and the
skies as bright a blue, as in Italy. From the tops of the
highest buildings, or from the great Statue of Liberty,
one has a view of miles of buildings on one side, and a
panorama of the beautiful harbour on the other, free
from smoke and dirt. It is just the view to make the
New Yorker glad, the Chicagoan envious, and the
Briton proud; for was it not the last who first saw the
capabilities of this beautiful site?
The love of the beautiful in nature is so recent an
addition to the faculties of man that one may almost
say it is a product of modern civilization. A primrose
on a mossy bank was never anything more than a prim
rose until our grandfathers' day. Yet the products of
past generations of men invariably appeal more to our
aesthetic sense than do the works of the present age.
Here is an anomaly. And again, how is it that the stolid
Swiss, who remains unmoved amid his grandiose sur
roundings, evolved the graceful chalet, while the more
highly-developed American never created anything finer
than a log-house? The utilitarian spirit seems to have
killed even the aspiration for the beautiful which gener
ations ago had begun to manifest itself in -New England.
At Yonkers a man reputed to be worth sixty thousand
dollars a year utilizes the lawn of his hired house for
raising hay. And who has seen the glories of the Hud
son without being shocked by the hideousness of such
places as Peekskill? It is hardly an exaggeration to say

ON THINGS IN GENERAL. 151
that, out of the old settled districts, there is nothing
rural in America. The country is unkempt. Snake-
fences, rocks degraded by quack advertisements, un
painted wooden houses, garbage piles at the doors —
such ar^ the tokens of rural life in America. As a native
has well phrased it, "there is a great deal of land, but
viery little country." And then the country railway
stations! Who shall describe their unqualified hideous
ness, their chilling desolation, their unwelcoming empti
ness? Often their ugliness has carefully been made
worse. On the Erie Railway at a small station just
outside Jersey City, an old locomotive tender has been
deprived of its wheels and labelled with letters a foot
long "Garbage Box."
Prof. Fiske, writing on the advantages of infancy,
shows that the development of man to his highest
form is dependent upon the training made possible by
prolonged infancy, and that the false notions, super
stitions and mistakes of the child are really useful ele
ments in its growth to adult life. The same has been
said of a nation. Indeed it is now a commonplace
that societies are organisms, and subject like them to
laws of growth and development. But America had no
infancy. In three generations it sprang from the posi
tion of a province into the foremost rank of nations.
Accordingly we find in American life an absence of
what Carlyle called "the rich invigoratioii of crude be
liefs and superstitions;" and the same great grumbler
unwittingly excused many of the crudities he blamed
when in his luminous language he said the American
was " orphaned of the solemn inspiration of antiquity."
The author of The Biglow Papers expresses in touching-
language the same thought:

152 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
" O strange New World, that yet wast never young.
Whose youth from thee by g'ripin' want was wrung.
Brown ioundlin' o' the woods, whose baby bed
Was prowled round by the Injun's cracklin' tread.
An' who grew'st strong thru' shifts, an' wants an' pains.
Nursed by stern men with empires in their brains!"
We often hear that Uncle Sam inherited from- the old
nations much of his material greatness; but on the other
hand he seems to have lost by his deprivation of infancy
much of that vague quality which has been styled.
" sweetness and light," and which includes a love of the
beautiful. America is but a vast workshop and kitchen-
garden. Its fioor is littered with the debris of indus
trial activity. To complain of its unsesthetic character
is perhaps like grumbling because the floor of an iron-
foundry is not carpeted. A general sweeping and clean
ing up would be premature, leading only to waste of
trouble, for the floor would soon be encumbered again.
There has been no time for this; but it is coming.
Already, the offices of Uncle Sam are models of com
fort, and even of beauty. Perhaps his cities, streets
and country lanes will soon follow.
Between fifty and sixty years ago the Americans in
troduced into their country the locomotive. They had
been watching with interest the experiments of Stephen
son in England, and no sooner was success achieved than
they adopted the crude idea and began to develop it.
It would be hard to say which nation has since made the
greater advance in railway construction and manage
ment. Both England and America have left the rest of
the world behind; how far behind one can only realize on
seeing some of the primitive " puffing billies" of France

ON THINGS IN GENERAL. 153
and ether Continental nations. But they have advanced
along divergent lines; so that comparison is not easy.
For comfort in travelling the palm must undoubtedly
be awarded the nation that invented the sleeping- and
drawing-room cars; and that at an early date ceased to
build railway carriages after the design of the old stage
coach. Here, in an American's rejoinder to an English
man's unfavourable criticism of transatlantic methods, we
have a terse description of the way Uncle Sam travels:
" We take first-class tickets that cost us l^d. (3 cents) a mUe. A
porter meets us at the entrance and takes our valise. We enter a
car in which there are a number of comfortable arm-chairs.
These chairs swing around, so that we can face the windows, the
passengers, or one another. If we wish to be exclusive we take
a compartment — for two, four or six, as we please. But as I enjoy
plenty of air I choose the main body of the car. At my elbow
I find an electric bell, in answer to which comes a negro waiter
who is ready to bring you anything — from a telegraph blank to a
lunch. The floor is well carpeted and each chair has a big foot
stool. There is a smoking-room at one end of the car fitted up in
leather, as well as the usual convenience of wash-basin, soap,
towel, lavatory, etc. A little table can be fitted at your seat which
can serve you as lunch- or card-table. The car stewards make tea,
coffee and chocolate. On short distances many neighbors are apt
to be on the same car, and a drawing-room is the best counterpart
of it."In England we are locked up in a narrow compart
ment with eight or nine other people, all wedged to
gether on two seats, and half of us with our backs to
the engine. We have no arm-chairs, no waiters to bring
us lunch, no lavatory accommodation — nothing in fact
to relieve the tediousness of the journey or the discom
fort of our crowded position. If we get hungry, we run
into the refreshment-room of some station for a sand-

154 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
wich, or buy a lunch-basket and use our knees for a
table — the other passengers looking on with that British
stolidity which foreigners so often mistake for some
thing worse. As for lavatory accommodation on a train,
the majority of the English people have never heard of
such a thing! They are not supposed to require such
accommodation while travelling — or if by chance they
do, they wait till the train stops! We are a very long
way behind America in comfortable travelling.
East of Chicago the speed of trains compares not un
favourably with that of the best trains in England.
On short local lines, too, the comparison holds good;
and the slow and wearisome trains of, say, the Lan
cashire & Yorkshire or the Southeastern have their
parallels in America. Artemus Ward is accredited with
a good story in this connection: When the conductor
was punching his ticket— which he does about every
tenth mile — Artemus remarked: "Does this railroad
company allow passengers to give it advice if they do so
in a respectful manner?" The conductor replied in
gruff tones that he guessed so. " Well," Artemus went
on, " it occurred to me that it would be well to detach
the cow-catcher from the front of the engine and hitch
it to the rear of the train. For you see we are not
liable to overtake a cow, but what's to prevent a cow
strolling into this car and biting a passenger?"
Passengers are in the habit of placing their railway
tickets conspicuously on the front of their hats, so that
the conductor may take and punch them to his heart's
content without disturbance. I once saw the passen
gers in a West Shore train curiously classified by the
conductor: those going beyond Albany had a plain red
card thrust into the ribbon of their hats or pinned to their

ON THINGS IN GENERAL. 155
shawls, and those stopping at Albany were labelled with
a white ticket. On some Western lines the conductor
gives you in place of your coupon a coloured ticket, on
which is printed your destination with a list of inter
vening stations and distances, and the direction, "Keep
this ticket visible." You accordingly wear it in your
hat, and the conductor knows where you are going at a
glance. Americans are always amused on their first
journey from Liverpool to London at our slow-and-easy
ways. That the train should pull up just outside the
station, while men go from carriage to carriage collecting
tickets, is as great a surprise to them as the Continental
conductor is to Englishmen when he clambers along the
rushing train and suddenly appears at the window with
a cry of Billets, messieurs 1
The American system of checking luggage — or bag
gage, as Uncle Sam prefers to call it — is excellent. You
tell the hotel clerk you are going to Kansas City on the
eight o'clock train. Presently he gives you a number of
brass checks, each representing a package, and tells you
that your luggage has been taken to the station. At
the station you walk to your seat in the train, which
has been engaged by the same Genius of the Ring, the
hotel clerk. In three or four days, as you are approach
ing Kansas City, a boy walks through the train jing
ling a number of brass checks on straps ; and to
him you entrust your checks and say where you want
your luggage sent. Shortly after you get to the hotel,
your trunks are brought upstairs, and then you see
them for the first time since leaving New York. You
have travelled fifteen hundred miles without a disquiet
ing thought concerning the "impedimenta," as the
Roman appropriately called his luggage. An American,

156 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
habituated to this system and travelling in Europe, often
thinks he has slipped back into Roman times. A story is
told of an American travelling in England who required
the guard's constant reassurance that his trunk was all
right. At every station he put his head out of the win
dow, and cried, " Conductor, is my trunk all right ?"
" Yessir, it's in the back van," blandly replied the guard
each time. But presently the guard grew tired of the
ever-recurring question, and the answer "yessir" came
shorter and took more the character of a hiss. " Is my
trunk all right ?" asked the American for the thirteenth
time. The guard drew himself up in front of the win
dow, and fiercely regarding the anxious Yankee, replied,
"If God had made you an elephant instead of an ass,
you'd have been able to take care of your own trunk."
With characteristic good-humour, the American told the
story against himself.
Americans in England are always greatly entertained
by our tavern signs. Our green dragons, blue lions,
white harts, pig and whistles, cock and bottles, bull and
mouths, are a source of constant interest and amusement
to them. And of course they are less attentive to the
entertaining signs and notices to be found all over their
own country. Yet these are often more curious than
the quasi-heraldic devices of our country inns. A no
tice in a New England card-room informs patrons that
" The proprietor will do all the swearing, getting drunk,
and vulgar talking for the establishment." In the
Cambria County court-house at Ebensburg, Pennsylva
nia, a notice artistically displayed and printed in black
and gold runs as follows : " If you expect to rate (ex
pectorate) as a gentleman, you will use the spittoons
and not the fioor. You will also refrain from defacing

ON THINGS IN GENERAL. 157
this fine building in any way. Compliance with this
gentle reminder may avert legal penalties." Here is
another eloquent and firm admonition to good behaviour.
It is in a printing-office in New York:
GENTLElIEISr AEE POLITELY EBQUESTED
NOT TO
YELL
IN THIS Office.
I have heard of the following suggestive sign placed
near the till in business houses :
"The Lord helps those that help themselves; but
the Lord help those that help themselves here !"
In Broadway a tradesman's sign reads
Jonas Blank Pants Exclusively.
This does not mean that Jonas suffers from chronic
asthma : it means that he sells nothing but trowsers.
Under the Grand Union Hotel at Saratoga the sign of
3, "tonsorial parlor and capillary studio" reads thus:
"Any colored hair bleached blond in an hour." At
the Philadelphia swimming-bath a notice is displayed
indicating the hours set apart for " Ladies and Misses,"
and " Gents and Masters." An "omnifarious store" is
a common sight " out west ;" and I have seen this all-
inclusive sign supplemented by another : " Groceries,
tripe, pigs' feet, saurkraut, hot coffee, birch beer ;"
and by the door were boots, tin pails, trowsers, a clock,
goloshes, petroleum barrels, empty biscuit tins and a,
milk-can. The most startling sign I have ever seen is

168 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
the one common on the rocks of Broadway, the fine
road that runs along the Hudson from New York to
Albany. It is terse and resonant. It seems that after
some religious fanatic had painted on the rocks such ex
hortations as " You must repent or go to hell," some other
lunatic erased the first four words, and the remainder is
left to cheer the weary wayfarer as he trudges from New
York. The school-girl who figures in English as she is
Taught was mistaken when she said " Climate lasts all
the time, and weather only a few days." In America it
is just the other way about. Indeed it is probably a
mistake to talk about the American climate at all. One
might as well speak of the stratum of the earth's crust.
There are innumerable climates in America, and some
times they are all operative at once. The people of Cali
fornia boast about the number of distinct climates found
within the limits of their State. They need not. There
are just as many to be found in any other State. In New
York, for instance, they had 95° degrees one day, and
a snow-storm the next. At Greeley, fifty miles north
of Denver, the mercury dropped from 50° to 2° in little
more than an hour. In Denver itself it fell thirty de
grees in eight minutes. At Yuma in Southern Califor
nia it is hot enough to give probability to the story of
a soldier who, after dying there, found himself obliged
to return to earth for his blanket. And it was not to
heaven that he had gone !
In Minnesota they have one hundred and sixty cli
mates, ranging anywhere from fifty-five degrees below
zero to a hundred and five above. The trouble is that
one never knows one day at which end of the barometer
the climate is going to be the next day. It is interest-

ON THINGS IN GENERAL. 159
ing to watch it leap up and down the mercury-tube, but
it is trying to the complexion.
There is one kind of American climate that is worthy
of special notice. It comes in the late fall, in the win
ter and early spring. It fills people with electricity so
that they are constantly going off in little explosions,
and giving shocks instead of handshakes to their friends.
When this particular dry, cold climate is operative, it
is possible, after shuffling across a woollen carpet, to
light the gas by touching the burner with the finger.
There is a quick snap, a stinging shock, a little blue
spark, and presto ! the gas is alight. A newspaper —
tissue paper or a silk handkerchief is better — briskly
rubbed against a mirror, will adhere to it and crackle if
torn away. I have had writing-paper cling to my hand,
like tissue paper to amber, or stick to the window-cur
tains when thrown against them. This is a very wonder
ful kind of climate, and brings such a fiow of spirits as to
make one certain that Mr. Mallock never was in such a
meteorological environment : else he would never have
asked his lugubrious question. One Englishman who
experienced the exhilaration of this climate exclaimed,
" I see why you Americans do not drink champagne :
you breathe it." But they drink champagne aU the
same !

160

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.'

CHAPTER XL

THE PEOFESSION OF POLITICS. A DOG.

WITH A STOEY OF

"The Public! Why, the Public's nothing better than a great
baby!"— Chalmers. S Colonel IngersoU was one day
standing on the deck of a steamer,
he was accosted by a solemn-look
ing man, dressed in black and
bearing other evidences of a relig
ious profession. "Sir," said the
divine, in a loud voice so as to at
tract the attention of other pas
sengers, " I understand that if you
had directed the Creation, you
would have ordered things differ
ently." The Colonel, after vain
ly trying to evade the man, was
obliged to reply that he might have
made some such remark. "Then," said the cleric with
a smile at the on-lookers, "will you tell these friends in
what particular you would have made things different?"
" Certainly, sir ; I'd have made good health catching
instead of disease." " Eh ?" ejaculated the astonished
ecclesiastic. "And," continued Col. IngersoU, "I

THE PROFESSION OF POLITICS. 161
would have visited on the third and fourth generations,
the virtues of the mothers instead of the sins of the fa
thers !"
Robert IngersoU is not the only man who would have
ordered things differently at the Creation. Most people
the world over would have left out lawyers. Uncle Sam
would have stopped the creative process just before it
reached professional politicians. Though other improve
ments would have been made or suggested by some of
Uncle Sam's boys, yet in every part of the Republic
unanimity would have prevailed in this matter of leav
ing the professional politician uncreated. If he, with
his "boss," had had to spend eternity in excursions
through space as a nebulous cloud or as a fortuitous
cluster of soulless atoms. Uncle Sam would not have
relented : he would probably but have coined another
verb, and said, " Let them excurt !"
A member of this unnecessary profession, while
criticising an opponent, has furnished an example of
what is known in the American neology as a " complete
give-away ;" that is, he inadvertently let us into the
secret of his class. " Gentlemen," said he, " there is a
theory, pretty well substantiated by facts, that a death
and a birth always occur simultaneously, and that the
spirit of the dead man enters the body of the new-bom
child. I have very carefully investigated the record of
my opponent, and I find that when he was born nobody
died." A soul indeed would be but a cumbersome appendage
to the professional politician. All that he wants is a
slight foreign accent — a brogue is preferable — and a
willingness to enter political life as soon as he gets his
luggage — if he have any — through the custom-house.
11

162

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

Such a one, redolent of patriotism and whi^key, was ac
costed on his arrival at Castle
Garden, and asked to which
party he belonged. "With grave
Aspect he rose, and in his rising
seemed
A pillar of state; deep on his front
engraven
Deliberation sat, and public care;
And princely counsel in his face
yet shone.
Majestic though in ruin."
"Is it parthy ye mane?"
A pillar of state. said he ; " O'ch, Oi'm agin
the gover'mint !" And so he was. So are they all,
until they get into the gover'mint themselves. Even
then they are not at rest. They remind one of their
compatriots in our own council-chamber. They recall
the countryman's description of his new dog. Said he:
" The fust night I locked him in, and oh ! he jist howled
and tore 'round that kitchen like all possessed, and in
the mornin' I see he had gnawed a hole pretty near
through the door, tryin' to get out. So I thought if he
would ruther stay out than in, I was willin', and the
next night I locked him out. And all night long that
.dog run 'round the house, and howled and whined and
scratched and made a tarnal fuss, and in the mornin'
I'm darned ef he hedn't gnawed a hole a'most through
the door frum the outside, tryin' to git in, and I says to
myself : ' You cussed fool ! wun't nuthin' satisfy you ? '
So the third night I left the kitchen door wide open.

THE PROFESSION OF POLITICS.

163

so's he could please himself 'bout stayin' in er stayin'
out, and dern me ef that dog didn't set right in the
doorway all night and howl about nuthin' !"

" Wun't nuthin' satisfy you ?"
Americans have been known to regret that they were
not born in Ireland, so that they might have something
to say about the management of their great land. But
the average native republican has no time for politics.
As Bill Nye says : " He seems to be so busy paying his
taxes all the time that he has very little time to mingle
in the giddy whirl of the alien. That is why," he adds,
"we are always in a hurry. That is the reason we have
to throw our meals into ourselves with a dull thud, and
hardly have time to maintain a warm personal friend
ship with our families."
A negro was sauntering along the street with the
happy deliberateness of his race, when a policeman
brusquely shouted, " Get out of the way, you nigger: here

164

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

come the representatives." " De representatibs ! who's
dey ?" " The Representatives of the People, you blun
der-head !" "Ump!" re
sponded the darky with in
effable scorn; "de represen
tatibs ob de people ! Fse de
people derselves !"
There is nothing so grave
that it cannot be made to
look funny if refiected by a
convex mirror. Rousseau
was present at the death-bed
of a woman in whom the
death-rattle was heard with
the giggle excited by
"I'sede people derselves!" her own joke. There is an
uncanny mingling of the death-rattle and giggle in
American politics : a good deal of facial distortion to get
fun out of solemnity. The only condemnation reserved
for many kinds of wrong-do
ing in America is a laugh.
The degradation of State and
municipal politics is, for the
most part, but a theme for the
funny column of the news
paper. Men who fix their gaze
intently on the clown's view
of life, are apt to mistake the
leer of a skull for a grin of
merriment. Patriotism, which Dr. John
son defined as "the last refuge
of a scoundrel," is mainly a sentiment for banquet toasts.

THE PROFESSION OF POLITICS. 165
and odes to the star-spangled banner. The ship of
state is manned by a crew of self-seeking politicians,
who see in patriotism their opportunity, and in Canada
their refuge. So long as she keeps afloat, the owners of
the ship are content to let her drift, while they devote
themselves to paddling little cock-boats of their own.
Only when the ship gets upon the rocks, as she did
twenty-five years ago, are cock-boats and private life
buoys thrown aside. Then, indeed, the nation can rise
as one man, with Spartan patriotism and Spartan hero
ism. Nothing so well indicates the strength of the
federal system as that it should have survived disrup
tion during half a century of political corruption. If
the federal government had been corrupt — say as bad as
the governments of States and large cities, it would per
haps not have survived disruption.
A Texan lawyer recently produced in a court of that
State a petition addressed to the County Judge, signed
by a large number of the most respectable and intelli
gent people of the place, asking that a leading and
greatly esteemed citizen should be summarily hanged.
Not one of the signers knew what he teas signing. The
petition was got up to illustrate the worthlessness of
such documents. It also illustrates the off-hand way in
which citizens perform such public duties as they under
take. We are often called upon to admire institutions which
invest every man with the rights and privileges of citi
zenship — ^the right to vote. We have imaginative pic
tures of

" The freeman casting with unpurchased hand
The vote that shakes the turrets of the land."

166 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
Yet we read in the New York Independent that nearly
half a million registered voters in New York State
neglected in 1880 to exercise their high prerogative.
This means that one citizen in every three so little ad
mired these institutions of equality, that he failed in his
first duty of citizenship. First duty, did I say? There
I am wrong ; for the first duty is to register, and here
the failures cannot be counted. The small school-girl
who recently defined the Constitution as " that part of
the book at the end which nobody reads" wrote better
than she knew. There are in the various New England
States some legal antiquities called Blue Laws which are
a good deal laughed at nowadays. One of these laws of
Massachusetts reads : " It is ordered, that whosoever of
the Freemen does not appear at elections in person or
by proxy, he shall be for such neglect amerced to the
treasury, ten shillings." This law might do good if
revived. The New American party in California de
mands some such compulsion. But to force a man by
legal enactment to exercise a privilege is nearly as il
logical as Carlyle's notion that men have a right to be
forced to work.
New York has just learned an old truth in a new form;
her board of aldermen, her " Collective Wisdom," her
"government," is simply a band of rogues. The news
papers are full of righteous indignation; and truths
long suppressed or ignored are published in large capi
tals. Yet there is little excitement except among jour
nalists and the gang itself. There is no popular demon
stration, such as I read of at Salford, where a defraud
ing official has just been discovered. Let me quote a
few paragraphs from the New York papers. With the
present indrift of radical legislation to manhood suf-

THE PROFESSION OF POLITICS. 167
frage and paid politicians in England, such lessons as
we can draw from the experience of America are es
pecially valuable. We may also get a glimpse of the
working of the political machine, the Caucus, which
has been introduced among ourselves.
[New York Times.']
Dr. Crosby makes a certain broad analysis of the 250,000 voters
of the city. Of these he says 60,000 are made up of " the idle,
the ignorant, and the criminal," who cast their votes at the beck
of a " little knot of unprincipled idlers" into whose hands " our
want of care and watchfulness for our city has thrown the whole
management of its government." Thirty thousand more "who
could do much to offset this foul vote" do not take the trouble to
be registered and to vote. " They have no conscience regarding
their duty to the city that protects them and in which they pros
per." The great bulk of the remaining 160,000 voters " humbly,
unresistingly follow the lead of the political party to which they
belong, which party is managed by the wretched stuff found in
the first 60,000." Perhaps out of the whole mass of 250,000, he
adds, " we may count 20,000 as casting independent votes for good
men and receiving the maledictions of the party organs for doing
so." . . .
The very condition of the public mind which has produced the
state of things under which good men groan, and against which
they protest, is the chief difficulty in the way of applying the ob
vious remedy. . If these people of New York have not cared
enough about their public interests to guard against official incom
petency, dishonesty and corruption, or to check it in its begin
nings, will they exert themselves to eradicate it now? Are they
alive to the evils of the saloons which thrive by their patronage or
their tolerance, and do they care much to "squelch" the nuisance?
The primary evil exists, we fear, in a low standard of honor even
among the great mass of the most intelligent citizens, in a blunted
moral sense and indifference to abuses that should excite indigna
tion, in the utter absence of a pervading public sentiment which
may be successfully wrought upon to bring about reform.

168 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
[New Torh Advertiser.]
This city is robbeLl, plundered, oppressed and atrociously mis
governed by its worst elements ; thieves and " fences" and cor
rupt bargainers become city officers or city legislators ; rascals
with money buy from rascals in office whatever they want of
privilege ; and all because better men, led astiay by political zeal,
make bargains and " deals" and coalitions at election time.
[New Tork Post.]
There will be no surprise in this community to learn that one
of our Aldermen was a regular receiver of stolen good.s — an ac
complice, indeed, with a notorious band of thieves. What else
can we expect when we choose our Aldermen from liquor stores
and gambling dens? .Jaehne was a silent partner in a liquor store
before he went into the jewelry business. He is a fair sample of
the morality of our average Aldermen. So long as we make the
liquor business a training school for local statesmen, we must ex
pect to get this kind of Aldermen. The wonder of it is that we
allow such a board to remain in existence. That we should not
only allow it, but should actually put in their hands the power of
selling for their own private advantage railway franchises worth
millions of dollars, is not merely-a wonder, but a disgrace.
Gotham is not the only misgoverned city in the
United States. The Advertiser says :
New York only furnishes the most flagrant illustration of a sys
tem which has already become established in all of our large cities.
The Boston Record has just done a good piece of journalistic work
by looking up the occupations of all the members of the Demo
cratic ward and city committee, which dictates the Democratic
nominations for city offices, which nominations are ratified at the
polls. The committee consists of 279 members, and of the whole
number seventy-eight, or considerably more than one quarter, are
engaged in the liquor business, while fifty-eight are office-holders
who secured their places through subserviency to this interest.
Together these two classes constitute within four of a majority of

THE PROFESSION OF POLITICS. 169
the body, and as their personal interest in politics insures their at
tendance upon meetings in much larger proportion than other
classes of the membership (among whom, by the way, are seven
teen men whose names could not be found in the directory), it is
obvious that they can control its action all the time. The impu
dence of the liquor element in Boston is shown by the fact that
since a law was passed prohibiting the granting of licenses to
saloons within 400 feet of a school-house, it has forced the aban
donment of more than one school-house in order to jjrevent the
closing of saloons in the neighborhood which were run by poli
ticians. "
The citizen who wants to control his own actions, and
to have his country honestly governed, is in a strange
dilemma. If he pays his legislators a salary, his coun
cil-chambers are soon overrun with unsuccessful business
men, idle young lawyers, and half-educated failures of
all descriptions, who cheat and pilfer him until he. is dis
tracted. If, on the other hand, he does not pay his legis
lators, he is overrun by men who have made a fortune in
business and now enter politics to carry out some theory of
government evolved in the counting-house; and by these
his constitution is ever being patched up and tinkered,
or his actions controlled, until he is swathed in red tape,
like an Indian papoose. It is possible of course that
the system of paying legislators would work better in
England than it has worked in America, because with
us the pursuit of wealth is not carried to so great an ex
treme. Perhaps our best men, men whose positions
place them above a bribe, would still enter political
life; but it is certain that the salary would attract many
who are not so happily placed. And this would be a
calamity we should not calmly invite. Honest men will
soon quit a profession which entices rogues. The ad
vocates of paid legislatures should examine the system

170 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
in America before trying to establish it among our
selves. The professional politician here described is not the
one who occupies the presidential chair or sits in the
senate. Things are not so bad as that. Despite the
insinuation of a prominent English journalist, " If by a
surprise of fortune, the President happens to be a gen
tleman," the First Magistrate of the Republic is gener
ally a man of honor and education ; while not a few
have belonged to that class of nature's noblemen who
rank above "gentlemen." The professional politician
here meant is the City Alderman or State Representative,
but more frequently the political boss — the man who
creates the President and makes senators. Every im
portant official is nominated in a convention of politi
cians, who are usually without office
themselves, and his name is placed by
them on the voting ticket used . by elec
tors at the ballot. Though any elector
may make out his own ticket, and vote
for himself as mayor of his own city, he
knows full well that no candidate stands
Eaw material, the least chance of election unless nom
inated in the usual way and joined to the party ticket.
Hence electors, rather than throw their votes away, pre
fer to choose the least objectionable of the nominees of
the bummers, as these caucus-leaders are named, but
as the proverb has it, " there's little choice in rotten
apples." These are the men who really make the gov
ernment. Their power, however, is on the wane, es
pecially in federal politics ; but in the governments of
States and cities they have a power almost incredible.

THE PROFESSION OF POLITICS.

Ill

1 can name several cities where as many as forty thou
sand votes have been controlled by men with such names as
Jerry Mulroy, Barney
Biglin, Buck Brady,
John Kelly, Boss Mc
Laughlin and Johnny
O'Brien. But even the great
federal Congress which
is sometimes held up
as a pattern for us to
copy, is hardly worthy
the encomiums which
have been so freely
lavished upon it. A
body of men who are
so blind to the neces
sities of their native
literature, and so ob
livious of the just
claims of foreign writ
ers, as to refuse an international copyright law, barely
command our respect, much less veneration. A Col
lective Wisdom that mistakes what is gainful to a
few capitalists for what is profitable to a whole na
tion, does not appeal with overpowering eloquence to
our admiration. Then what shall be said of its recent
pension bill ? There was hardly a newspaper in the
country, republican or democrat, that did not sup
port the President's veto of this pernicious measure,
which was passed in the House by a vote of 180 to
76, and in the Senate without a roll-call. Amid such
a chorus of approval as followed the President's act.

^f

Finished product.

172 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
one was fain to ask, " Whom and what does Congress
represent ?" and to sympathize with the answer, as
given in The Epoch: "Certainly not the public sen
timent which finds expression in the majority of repu
table newspapers, and evidently not the sound common-
sense of the American people, which has been appealed
to with apparent effect by the President's veto message."
The fact is that Congress, recently called the "most au
gust body in the world," finds itself ungracefully stick
ing on the horns of a dilemma. The tariff system has
called into existence interests which are powerful enough
to make or unmake any party. On the other hand, the
revenue accruing to government vastly exceeds its legiti
mate expenditure. To curtail the income they must
meddle with the tariff ; but that would not be tolerated
by the protectionist party. So nothing remains but to
increase the expenditure — somehow. A pension bill
including in its benign operations even deserters and
rogues, is one way out of the difficulty. Another is the
building of a navy, which under the control of some
"Jingo" statesman of the future, or in command of
some enterprising admiral, may lead the Republic into
a war which will effectually remove the difficulty of the
surplus. In this way there may be reached an equilib
rium, which, however, will not be rest.
It must not be supposed that the American's apathy
to politics is never thrown off. A stranger arriving in
the midst of a presidential campaign, would think that
every, citizen and candidate for citizenship had gone
wild on the subject of politics. Electors and non-elec
tors parade the streets in their thousands, night after
night, grotesquely garbed and carrying torches, march-

THE PROFESSION OF POLITICS. 173
ing in military step along the uneven and often muddy
pavement, cheering, yelling, singing. Rockets shoot
across the sky with hoarse shrieks, or lodge in some
chimney-stack, unpleasantly suggesting the snort of the
fire-engine, which sometimes comes in as a sequel to
these demonstrations. I have seen a torchlight proces
sion of this character eight miles long.
Then who shall describe the intense interest of the
party "managers" when their candidate is nominated ?
Who shall tell of the quiet dignity of the nominating
convention, the sachem-like gravity of its members, and
the silent solemnity with which its decision is received ?
Here is the choice finale of a four-column description of
Mr. Blaine's nomination, in the Herald, June 7, 1884:
"Then pandemonium had its own. Barnum's stuffed eagles,
owls, ' My Country, 'Tis of Thee,' cheers, shouts, ' Yankee
Doodle,' rebel yells, cornets, drums, hats, canes, ' See the Con
quering Hero Comes,' umbrellas, sheaves of wheat, the infernal
din of Henderson's gavel, the deep booms of outside cannon, re
sponded to by the hurrahs on the inside — a half-hour of utter con
fusion and incessant uproar — tliat's what happened, occurred and
proceeded." After nomination, the candidate becomes public prop
erty. Every paragraphist has the right to recall every
thing that the aspirant for public honour has done and
left undone; and to render it spicy and palatable to the
public maw by condiments of exaggeration, scandal,
lies and bad jokes. Mr. Blaine in his eloquent eulogy
of President Garfield speaks of the " five full months of
vituperation — a prolonged agony of trial to a sensitive
man, a constant and cruel draft upon the powers of
moral endurance" which follow nomination to the presi
dency. The American litany ought to be made to

174 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
meet exigencies of public life by an additional clause:
From public fame and defame, from scoffers, paragra
phists and liars generally. Good Lord deliver us.
After election come other kinds of torture. In the
Metropolitan Museum at New York there is a plaster
cast of Lincoln's hand. Near it is a notice drawing at
tention to the fact that the thumb is swollen "from con
gratulatory handshaking" I This handshaking ceremo
ny has to be gone through at frequent public receptions,
when thousands of citizens step in and, ranging them
selves in a long row, pass before the Chief Magistrate to
shake hands with him. Then so "cabined, cribbed,
confined " is the presidential office, that Mr. Cleveland,
soon after his election, found it needful to deny a rumour
that he had been fishing on Sunday, which in some
States is a punishable offence.
Then come applications for office as thick as locusts.
Some of these get into the papers, or are concocted in
the newspaper office. The Arkansaw Traveller is au
thority for the following caustic letter to the President
from the late postmaster at May Bloom, Arkansas:
"I don't kere nothin' for the money that's in this office.
A dollar an' a half a year ain't no more to me than 75 cents
is to you, but I don't want to be fooled with. Shortly airter
you tuck your seat a man wanted to bet me that you wouldn't be
in office mor'n a year till you would make some big mistake. I
bet him a cow. Airter I got your notice tellin' me to git out, I
driv the cow over to the feller's house, an' told him he had won
her. You not only cut a man's pride, but you break him up in
bus'ness. I believe you take pleasure in makin' a feller feel bad,
an' I don't believe you're much uv a Democrat nohow."
The subscription recently started for a monument to
General Grant recalls a similar subscription raised
twenty years ago. Some twenty thousand dollars were

THE PROFESSION OF POLITICS 175
collected soon after Lincoln's death for a monument to
him. The sum was invested in government bonds and
placed in the Treasury. In March, 1885, the Tribune
announced that there remained but fifteen hundred dol
lars of it; the rest had been spent in salaries and designs
for the monument. The monument itself had never
been begun !
Does this disorder imply a failure of republican insti
tutions ? By no means. The government of America
was manufactured. It did not gi-ow as governments
normally grow. The period of the Revolution was one
of active political speculation. Rousseau had just for
mulated his ideal society founded on the equal rights of
individuals; and the world was everywhere busy with
similar problems. The leaders of the Revolution were
prepared by the thought of the day to recognize the
republican form as the ideal government; and the pecu
liar inter-relation of the colonies made a federal repub
lic the only form of union possible. Still, it was an
ideal form, and required for its harmonious working an
ideal humanity. The ideal humanity has of course been
wanting; and that is why the federal republic has taken
a form which was not contemplated at the outset. In
other words, as men could not be moulded into harmony
with their perfect institutions, the institutions had to
adapt themselves to the imperfect natures of men. The
political structure raised by Washington and the great
men who surrounded him was a marvellous piece of
architecture ; but its designers never dreamed that mil
lions of aliens would crowd its halls and corridors, oust
ing and crushing the native American to the wall.
When the constitution was framed, contingencies were

176 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
undreamt of which have since become dominant politi
cal factors. The founders of the Republic, though they
builded better than they knew, never contemplated the
boss system, under which voters are led by thousands
to the poll, there to vote as directed. They nevei*
dreamed of dangers to liberty arising from the German
vote, the Irish vote, the liquor vote, a Senate of million
aires, or the evil influence of millions of illiterate aliens.
But grave as these dangers seem, and baneful as is their'
outcome, one is reassured by the confidence of the
Americans themselves. It is easy to mistake for a
mountain the black cloud of corruption that overhangs
the Republic as if threatening liberty with ruin and
death ; but the real mountain, concealed by the cloud,
is the character of the American people — cold, impas
sive, but affluent in strength. The epidemic of dollar-
hunting will not last forever. Men are gradually learn
ing that money is not an end : that it is but an aid to
the purchase of satisfactions ; and they will presently
realize that a pure government, a high standard of pub
lic life, an honest, unselfish public spirit, give to society
a moral tone more satisfying to its members than any
thing that can be purchased by dollars, be they never so
abundant.

BECIPROCITT OF CRIMINALS.

177

CHAPTER XII.

EECIPEOCITY IN CEIMINALS.

" One of the Seven was won't to say: that Laws were like cob
webs, where the small files were caught, and the great ones break
through. " — Bacon. MARYLAND divine
was passing through
the streets of Balti
more one Sunday
morning a few months
ago, when his atten
tion was attracted by
a group of boys play
ing baseball. Accost
ing them, he asked
why they were not at
Sunday-school. "The
superintendent has
gone to Canada, sir."
"Canada?" he repeated with a puzzled look. "Yes,
sir; he was a bank manager." The minister resumed
his walk with saddened mien as he thought, "Nineteen
centuries of Christianity have not made men honest."
Defaulting bank managers who are also Sunday-school
superintendents are not peculiar to America: they have
been heard of in pious Scotland. What is peculiar to
America is the premium put upon peculation by public
13

178 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
indifference, and by the facility with which legal pun
ishment may be avoided. The journey from New York
to Montreal is to an American hardly greater than the
run from London to Brighton to an Englishman. Im
agine the demoralization which would result if London
thieves of all grades, from pickpockets to absconding
cashiers, were guaranteed immunity from punishment
by a little trip to the seaside. That is exactly the con
dition of affairs in America. Thieves and other crim
inals who love not " the gladsome light of jurisprudence"
find a safe haven and congenial fellowship in Canada;
and in Montreal there is fast forming a social set of
ultra-exclusiveness, composed of every type of uncon
victed criminal. Extradition treaties are like Bacon's
cobweb, allowing the great files to break through.
Every legal mancsuvre has been tried to secure the pun
ishment of the rogues who are living at Montreal in
luxury on the proceeds of their villany; but counter-
measures have always balked justice, and hordes of
thieves and swindlers are still at large.
Whenever a criminal of greater audacity than usual
crosses the frontier with his carpet-bag well lined with
plunder, the republican press sends lip a wail of indig
nation and despair. The Canadian authorities are de
nounced for the legal laxity that promotes such dishon
esty in a neighbouring gtate. This is doubtless a right
view to take; but in the absence of voluntary aid by
Canada, ought not the federal government to try to
secure some remedy itself? Untrammelled by red-tape-
ism, men outside the sacred temple of the government
think they see an easy remedy. Uncle Sam pleading
with Canada for the criminals she is sheltering beneath
the union jack, does not present a dignified figure; nor

RECIPROCITT OF CRIMINALS

179

does Canada appear to greater advantage. It is curious
that in matters which are outside the province of govern
ment, people have great faith in its efficacy, and con
stantly appeal to it ; but here, in a case where govern

ment alone can do anything, people content themselves
with reproaching the colonists, and leave the real remedy
untried. I emphasize the fact that Canada offers a ready asy
lum to criminals from the United States, because a great
many people in England regard the Republic as mainly V"
the producer of dynamiters and the protector of English
thieves and forgers. It is well to know that there is

180 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
complete reciprocity in criminals between Britain and
America. One of the most difficult problems that await the
coming American is the reconciliation of religion and
morality, or, in default of this, the construction of a
code of practical ethics, capable of standing without the
prop of a religious sanction, and fitted to modern society.
Supernatural religion has lost its hold on the minds of
a large and increasing class of people. This is admitted
even by the religionists, who often speak of the atheistic
tendencies of the age. Supernaturalism is giving way
to Rationalism. In America, the process has advanced
a long way — even further than in Germany, for there
the movement, though general among the cultured, does
not extend to the mass of the people as it does in
America. The writings of Spencer, Darwin, Huxley,
Tyndall, Fiske, Wallace, Haeckel, and the lesser pro
phets of the new faith, are in the homes and minds of
the people. They are working important changes in
men's estimate of life and its purposes — changes which
are not always beneficial to the individual affected. Re
ligion and morality have been made so interdependent
by ecclesiastics in the past, that many people think they
are identical; and when such people throw their religion
overboard, their morality generally goes with it. It is
not the new faith that should be blamed for this: it is
the old one, which taught, not that morality was a good
thing in itself, but that the goodness lay in obeying a
commandment. Most men now realize that there are
crimes undreamt of by Moses, and unnamed in the
Decalogue, more heinous than that of coveting a neigh
bour's ass. The American morality, not yet evolved in its

RECIPROCITT OF CRIMINALS 181
completeness, will probably teach in simple phraseology
that " it pays to be good, therefore be good" !
The age we live in is responsible for many forms of
crime unknown to previous ages.
The Irish-American dynamiter, for instance, who
periodically frightens the women and children of Eng
land by breaking windows and getting himself sen
tenced to penal servitude for life, is a product of
ninteenth-century civilization equally with the penny
post, railways and a free press. These are the days
when the impurities of the social organism are working
out, often by means of open sores. The corruption of
centuries of class-government has come to a head; and
we are witnessing changes akin to those wrought out by
the French Revolution. It is indeed but a sort of French
revolution, adapted to our own age, and modified by
small doses of constitutionalism. We may not realize
it, but the age we live in is fraught with peril to creeds
substantial as well as to "creeds outworn." Movements
are now being set up which will roll on into distant
ages. Political methods, social forms, religious beliefs
— all are being attacked, and some will surely go down
before the onslaught. And the base of operations
against European systems is often in America. There
the descendants of Russian serfs, Scotch crofters, Polish
refugees, evicted Irish peasants, deserting German con
scripts, and other victims of old-world tyranny, are liv
ing and working for their own good and no longer for the
aggrandizement of superposed classes. They are doing
more. They are carrying an active propaganda into their
own country — amongst their old friends and relatives
who still suffer under unequal laws in opprobrious poverty
— ^for in Europe poverty is opprobrious. These are the

183 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
men in whom ages of repression are bursting into a re
action which threatens ruin to all government, good and
bad. It is not in Americar that
" vows to break the tyrant's yoke
Expire in Bacchanalian song and smoke."
The ¦power and extent of the dynamite conspiracy, how
ever, are overrated by Englishmen. Americans recog
nize in Rossa a mere windbag, who gets the contribu
tions of unthinking Irishmen and servant-girls by blus
ter, and spends them on the same — himself, namely.
They laugh at the tirades of the British press whenever
a dynamite explosion breaks a window or throws down
a fence. Rossa, who is reputed to be of mild dis
position and is celebrated by comic journals for his
charity, is really but an impudent
fraud. The majority of his kin in
America disown him; and some of
the strongest denunciations of his
policy have come from Irishmen,
When Mrs. Dudley shot him in
^ New York, a great laugh crossed
the face of the Republic. He did
not then pose as a martyr, but as a buffoon. Here
is an example of the ridicule in which Uncle Sam in
dulged: " Oh, I am a bloody old dynamitard 1
Sing biff ! bing ! flzzety-bang !
The hand grenade and the big petard
I'm fixing to fling in the queen's front yard;
Sing ho to the lad from Skibberdedang
Who'll demolish the queen's dominionsi

RECIPROCITT OF CRIMINALS 183
Nitro-glycerine is my daily drink!
Sing smash! crash! lickety-slash!
And the daintiest food is powder, I think;
I can chew up a cartridge without a wink,
Blue vitriol I use to season my hash,
For my appetite's like my opinions.
Ah, here comes a girl with a little gun;
Sing help! murder! call the police!
Whatever I've done was always in fun,
And rather than flght I'd always run.
Sing ho to the lovely paths of peace.
And blest be the queen and her minions.''
It is a mistake to suppose that the Irish in America
are all worthless as citizens of the Republic, or Fenians
in their relation to England. With their patriotism for
Ireland there generally lurks an affection for the great
Empire of which their own little Emerald is but a part:
a part, though, that has contributed far beyond its pro
portion to make the Empire great. Not only has Ire
land given us Wellingtons and Wolseleys; she has always
furnished the stalwart backbone of the rank and file of
our army.
Individually, the Irishman is the most generous, lov
able, hot-blooded good-for-nothing. Full of bright
ness and mirth, a hospitality that inquires not the na
tionality of the recipient, and a love of kin and the
" ould counthry" that nothing can quench, ages of mis-
government have not marred him beyond recovery. Here
is testimony to his credit : The remittances by Irish
settlers in the United States to friends in Ireland be
tween 1851 and 1887 amounted to twenty-four and a
half million sterling. In 1881 more than a million
and a half sterling was thus sent — an average of nearly

184 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
five shillings to every man, woman and child in Ire
land !
More than fifty years ago the following protest against
pauper and criminal immigration appeared in the Nciv
England Magazine (vii. p. 499 [1834]):
"The drones that 'Europe breeds in her decay' are shaken
from her lap upon the blooming bosom of our own delightful
land. The sluices of a polluted emigration from the old world
are freely opened to us, and the defecated dregs of centuries are
drained off. Heaven knows that we would not exclude from the
blessings of our free government, and our generous soil, the hon
est and the industrious of other climes, simply because they may
be poor or unfortunate. We would fling wide our portals, and
bid them enter. It is a proud title for a country, that of the
Asylum of the Oppressed. As Americans we glory in it. But we
do most decidedly protest against having the nation converted
into one vast lazar-house, for the reception of the sturdy beggars,
the contented paupers, and all the mauvais sujets of England and
Ireland, who may be shifted upon us by fat capitalists, better able
than we to bear the incumbrance. Unless the evil be checked, it
will distend itself until it press like a horrid incubus upon the
energies of our high-minded native population."
England and Ireland have not been the only offenders.
I once read in an old American newspaper that an Aus
trian ship of war had just arrived, and in an imposing
manner landed a cargo of paupers and criminals at New
York! Perhaps it is these "dregs of the effete mon
archies" who are now returning to Canada and Europe
as defaulting bank presidents, Polish anarchists, Rus
sian conspirators, and Irish dynamiters. If so, here is
poetic justice ! At any rate, it is certain that American
prisons and workhouses are largely filled by foreigners.
The census of 1880 showed that, while the foreign-born

RECIPROCITT OF CRIMINALS 185
were only thirteen per cent of the entire population, they
furnished nineteen per cent of the convicts in peniten
tiaries, and forty-three per cent of the inmates of work
houses and houses of correction. The immigrant seems
to control the liquor traffic of America. In 1880, of the
traders and dealers in liquors and wines sixty-three per
cent were foreign-born, and of the brewers and maltsters
seventy-five per cent, while a large proportion of the
remainder were of foreign parentage. Of saloon-keep
ers about sixty per cent were foreign-born, while many of
the remaining forty per cent were of foreign extraction.
The anarchists who so often enliven the public prints
by what reporters love to call " Communistic blood and
thunder" are mostly foreigners. America is not only
the paradise to which the shades of dead socialists go; it
is also the happy hunting-ground of living communists.
It is they who are at the bottom of the troubles that so
often set capital and labor in antagonism. At Detroit
Polish strikers were amenable only to the exhortations
of their native priest. In the Connellsville coke regions
Hungarian labor-troubles were unmanageable because
the rioters did not understand English. The Chicago
anarchists who threw the bomb among the policemen
were foreigners with only one exception; and at a so
cialists' meeting in New York at which the wife of one
of the condemned anarchists spoke, the audience did
not understand enough English to take off their hats in
presence of a lady as she bade them. Foreigners form
the nuclei of the secret societies which exist in every
American town. Chicago alone is said to contain more
than twenty thousand men pledged to the destruction
of "monopolies," which in the socialists' vocabulary
means the destruction of society.

186 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
Herr Most, who was imprisoned in England for incen
diary writing in the Freiheit, is a conspicuous character
among transatlantic socialists. Not long ago there was
a free fight at a socialists' meeting in New York, and
Most received a good drubbing from some left wing of
his party. This fanatical German has given a definition
of a revolutionist, which is instructive reading:
" The revolutionist," says he, " has no personal interests, con
cerns, feelings or inclinations; no property, not even a name. In
the depths of his nature, in words and deeds alike, he has. fully
broken with the civil order, with customs, morals and usages.
He is the irreconcilable enemy of the world; and if he continues to
live, it is only to destroy it with the greater certainty. "
There is a thoroughness about this which is truly ad
mirable. There is no hair-splitting here, no half-
spoken theories, no equivocal metaphors or algebraic
signs. When we get a statement like this, we know ex
actly what we are dealing with. And its horrible can
dor is not made more comforting when we hear from
Prof. Mezzeroff, of the International Dynamiters College,
that he will continue to teach the manufacture of the
deadliest explosives " until every workingman in Europe
and America knows how to use them against autocratic
government and grasping monopolies." This gentle
Russian says:
" I have the receipt for forty-two explosives iu a burglar-proof
safe, and if I should die, they will be published to the world in
order that all may know how to deliver themselves from (yiants
and those who wrong them. I can take tea and similar articles .of
food from the family table and make explosives with them moie
powerful than Italian gunpowder, the strongest gunpowder there
is."

RECIPROCITT OF CRIMINALS 187
And with a bland simplicity that is almost endearing,
he issues the following invitation to the free-born citi
zens of the Republic.
" If we want to kill each other, let us do it on business princi
ples. Gunpowder kills at the rate of 1,200 miles a minute, dyna
mite at 200,000. If you use my explosive you can defend yom--
sclf against the armies of the world."
One sometimes hears that these men are gentle and
kind to their families: that they love the prattle of
children; and that they often display a benevolence that
belies their professed hatred of society. It may be true.
They certainly display a bland innocence in their pub
lished writings. To think that society, emerging from
barbarism after untold struggles towards the light, can
be thrown back into chaos by a small group of half-edu
cated, half-sane theorists, is childlike indeed. I do not
share the apprehensions of some writers, who see noth
ing but evil ahead. We should welcome these theorists
as tending to good rather than harm. Their wild utter
ances often indicate real grievances; and amid their rav
ings one may occasionally hear a new argument. But there
is no real danger. It is contrary to the nature of things
that increasing knowledge should tend to the disinte
gration of human society. The progress of knowledge
is indissolubly bound up with the progress of mankind.
Socialism, anarchy, and all the other ulcers which are
spotting the body politic are unquestionable indications
of ill-health; but they are not proofs of a moribund
condition. That these extreme ideas prevail is a proof
that the present industrial and political systems are not
in harmony with the human nature living under them.
Until harmony is reached — until equilibrium is estab-

188 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
lished, there will continue this and similar forms of
motion among the. parts.
But even the optimist must admit that an oversight
is being made in educational methods. While we are
surrounded by new conditions, education continues in
its ancient rut. Boys and girls in every city and ham
let are wasting precious hours conjugating verbs and
making declensions, while their fathers in the workshop
are listening to the revolutionary theories of German
and Russian exiles, whose notions of society are utterly
incongruous in a republic. It is of ever-growing im
portance that education should fortify the mind against
those crude theories of society which have been fostered
in the malarias of European despotism.
But Uncle Sam gets better stuff from Europe than
the paupers, criminals and anarchists complained of.
He annually gets hundreds of thousands of brawny im
migrants who become honest and thriftful citizens, and
who, entering his workshops or settling on the western
lands, are aiding in the formation of the greatest nation
the world has yet seen. Of the 169,000 cotton opera
tives enumerated in the census, only 94,000 are native
Americans. In the woollen industry the foreign workers
number 35,000 to 53,000 natives; in iron-works the
proportion is 53,000 foreigners to 73,000 natives; in
glass-works, 7000 foreigners to 13,000 natives; in
carpet-mills, 8000 foreigners to 9000 natives; in screw-
works, 460 foreigners to 990 natives.*
* These are " protected " industries, and the foreign element
is thus seen to have a disproportionate share in the alleged bene
fits of the tariff.

RECIPROCITT OF CRIMINALS. 189
The immigrants who landed in the United States in
the year 1883 numbered 788,993; and in the five years
ending 1884 the number exceeded three millions. And
there are millions more waiting to come. Bismarck says
the German people have now but one desire — money
enough to carry them to America. It has been esti
mated that the cost of rearing and educating a man is
£300. Accepting this valuation, and also the estimate
of the immigration commissioners that each immigrant
brings into the country an average of £30, we find that
Uncle Sam has here a source of wealth richer than the
mines of Golconda or Peru. During the last six years
he has received from Europe a free gift valued at six
thousand million dollars ! Surely this will content him!
It is a magnificent set-off to the few hundred good-for-
nothings who have been foisted upon him.

190 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

CHAPTER XIII.
TJNCLE SAM'S SUPEEIOEITY.
" I earn that I get, get that I wear; owe no man hate; envy
no man's happiness; glad of other men's good." — As Tou lAke It.
I HE title of this chapter recalls a story of
Sam Echols, traditions of whom still lin
ger around his native city, Atlanta. Sam
was endowed with great ability, but his
towering self-conceit exceeded all his
other natural gifts. His opinion of him
self may be dimly comprehended when
stated in his own words. One day, when he was read
ing law, he laid his book aside, and turning to a fellow-
student said: "When I think of the strength and wide
range of my mental faculties, and the variety and ex
tent of my attainments, I stand back and look upon
myself in utter amazement. So far as I can see, I am
complete. I can think of nothing that is wanting. I
would not give a snap of my finger to add to my present
stock of knowledge one more fact or one more accom
plishment!" When rebuked for his overweening vanity,
Sam calmly replied that he was not conceited; he was
simply conscious of his own phenomenal powers and
acquirements. Our avuncular relative is similarly un
conscious of self-conceit; but he is equally sure of his
own greatness.

UNCLE SAM'S SUPERIORITY 191
I have frequently asked Americans in what particu
lar they considered their country in advance of the rest
of the world. Invariably the first and only indication,
named in an off-hand way, has been " Yankee inven
tiveness." Lately there have been several attempts to
identify national greatness with statistics of bacon and
flour-barrels. "Republican institutions" is often as
signed by those who forget that Rome, with its igno
rance of personal rights, was a republic. France, too,
with her conscriptions and meddling wars with savages,
is a republic, though imperialism is dominant in all her
institutions. And was it not in the American Republic
that slavery longest survived among civilized nations?
Not republican institutions, therefore ; though it would
be bad for America to be without them. The federal
system of government is without doubt the source and
promise of all true greatness in America. It is difficult
for Europeans to realize this. Indeed few Americans
fully appreciate its importance. To them it is very like
the law of gravitation, ever operative, rarely felt. The
federal principle is a political law of gravitation, keeping
forty-seven units in mutual contact and interdependence.
An illustration may help to a conception of its impor
tance. Imagine all the states of Europe, from Turkey to Den
mark, united under a common government, appointed
by manhood suffrage among the people of every nation.
Imagine further an independence of these nations in re
spect of internal affairs, as complete as that they now
enjoy. Such are the United States of America. Forty-
seven States and Territories, so large that the average is
more than twice the size of Portugal, existing in peace
ful union and unanimity of feeling on federal matters.

192 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
while each in regard to its own affairs is as independent
as Sweden is of Spain — this is surely the most wonder
ful political aggregation the world has ever seen.
Within these forty-seven States and Territories there
exists perfect freedom of trade. Over distances exceed
ing that from Europe through Central Asia to India, the
products of any State are transported without inspection
or tariff. Varying in their soil and climate as greatly
as any portion of Europe differs from the rest, these
States have all the advantages that would accrue to the
old world if all fiscal barriers were swept away, along
with the remnants of feudalism maintained by them.
The internal commerce of America has called into ex
istence 135,000 miles of railway to supplement its vast
river- ways and lake communications. The amount of
merchandise passed annually over these railways, fresh
water seas and rivers, dwarfs into insignificance the six
teen million tons of exchanges which foreign ships effect
between America and the old world. The freight annu
ally carried by rail alone exceeds three hundred million
tons; and the gross earnings of the railway companies
amount to one hundred and sixty million sterling. Fully
seventy-five per cent of this merchandise is for home
consumption. Then besides this enormous railway
transportation, coast and river steamers move more than
double the tonnage of foreign exchanges.
Commerce is the simple exchange of commodities, and
so long as these get into the hands of the consumer it
matters little whether they come from Tartary, Tim-
buctoo or Maine. It is rather the quantity and quality
of an article, and not the place of its growth or manu
facture, that most concern the person using it; and
that American consumers have quantity is shown by

UNCLE SAM'S SUPERIORITY. 193
the fact that the internal commerce of the United States
divided amongst the population averages seven tons
per head, against six tons in Britain, although a greater
proportion of the latter is for export. The merchan
dise sent from New York to San Francisco is, so far as
distance can make it foreign, as foreign as that sent from
Liverpool to Philadelphia; and exchanges between Bal
timore and Chicago have as foreign a character as those
between London and Genoa. America presents, indeed,
the greatest example of free trade the world has ever
seen. It is also the most beneficent; for without this
free trade there could be no Union. In presence of this
achievement, it is not difficult to believe that Tenny
son's ideal may be realized, and that we shall yet attain
to the "Parliament of man, the Federation of the
world" ! If there be perfection in political institutions,
it is the federal system. Who can limit the capabilities
of man under such a system — especially if it become
universal? What increased happiness to humanity,
what a cessation from drudgery, what a glorious ending
to class-hatred, would result if by some magician's wand
Europe could be federalized on the American plan, and
men's natures simultaneously made fit for the change !
That were a Utopia indeed!
The workers of Europe, besides maintaining prolific
royalties, aristocracies, and numerous parasites whose sole
functions are sleep, digestion and procreation, also
maintain in unproductive labour several millions of sol
diers. Add to this incalculable tax, the cost of prepara
tion for war, and payments on war debts, and we have
a faint idea of the burdens under which European in
dustry competes with that of America, whos6 army is one
tenth smaller than that of the toy-kingdom of Roumania!
13

194 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
The struggle for existence has begun afresh. This
time it is a struggle between large civilized nations, not
small hordes of savages. Not brutal strength is here the
test, but ingenuity, intellect, and economical methods
and institutions. It is a simple question of arithmetic
as to which will survive, unless the policies of the war
like nations of Europe undergo a change. The struggle
is industrial, not military; and the serried ranks of
European bayonets and Krupp guns will avail as little
against an industrial war as they would against hunger
or disease.
This Confederation of Peace is the great sign-manual
of America's superiority. Her ingenuity in potato-
peeling machines and the like is as unimportant in this
light as are the antiquated and useless sword-buttons
on the lappet of a philosopher's coat, considered as
adjuncts to his intellectuality. In presence of this great
verity, which gives to Uncle Sam's face the glow of
Sinai, dudes, Anglomaniacs, trivial signs of social
atavism, journalistic eccentricities, all sink into insigni
ficance. As Lowell sings:
" These are the mountain-summits for our bards.
Which stretch far upward into heaven itself.
And give such wide- spread and exulting view
Of hope, and faith, and onward destiny
That shrunk Parnassus to a molehill dwindles."
The great fact stands prominently forth like Ameri
ca's colossus of Liberty enlightening the world, that the
peoples of many states, united in bonds of peace, are
working together for the elevation of man into some
thing better than a butcher of his fellows, something
nobler than the cringeing subject of a king, something

UNCLE SAM'S SUPERIORITY. 195
greater than the feeding-machine of aristocratic idlers —
A MAN ! Well may humanitarians throw up their hats
and cry Vive la Republique !
But all this in the present year of grace is excessively
Utopian. We Englishmen have yet to acquire the right
to live undisturbed by neighbours, before we can disband
our armies, scuttle our navies, and settle down to the
propagation of Quaker tenets and free-trade principles.
So long as our next-door neighbour carries a revolver in
his belt with the avowed intention of shooting us the
first time he finds us unarmed, we should be foolhardy
to go abroad with nothing more formidable than a Bible
precept or a quotation from Longfellow. I am proud to
believe that the earth would not have been half so de
sirable a place to live upon, but for England's contribu
tions to our comfort; and I further believe that if Eng,-
land were blotted out of existence to-morrow, the world
of the future would be much the worse for it. On
purely humanitarian principles, therefore, it is permis
sible to advocate the preservation of our beloved little
island. Let us be sure, therefore, that our navy continue
the best, and our army the bravest; and let us resist the
tendency which prevails among some very good people,
to trot the British lion around
in a lamb's skin. The much-
derided song that gave the
Jingo party its name ex
presses a sentiment that most
Britons feel. "We don't
want to fight;" but we should be unwise to allow the
rest of the rhyme to lose its truthfulness.
It is a worthy thing to have high motives; and I am

196 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
glad that our army and navy have such a plausible justi
fication as that of the future welfare of mankind. But
behind the humanitarian is the Englishman, who, if other
reasons fail, would see England exist for her, own dear
sake. After living in many lands, I know that I have
a warm corner of my heart kept sacred to the universal
brotherhood of man; but the heart itself is English to
the core, and never yet failed to give a little flutter at
the sight of a union-jack.
We ourselves are talking a great deal of federation
nowadays — federation of that mighty empire which
covers a fifth part of the globe, of which the mother-
country is but one-seventieth portion, and which is at
least three times larger than the great land of Uncle
Sam. Sixty-five territories and islands in every part of
the globe, containing an aggregate of nine million square
miles, and over three hundred million inhabitants —
such is the British empire, in which that of Rome in
her palmiest days would be but a province. To form a
confederation of this! 'twere a consummation devoutly
to be wished. There are objectors in plenty. Let them
enumerate the difficulties to be overcome. For my
part, I admire the intrepid spirit and broad views of the
promoters, and wish them Godspeed ! Already among
the English-speaking peoples of the world there is a
federation of thought and sentiment, an alliance of mu
tual appreciation, and a community of good-will that
are ever binding the parts together perhaps more firmly
than legislative bonds could do. As Senator Evarts says :
" Nothing is provincial any more and nothing central.
English people are everywhere surrounding the world
with their speech, their laws, their literature, their
affections. Wherever a man speaks English to English
hearers, he is and speaks at home."

UNCLE SAM'S WEAKNESS

197

CHAPTER XIV.
UNCLE SAm'S weakness.

" No great genius was ever without some mixture of madness."
Abistotle.
f HILE in the South in the early sum
mer of this year, I saw a group of
negro boys engaged in a suggestive
sport. They had caught a bullfrog,
and had fastened fireflies all over
him. The frog, not understanding
the new lights that were breaking
upon him, hopped about in utter
frenzy ; and the more wildly he
jumped the greater was the delight
of his tormentors. Many of Uncle Sam's boys are at
present fastening fireflies to the bullfrog Protection,
and great are its shifts to escape the illuminations put
upon it. Let us join the sport for a few minutes. It
is capital fun to watch the huge reptile dance around
as the fireflies shed a gentle radiance over his back, re
vealing that this at least is not the toad that wears a
precious jewel in its head.
To say anything against protection at this time of
day will seem to many like slaying the dead lion. But
the lion is not dead : he is only old and feeble. So let
us trot him out, and try to hit him in a new place.
Even if we don't hurt him badly, we can amuse our-

198 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
selves by tweaking his tail as some western senators are
fond of doing with that of the British lion.
If we adopt the American workman's estimate of
himself, we shall have to qualify the ideas we have got
of his ability from abstracts of Uncle Sam's balance-
sheet lately published. Instead of being the energetic,
active workman we have pictured him, he is a poor
listless fellow, who is devoid of energy and lacks the
enterprise and skill of even the "pauper labourer" of
Europe. Thus recast in the native mould, our ideas
of the American workman are vastly different from what
they were. Let us look for a moment at this native
estimate which is to effect such a modification of our
own. The natural wealth of America has already been
spoken of in these pages. Its thousands of miles of
coal, its mountains of iron-ore, its masses of pure cop
per, and mammoth veins of gold and silver, its rivers
of oil and wells of natural gas — all these have been men
tioned with some envy, as have also the fertile lands
which yield corn in an abundance that justifies its use
as fuel. What an industrial paradise is Pennsylvania !
Coal, worth sixteen shillings a ton in England, I have
seen used as ballast for railroads or thrown irfto heaps
as worthless. The deepest mine in the coke region is
only three hundred feet deep ; while the surface of the
land yields forty bushels of wheat to the acre. Coke of
the best quality sells for less than six shillings a ton.
Coal is barely worth transportation — except away from
the gas belt. At Lebanon, near Harrisburg, there is a
mountain of iron-ore which requires no mining. Cars
are run to the side of the mountain and the ore is shov-

UNCLE SAM'S WEAKNESS. 199
elled in. Similar mountains are being discovered at
the head of Lake Superior. Gas-wells dot the country
in such profusion that half the gas is allowed to run to
waste, or is consumed in the profitless illumination of
the night. Oil flows in streams from scores of wells in
the same district.
Now look at Europe. England is the leading manu
facturing country. Much of her ore is brought from
Spain ; her cotton comes from America, Egypt or
India ; nearly two thirds of her wool consumption — one
fourth the clip of the world — is imported from Australia
and South Africa. Of gold and silver she has none ;
of copper little in comparison with America. Her coal
is brought up from as great a depth as ^500 feet, and
is twelve times as costly as that which served Pittsburgh
as fuel before the discovery of natural gas. She has
no rock-oil, no natural gas. To these natural disad
vantages are added the artificial burdens of army and
navy and the ever-growing royalties and aristocracies.
The British workman is not only disadvantaged in his
material conditions, but also by his feudal limitations.
Since 1850, dukes, marquises, earls and their relatives
and friends are estimated to have taken over a hundred
million sterling from the earnings of the working men
of Engjaid. The labourer's thrift is their profusion.
Taught by his church catechism from the earliest age
" to order himself lowly and reverently to all his bet
ters ; and to do his duty in that state of life to which it
shall please God to call him," the British workman
rarely displays that enterprise and energy, that seeking
after new and better methods, which are connoted by
the phrase '¦ independence of character," and which
are among the most admirable traits of the American.

200 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
In the rest of Europe industry is even more cramped
and injured. Everywhere the man whom Americans
call " the pauper labourer," works with artificial disad
vantages superposed on natural ones. When with great
effort he has delved into the earth for ore and brought
it to the surface in scanty quantities, some prince or
lordly parasite pounces upon his gains like an eagle on
the booty of the fish-hawk. After he has converted the
residue into iron, another pounce is made, and his
labour is seized, perhaps to fashion a musket or a sword.
Finally the labourer himself is pitchforked into a
livery, forced to take the musket and kill other work
ing men at command. Stated baldly, these are the in
dustrial conditions of America and Europe contrasted.
If, as the American woi-kman contends, protection is
absolutely necessary to his survival in this kind of a
contest, in Heaven's name let him perish as a lazy
shiftless fellow, who only encumbers the earth and
ought to give place to any who can do better, be he
heathen Chinee or "nigger"!
As a matter of fact, however, the American workman
is neither lazy nor shiftless. His energy and enterprise
are unlimited. He is a sober and steady workman.
Mr. Pullman, who has dealt with hundreds of thou
sands of workers in his time, says he does not remem
ber to have ever seen a native American workman in a
state of intoxication. Another large employer with
whom I am acquainted adds similar testimony. With
these qualities the American workman joins an inde
pendent spirit which, once infused into the democracies
of Europe, would promptly ring the knell of royal dy
nasties and aristocracies. I have heard it said that
the American workman asks for bread, with a cigar in

UNCLE SAM'S WEAKNESS. 201
his mouth. Possibly he does ; I never heard one ask
for bread, though I can testify to the cigar : it is not a
good one. But his manliness is such that no royal or
aristocratic idler would be allowed to feed at the ex
pense of his starving family.
Why then is there any need for protection ? There
is no need for it. One reason why the protectionists
are so strong in America is because so many people are
incapable of comprehending large truths. The ability
to form large conceptions of space does not necessarily
include the power of apprehending great truths. The
fallacy associated with the balance of trade is far be
yond the comprehension of millions of people at the
present day. It is only a hundred years since this fal
lacy was universally held to be a self-evident truth.
Relatively to economic science, the majority of man
kind are still in the middle ages. Another reason is
that while the agricultural interests are dispersed over
the continent, manufacturing interests are concen
trated in rings, combinations and political clubs. Few
wheat-growers of Minnesota recognize any community
of interest with the tobacco-planters and cotton-growers
of the South ; but the iron- manufacturers are wise
enough to recognize a menace to their own monopoly in
an attack on the cotton or woollen industry.
An old . Scotchwoman was once taken by her husband
to see the wonders of the microscope. When she saw
animalculse monsters engaged in deadly combat with
each other, she arose in great trepidation and cried,
"Come awa', John!" "Sit still, woman, and see the
show," said John. "See the show, mon! What wud
come o' us if the awfu' like things should brak out o'
the water ?" Uncle Sam looking at free-trade monsters

202 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
through a microscope, occasionally starts back affrighted,
and eiclaims with pallid face. " What would come o' us
if the awfu' like pauper labourer should brak loose
upon us ?"
If any one wants to know the exact quality of the in
telligence arrayed on the protectionist's side, he should
write to the American Iron and Steel Association, Phil
adelphia, for their pamphlet of stories illustrating the
evils that will befall the Republic if the pauper labourer
of Europe is turned loose upon the defenceless Ameri
can workman. I have not kept the title of the publica
tion, but Mr. Swank will remember it from my descrip
tion. An American once remarked to me as I watched the
customs-inspector turn over the contents of my port
manteau, " Our great nation doesn't show to advantage
when it's mussing [i.e., making a mess of] a man's shirt-
fronts." " That's nothing," I replied, with some show
of Yankee indifference ; " last Christmas some friends
in Germany sent me a little book as Weihnachtsgruss ;
it was stopped in the post-office, opened, assessed at a
dollar and a half, and taxed ; and I received a notice as
'importer of books' to call personally and pay thirty-
five cents. So I had to go down-town specially to get
that book, climb up to the fourth story of the post-
office, apply for the book, sign for it, and pay for it.
Then your great nation gave me my property." My
friend then told a story which was published in the
New York Times of a German immigrant who landed
in 1885 with a coat which he had bought in 1879. He
afterwards lent the coat to his brother for use on a voy
age to Europe ; and when he applied to the United
States Treasury to be allowed to receive back his coat

UNCLE SAM'S WEAKNESS 203
without paying duty, the government officials decided
that, while the law allowed a man to wear the coat across
the boundary of the United States, it could not be ad
mitted free if sent by itself. So the garment was ap
praised, taxed fifty per cent on its value, and after infi
nite trouble and the payment of numerous charges, fees
and dues, the German reacquired his coat.
I was afterwards witness of a worse example of gov
ernmental interference with private rights. At Venice
last summ^ I accompanied an American lady to a fur
niture shop to buy a large tapestried chair. I bargained
and paid for it. It cost three hundred francs ; and this
amount appeared on the receipted bill. The chair was
consigned to an agent in New York ; and the receipted
bill was likewise sent to him. While the owner of the
chair was still in Europe, the custom-house appraiser
had the presumption to raise the valuation of the chair
to 350 francs, and to add a penalty of sixteen dollars
for wilful misstatement of its value ! Vainly was it
pointed out by the agent that the receipt corresponded
with the shipper's invoice. The chair was taxed on the
increased amount, and a further sum of sixteen dollars
exacted as penalty. When the owner returned to
America, she demanded restitution of the unjust fine ;
and received a reply from the Collector of Customs that,
as the application had not been made within the period
prescribed by law, there was no remedy !
At the time of the Revolution we read that the
Americans were a nation of smugglers, and John Han
cock was a chief of smugglers. History repeats itself.
Few Americans to- day visit Europe without returning
well laden with dutiable articles. On the hottest
August days one may see ladies land in seal-skins, and

204 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
men in top-coats, new clothes, and with their pockets
full of gloves. And why should we blame them ? The
whole tarifE system is a swindle ; and citizens land
ing with their pockets full of European purchases are /
only evading what the common-sense of every one tells
him is a swindle. If anything can justify evasion of
the law, it is surely the degrading shifts adopted by
Congress to get rid of the surplus without touching the
tariff. The tariff makes prices so high, that it is a
common saying in America that one can save the cost of
the passage to and from Europe by buying a few suits of
clothes or a Redfern gown while there. And not only
do they save on cost : the clothes in Europe are of
better quality. There is a duty of forty-six per cent on
raw wool. The clip of the United States reaches three
hundred and twenty million pounds, but the people
could consume double that quantity. The result is that
much cotton is mixed with the wool, and the resulting
cloth is of inferior quality.
I have heard it said that free-traders have all the ar
guments, and protectionists most of the facts. Yes;
but what sort of facts ? Here is a protectionist fact,
vouched for by no less an authority than Mr. Rowland
Hazard of Rhode Island : In the United States from
1867 to 187?, while the duty on wool was at its maxi
mum (45 to 55 per cent), the number of sheep fell
from 39,385,386 [Mulhall says 43,300,000] to 35,804,-
200. During the next four years, 1877-81, under a
lower tariff the number rose to 45,016,324. And for
whom was this industry " protected"? The mass of the
poor who paid an augmented price for their clothes?
By no means. The persons benefited were the rich
squatters of the West who own vast flocks of sheep. A

UNCLE SAM'S WEAKNESS 205
single squatter at Albuquerque, New Mexico, had
500,000 sheep — one seventieth of the whole ! Protec
tion, is it ? Well may the American poet exclaim :
" Let us speak plain : there is more force in names
Than most men dream of ; and a lie may keep
Its throne a whole age longer, if it skulk
Behind the form of some fair seeming name."
One may say of the protectionist's " fact" as a friend
of mine says of a lawj^er, that it is like an old gun, apt
to go off at the wrong end. In the same parlance, we
may add that protection itself has a strong recoil; and
hurts the shoulder of him who fires it. Here is one way
in which the recoil hurts Uncle Sam: American exports
to Europe, consisting mainly of bread=tuffs, cotton and
beef, have to pay an augmented freight often amount
ing to a hundred per cent, because ships must return to
America either wholly or partially in ballast. Unless,
therefore, an article will bear an artificially raised rate
of carriage, it cannot be exported. The cost of navigat
ing an empty or only partially-laden ship across the
Atlantic is the amount of what is really an export duty
paid by every cargo of American produce sent to Eu
rope. It is also the amount of what is practically a
bounty paid by Europe to India, Egypt and Australia
on cotton, wheat and beef exported by them — a bounty
which is rapidly raising up strong rivals to Uncle Sam
in the provision markets of Europe. Can this be a
factor in the decrease of cotton exports from 350 mil
lion dollars to 314 million during the last five years; of
the decrease of exports of breadstuffs from 360 million
to 125 million; of the decrease of exports of meat and

206 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
provisions from 130 million to 90 million in the same
period? The total exports of agricultural products
have fallen from 730 million dollars in 1881 to 484
million dollars in 1886. This, meseems, is a rather
Jiurtful recoil; and it strikes the most numerous of
Uncle Sam's workers — the agriculturists, who are really
three to one compared with the manufacturers. And
while the exports of agricultural produce, thus reduced,
amount to between four and five hundred million
dollars a year, there is not a manufactured article ex
cept uncoloured cotton cloths (nine million), oil-cake
(seven million) and refined sugar (eleven million) ex
ported to the amount of five million dollars! These
are facts — protectionist facts!
Only one workman in twenty, or five per cent of the
labouring population of the United States, is engaged in
protected industries; yet, according to Sir Lyon Play-
fair, in the last twenty-one years the people of America
have paid two hundred and forty million sterling in the
extra prices of home products. That two hundred and
forty millionaire manufacturers have been produced is
a questionable gain to the mass of the people.
A comparison has been made in this chapter between
the conditions under which industry in Europe is com
peting with industry in America. With this com
parison in mind, let us look at another fact or two.
The protection accorded to the cotton-manufacturer
amounts to over forty per cent; yet, the pauper labourer
contrives to send back to the land of cotton-plantations
and the birth-place of the cotton-gin thirty million
dollars' worth of cotton manufactures per annum. In
spite of the duty of thirty-five per cent, iron and steel
manufactures to the amount of thirty-four million dollars

UNCLE SAM'S WEAKNESS. 207
are every year sent across the Atlantic to the land of
iron mountains and natural gas. Silk manufactures
protected by an ad valorem duty of nearly fifty per cent
cannot compete with Europe; and nearly thirty million
dollars' worth are imported. Sugar pays seventy-three
per cent; and yet the amount imported is enough to
give to every man, woman and child in the Republic
about forty-three pounds of foreign sugar every year.
And what about the woollen industry, which is protected
by a duty of sixty per cent? No less than forty-five
million dollars' worth of wool and woollen goods are im
ported every year. Plate glass paying the outrageous
duty of 148.80 per cent is imported to the amount of
half a million dollars a year! How are these for pro
tectionist's facts — especially when taken in connection
with that other fact that, with only two or three ex
ceptions, not an American manufacture is exported to
the value of" a million sterling!
All this seems very anomalous, but it is easily ex
plained. Let the explanation be in the words of Mr.
Joseph Chamberlain, M.P., who, during his business
career, was a manufacturer of screws. As reported in
the London Standard, Mr. Chamberlain said:
" At that time the Americans put a duty of 100 per cent on
screws, and in spite of that his firm sent these articles to America
in large quanrities. The result was that the American manufac
turers came over here and said : ' We are making 100 per cent on
capital; if you continue to send screws to America we shall, of
course, be obliged to reduce our prices. That will shut you out,
but it will reduce cur profits, which will not be good for either of
us. Let us, therefore, make a bargain ; we will pay you so much
a year to sit still and not send a screw to America.' Well, they
did it, and his firm received a handsome income for years from
the American manufacturers, protected, as they were, by the folly

208 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
and stupidity of protectionist legislation, to sit still, and not send
screws to America."
The last census stated that the screw-makers of the
United States numbered 1361; of these, only 990 were
native Americans. Admitting all that protectionists
claim, it seems a high price that is paid for the "protec.
tion" of these 990 men. A barbe dejol on ap2Jrend d
raser !
Facts! why, facts bristle all around us. They start
up like the followers of Roderick Dhu from every bush
and stone. The protectionist who calls for facts is like
Cadmus sowing his dragon's teeth; but the crop of
armed men is doubly and trebly iron-clad, so that they
cannot even destroy themselves.
Here is a fact for the protectionists at home: wages
in free-trade England are from thirty to sixty per cent
higher than in protected France and Germany; yet
English manufactures in immense quantities go all over
these countries.
The periodical depressions and the panics which are
so destructive of credit in America are mainly due to
protection. An unnatural competition is set up amongst
manufacturers which results in great over-production.
Then come failures, and large stocks of goods are forced
on the markets, reducing prices and causing more
failures. Production then stops for a time, the public
meanwhile getting cheap supplies and absorbing the
surplus. The small capitalists having been ruined and
forced out of competition, all goes well again for a time.
There comes a "boom;" capital circulates, competition
grows active; and soon the usual results of over-pro
duction ensue. And so in unvarying round — boom,
depression, panic; panic, depression, boom.

UNCLE SAM'S WEAKNESS. 209
There is an amazing amount of buncombe talked by
politicians on this subject. In the presidential cam
paign of 1884 the Republican party tried to make the
tariff question the issue of the contest; and it was
asserted that the ever-increasing agitation for tariff re
form had been brought about by English emissaries.
This indeed became one of the rallying cries; and in the
Republican processions banners announced that " Brit
ish gold won't wash in this crowd"! The democrats
were forced to try to checkmate the movement, and for
a time their paraders marched in time to the cry, " No —
no — no free trade !" It is always a sale piece of buncombe
for a political candidate to denounce "British emis
saries" who come to advocate free trade and the ruin
of the helpless American workman!
It has been said that England ought not to complain:
for America buys more of her than of any other nation.
Granted: but she does not buy of us for love! If she
could get what she wanted in other markets, she would do
so. But here arises the inevitable tu quoqice. England
buys of America more than double what she sells to her:
she buys 350 million dollars' worth, while France and
Germany combined only buy 100 million dollars' worth.
Indeed England is a better customer of Uncle Sam — I
might say Farmer Sam — than the rest of the world
put together. And be it remarked, in answer to our
alleged ingratitude, that England is the only great nation
from whom Uncle Sam does not buy more than he sells.
If he were to "reciprocate" with us as he does with
France or Germany, instead of buying 154 million dol
lars' worth of our products as he now does, he would
have to buy from 400 millions to 450 millions' worth.
Of course he buys from our colonies and India; but
14

210

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

he manages to sell enough to them to make a fair
balance. "What things are dutiable?" I heard a European
passenger ask as he made the usual declaration before
the customs officer. "Everything," was the reply.
And "that is so." From his cradle to his grave the
American is paying duties. As a baby he is swathed
in taxed muslin. His little nose is wiped with a taxed
handkerchief. His porridge is made from corn grown
under the stimulus
of taxed fertilizers,
and he eats it with
a taxed spoon out
of a taxed feeding-
cup. The wheels
of his baby-carriage
are tired with hoops
that have paid a
duty of 2^ cents a
pound. When he
escapes from the taxed apron-string of his nurse, and
finds shelter in the tax-supported school, his boots, his
satchel, his clothes, his books, have all contributed their
quota to the embarrassing surplus, or else helped to
build up some mammoth fortune for a protected capi
talist. The buttons on his trowsers and the bristles in
his tooth-brush can be found in the tariff list. He is
lulled to sleep with opiates that have paid a dollar a
pound; and wakened by clocks that tick to the tune of
twenty-five and thirty pei" cent. His toys are placed un
der an embargo of thirty-five per cent, and the fire
cracker with which he celebrates the Glorious Fourth costs
him one hundred per cent beyond its value. The plums

UNCLE SAM'S WEAKNESS. 211
and prunes in his pudding have paid one per cent a
pound to the Treasury; and if he is luxurious enough
for raisins he pays two cents a pound. If he has a taste
for shelled almonds he must pay seven and a half cents
a pound duty, though — subtle discrimination worthy of
legislators ! — ^he may buy unshelled almonds by paying
only five cents for the privilege. As he merges into
adolescence, the American pays twenty-five per cent tax
on his jewellery and fifty per cent on his gloves. The
letter-paper and the lace handkerchief which he sends to
his lady-love bear a similar relation to the national ex
chequer. His tobacco is taxed, and even free soap is
denied him. Well may his hair turn gray before he
is thirty! Well may he be gaunt and careworn, giving
outsiders the idea that he has not enough to eat !
Of course under sucli a system of government coddling
on the one hand and government interference on the
other, there is nothing incongruous in a petition like the
following from an " infant industry." According to the
Leavenworth (Kansas) Standard it was sent by the boot
blacks of Leavenworth to the Mayor and Council:
"We, the undersigned bootblacks, who by our industry sup
port ourselves and contribute to the support of the families of our
parents, respectfully request your honorable body to levy a li
cense tax on bootblacks of $2 per annum, thusly protecting us in
our endeavors to obtain an honest living, and stop the encroach
ment of the Chinese bootblacks, who are reducing the price below
five cents a shine. We believe that the imposition of this tax ex
emplifies the principles of jirotection to American industry. It
would protect us in our honest labor. Your favorable considera
tion of our position would forever tie us to a government of the
people." The last sentence has an ironical ring. The sight of
a crowd of " protected " bootblacks tied to the govern-

212

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

ment -to the grandmotherly apron-string, so lo speak —
would be an inspir
ing sight to a patri
ot of the political-
boss stamp. And
the queue might
acquire that ele
ment of variety
which always lends
a grace to the pic
turesque, if the
apron-string were
passed on to the
washerwomen who
protested to the
President against the Treasury towels being sent to the
Chinese laundry!
A century ago the commerce of the world seemed to
be passing under the star-spangled banner. In twenty
years American shipping increased fivefold; and by
1820 "the Yankee clippers" had gained such reputa
tion that Grantham says people used to go to Liverpool
to see them. In 1826, when the decadence began, 92 "o
per cent of the foreign carrying trade of the United
States was done by American vessels. Yet in sixty years,
by the operation of laws fitted to the time of Henry the
Eighth, " we have reduced ourselves," says Mr. Edward
Atkinson, "from the position of a dreaded maritime
people to a position of comparative insignificance upon
the sea. At the end of a century of vigorous life and
effort we remain but a province, unable to keep our own
flag at the mast-head of any fleet of modern vessels."

UNCLE SAM'S WEAKNESS. 213
Only thirty years ago three fourths of the carrying
trade of America was on native bottom. Now little
more than one seventh is so carried. Of the nine and a
quarter million tons increase in the American foreign
trade. Great Britain has managed to secure nearly six
million tons. Of every eleven steam-vessels carrying
grain from New York in 1883, seven displayed the
Union Jack, but none the Stars and Stripes. Of every
eighty-three sailing-vessels laden with grain which left
the same harbour, only one was American. In 1856 the
tonnage of American vessels entered from foreign ports
constituted 75 per cent of the total tonnage.
In 1868 it had fallen to 35 per cent; in 1882 to
15 "5 per cent, and it remains this year about the same!
Yet we read in Niles' Register for 1830: "No interest
in the United States has been so severely protected as
the shipping. The ' American system ' fully commenced
with it in 1789, by discriminatory duties on imports
and tonnage. On a vessel of 200 tons, laden with 150
hhds. of sugar, for example, the protection amounted to
more than seven hundred dollars, enough to pay the
ivhole wages incident to a West India voyage!"
These are protectionist facts, not free-trade argu
ments. To protect the iron, timber and other interests,
the tariff raised the price of all ship-building material.
Then, to foster a native seafaring population, other re
strictive acts were passed, obliging American ship-own
ers to engage crews in America, where labour is thirty to
fifty per cent dearer than in Europe. Thus the prime
cost of a ship was artificially raised; then the cost of
navigating it was unnaturally increased. Such a ship,
of course, could not compete with those of England,
which cost only half as much to build and navigate;

214

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

¦IKe.
AmericarxPreigj. CArryin<$Tra,c5^v SmolKered f
Jo dea^lK '^
by j^
R-oIedivefi'lsi^fiTsQ

^Pff^'JituM

and the last American line of steamers to Europe passed
under the Union Jack about two years ago. So died
the American foreign carrying trade !
Despite all this muddle,
the result of government
meddle, we occasionally
hear a heart-rending ap
peal to the Political Fetish
for relief. It is almost
incredible that in pres
ence of these destruct
ive effects of government
al interference with com
merce, men still bow
down before their Jugger
naut! Here is an exam
ple from a newspaper:
" Shall England build' our vessels and carry our commerce
while our business languishes, our mines are darkened, our fur
naces are cold, our mills idle and our workmen crying for bread ?
No, no! Let us make our own iron and steel, build and man our
own ships, and strive to regain a commanding position in the
ocean commerce of the world, for soon the United States will be
able lo export iron and steel to all the nations of the earth. I'hen
we shall need a national merchant-marine to float our metals to
the ocean markets of the world. Let the people cry from Maine
to the Golden Gate for this national industrial necessity — the im
provement of our merchant-marine by the help of the govern
ment." Why, the government has been helping it all the time
— has helped it out of existence! Truly, compared with
this Political Superstition, the Voodooism of Southern
negroes is positive philosophy, and the credulity of a
Neapolitan woman godlike reason.

STAR-SPANGLED BRITONS.

211

CHAPTER XV.

STAR-SPANGLED BEITONS — AND SOME OTHEES.
" For he himself has said it.
And it's greatly to his credit.
That he is an Englishman!" Modern Classic.

T^^HE Englishman
abroad is prover
bially a grumbler.
Even at home fault-
fijiding is his habitual hu
mour. Petty annoyances
which other people are
prone to pass over in si
lence, incite him to anger
and letters to the press.
Americans gauge everything by the question, "Does
it pay?" and rarely think it worth the worry and vexa
tion to resist trifling aggressions. Thus Englishmen in
America do not show to advantage. They have more to
grumble about than at home; and they exercise their
prerogative regardless of the bad impression which
their avowed discontent may make. To this hypercriti
cal attitude must be ascribed much of that discour
tesy which Americans think of as British ingratitude.
Everywhere in the United States one hears of English-

216 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
men who, while enjoying the hospitality of the country,
did nothing but complain. Perhaps the offender supple
mented his ill-grace by publishing the adverse opinions
formed during a brief visit, emphasizing the things
which displeased him, while lacking in due apprecia
tion of the good things he found. I have before me
the published comments of " a disillusioned Britisher,"
who spent a few weeks in what he calls a corner of the
country. He travelled from Montreal to Baltimore!
An American who had the temerity to pen an ill-natured
attack on the British Empire after journeying from
London to Canterbury would be rightly written down
an ass, even by his own countrymen. This disillusioned
Britisher betrays his animus when he tells us that for a
w^hole hour he travelled watch in hand, counting the
times the door of the railway-car was left open. And
would you believe it, he got up to shut the door one hun
dred and twenty-six times in the hour — more than
twice a minute! Heroic Briton! What sufferings were
thine! And the glory of it! But is this the stuff that
makes our race great, or is it that which makes our
greatness little? If this disillusioned Britisher had
travelled further, he might have learnt that the term
Britisher is rarely heard in America; and that " the
variety of railway gauges" does not as he alleges
"necessitate constant changes of carriages," since there
are about one hundred thousand miles of track of uni
form gauge. There are more things he would have
learnt had he stayed a few days longer. He might have
acquired some of that good-nature which permits
Americans to regard with equanimity even such gross
misrepresentations of their country as his ungracious
report.

STAR-SPANGLED BRITONS. 217
It is no libel on one's own countrymen to say that
when abroad they are very eccentric. It is without
doubt a high distinction to be an Englishman — to feel
that the awe-struck foreigner is enviously thinking of
the glorious inheritance which has descended to his
grotesquely-attired person. But the grand traditions of
the race, the "glory of the empire," the dignity of the
Mother of Nations, are not enhanced by a swagger that
would provoke the derision of a street urchin if dis
played in the Strand. " You take up a great deal of
room," was the remonstrance of an American to a
blustering Briton at a railway station. "I am accus
tomed to take up a great deal of room in my own
country," was the reply. " There can't be much room
left for others, then," smiled the Yankee. Sometimes,
however, we go to the opposite extreme ; as instance the
English lecturer — a man of high position at home —
who, having received an encouraging reply to his query,
"How much flattery can the Americans stand?" pro
ceeded forthwith to disgust his friends and amuse his
audiences by insincere and servile adulation. I lately
saw a letter which this gentleman had written to a
newspaper, saying he had married an American lady
and that he was about to become a naturalized citizen!
To become a renegade is a queer way of flattering a
patriotic people.
Shrewdness, which is so marked a characteristic of
Americans, does not desert its possessor in presence of a
flatterer. When Archdeacon Farrar, at the Westminster
Abbey services, closed his eloquent tribute to General
Grant with a eulogy of the American people, a trans
atlantic cousin was heard to say: " I'll lay odds he's

218 ¦ UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
reckoning on a lecturing tour on the other side." And
the guess turned out correct.
The peripatetic Briton who has visited America has
left there innumerable stories of lost h's. In a serial
which appeared in Lippincott's Magazine, an earl is
said to have delivered himself of the following: " It
wasn't the 'unting that 'urt the 'orses, but the 'ammer,
'ammer, 'ammer oh the 'ard 'ighroad!" This w^as pos
sibly the gentleman I heard about at Montreal. A
clerk at the Windsor Hotel there saw an Englishman
opening doors on the hall floor in apparent search of
something. "What are you looking for?" he asked.
"I want an 'oister," said the, son of Albion. "An
oyster! You'll find plenty in the dining-room." " No,
no," said the traveller with an impatient gesture; " I
want to go upstairs by the 'oister." "Oh, you want
the elevator?" "Yes, the helevator!"
There is more reason for the American belief that
every Englishman drops his h's, than there is in the
British tradition that all Americans speak through the
nose, and use " tarnation" for an emphasis. The Eng
lish of Americans is quite as good as that spoken at
home; and the local differences are not nearly so great.
The dialect of Lancashire, for example, has no parallel
in America. Amongst the cultured, great attention
is paid to purity of speech, and though the accent is
strange to English ears and the intonation monotonous,
the grammar is generally faultless — if one except the
very common solecism "it don't." Apropos of in
tonation, an American lady once told me she used to
think that the English people she met displayed much
affectation in their speech; and when she went to Eng
land she thought she had come to a nation of actors

STAR-SPANGLED BRITONS. 219
and actresses. And here we get the most important
difference between our speech and the Americans': it is
rather a difference of intonation than of language. To
Americans the modulations of our voice are varied and
musical; and I have frequently heard expressions of
admiration when they have heard a soft-voiced English
woman. If Anglomaniacs were not so absurd in other
respects, it would be a beneficial change if their imita
tion of the English voice could become common.
English writers on American affairs are rarely in
favour on the other side, partly because of their igno
rance of American subjects, partly because they are often
unfair. They are unfair from prejudice, and their
ignorance is sometimes due to the same cause, though
occasionally one falls into blunders because things change
so quickly in America. There is one English review
that causes much mirth, and occasionally a little anger,
by its mistakes. " Many of its accounts of what has
happened or is going to happen," says a New York
journalist, "' are based, like General Choke's mode of
proving that the Queen lives in the Tower of London,
on notions of what ought naturally to happen." That
there is ground for the American's assertion seems
probable when we remember that a man of Mr. Matthew
Arnold's standing ventured to write a little work, as he
says, "on what I thought civilization in the United
St-dtes might probably belike." A similar explanation
miffht account for the curious fancies of a writer who
lately discovered that "Aristocracy is not only legal in
the United States, but it has been deliberately estab
lished in the constitution." According to this gentle
man, who announced his discovery in the Nineteenth
Century Review, the antagonism between the Com-

220 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
mons and the Lords in England is paralleled by a
contest between the American Senate and the House
of Representatives, the former body constituting a
menace to democracy as great as the hereditary English
chamber. This is extremely funny. The writer can
hardly be an American, though he dates from Chicago.
If he is, he is probably indulging in that form of Yankee
humour of which Englishmen rarely see the point.
One hears a great deal in England about the injustices
authors suffer through the absence of an international
copyright law with America. But American authors
suffer from English pirates, too, though one hears little
of this form of criminal reciprocity. Indeed our own
countrymen are the greatest offenders. Like King
John, they set fire to the house they rob! What I mean
will be seen from the following statement by the author
of "Ben Hur" — General Lew Wallace, late U. S. minis
ter to Turkey:
"I found on reaching London about ten months ago," said
General Wallace, " that my novel of ' Ben Hur ' was advertised
by Messrs. F. Warne & Co. as from their presses. They also ad
vertise themselves as agents of The Century Company of this city,
and I find by looking at the magazine that they are so recognized
by the publishers here. Of course I knew I had no legal rights
in England, but I was naturally curious to know something of the
style in which the book was reproduced in England, the character
of the house printing it and something about the success which it
had met with abroad. So I called at their place and asked a
clerk if he had a novel called ' Ben Hur.' He handed me a copy,
price two shillings, and I paid him for it. I asked several ques
tions which led naturally to the inquiry as to what sale the Eng
lish edition had met with. The clerk told me that they had sold
2000 copies in the past fortnight, a thousand a week. That was
flattering, and I told him I was glad to hear it as I was the au
thor. 'Indeed!' he exclaimed; and at the same moment he
reached out and took back the volume he had sold me. He then

STAR-SPANGLED BRITONS. 221
asked me if I would not remain where I was for a moment. He
disappeared and returned in a moment without my book, but with
a request that I would see the principals of the house. I was very
glad to do so, and going into the private office I met two gentle
men who were introduced to me as members of the firm. My
bought copy of my stolen book lay on the table, and I took it up
in the course of the conversation which followed and glanced at
it occasionally as we talked. At first the conversation was pleas
ant enough, but glancing at the title-page I found that the sub-title
had been changed from ' A Tale of the Christ ' to ' The Days of
Christ.' That was annoying, and I asked who had authorized the
change. The rep'y was that the publishers had done it to avoid
hurting the sensibilities of religious readers in England. In other
words, they had appropriated my property and had changed it to
suit their own views of what its language and tone should be.
' Have you made any other of these unauthorized changes ? ' I
asked. 'Well, wc have omitted two of the tales told by one of
the characters,' answered the speaker of the firm. You can im
agine I was getting warmed up by this time and I spoke rather
strongly. But the next discovery enraged me beyond measure.
They had actually written up and inserted a preface to the novel.
No, not a publisher's preface. It was without signature of any
sort, and to the ordinary reader must have read as if by the author.
I had written no preface whatever. I demanded to know of them
what they proposed to do in the way of remunerating me for tak
ing and for altering my book. They promised to give the matter
due consideration. That was ten months ago, and I have never
heard from them. I suppose they are taking plenty of time for
what they call 'due consideration.' The house is not a very im
portant one outside of the fact that they are London agents of a
reputable American company."
This is but a mild sort of criminality compared with
some other cases known to me. A friend of mine wrote
a book of reference for children, which had a large sale
in America. Presently it appeared in England, "edited
by the Reverend Sir George W. Cox, Bart., M.A.," but
without any mention of the author. The "editing"

222 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
consisted in adding an article on an abstruse subject in
technical phraseology, and wholly unfit for children.
Later the plates passed into the hands of another pub
lisher, who brought out a new edition. This time it
was not even "edited" by the Reverend Sir George W.
Cox, Bart., M.A. : it ivas by him! An American novel
was not long since adapted to English readers by the
substitution of the Queen for the President, and of the
Thames for the Connecticut! There is a thoroughness
about everything we English do!
Americans often return from Europe surprised and
chagrined at the ignorance of Englishmen concerning
things American. On one occasion when I crossed there
was a young fellow on board who had been an auction
eer's clerk in London, and was going to settle in Minne
sota. He was of average intelligence; but he was in
duced by some Americans to get out his gun before
reaching Sandy Hook, that he might have a shot at the
buffaloes which he was told would be seen browsing on
the seaweed of Brighton Beach. And a
young woman going out on the same
steamer to be married, declared that she
would not speak to her lover if he came
to meet her at the barge office dressed, as
she was told all Brooklynites dress at home,
in red fianijel shirt, and slouch hat, trow
sers tucked into top-boots, and pistols
showing prominently at the belt. At this
game of gulling the Englishman some
times gets even with his tormentor. It
ABrookiynitei jg not long sincc & Yankee victim was
heard of inquiring the way to Abraham's Bosom, to
which an Englishman had recommended him as the

STAR-SPANGLED BRITONS 223
best club in London. Poor Harriet Martineau had
many a hoax poured into her ear-trumpet, and some of
them came out again in her book about America. And
I fancy Henry Irving must have been victimized during
his first trip. He wrote in the Fortnightly Review :
" In matter of duration [of theatrical performances], the audi
ence is not to be trified with or imposed on. I have heard of a
case in a city of Colorado where the manager of a travelling com
pany, on the last night of an engagement, in order to catch a
through train, hurried the ordinary performance of his play into
an hour and a half. When next the company were coming to the
city they were met en route, some fifty miles out, by the sheriff,
who warned them to pass on by some other way, as their coming
was awaited by a large section of the able-bodied male population
armed with shot guns. The company did not, I am informed, on
that occasion visit the city."
Every autumn brings its crop of stories of English
men's insatiable appetite for "gammon," exaggerated
of course into that rhodomontade which is so important
an element of American humour, but having, in many
instances, a kernel of fact. It is not many years since
an English novelist described a buffalo-hunt near Boston;
and an English encyclopedia published not very long ago,
had no knowledge of America's mineral deposits. Some
years ago a young journalist with ambitions above his
fellows, asked me to recommend him a special sub
ject of study which was little known in England. I
named "America;" and I was gratified that my advice
was followed. He made a prolonged tour in America,
and now in England he is making a successful
career as a thoughtful and accurate writer on transatlan
tic affairs. It was he, by the way, who advised the im
migrant who aspired to wealth to take up with a quack
medicine until he had been long enough in the country

224

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

to make politics his profession. This happy conjune>
tion of two very striking aspects of American life,
proves the efficiency of his studies of men and things in
the Republic!
English mistakes about America are made the more
absurd by the fact that our cousins are almost as famil
iar with England as are its inhabitants. Newspapers
devote nearly as much space to British public affairs as
to their own. Most educated Americans have travelled
in Europe; and everybody is familiar with recent Eng
lish literature. The most popular plays are English,
and many actors and actresses have been educated with
us. But we are still dominated by the insular spirit —
the patriotic bias, as sociologists call it. It is said that
people born in Beacon Street, Boston, are regenerate
in the next world without being born again. At the bot
tom of the Briton's heart, there is some such faith in the
saving grace of his own nationality. That is why we
are always giving "points" to the nations — charging
them a good round
fee for the advice if
accepted, and bom
barding their cities
or making naval dem
onstrations against
them if rejected. I
see that certain
school-boards in Eng
land are now feeding
children as well as
paying their school-
fees. The next
thing will be to send

STAR-SPANGLED BRITONS. 225
them on foreign travels, thus utilizing the navy, and
rubbing off that accumulation of hereditary conceit
which causes the children of Albion to think, like the
children of Israel, that the universe was created especially
for their benefit, and that all Cosmos revolves round
their little speck of earth.
The provincial spirit is found a fortiori in some
Scotchmen. I have seen a letter from the editor of a
Scottish paper published in New York, blaming a
Scotchman for speaking of the inhabitants of Great
Britain as Englishmen: he wanted them called Britons,
forgetful that the population of Scotland is little greater
than that of Lancashire, and not so great as that of
London. The Scotchman is a power in America. He is found
everywhere — except in politics, which he leaves to his
brother Celt from Ireland. Wherever found Sandy is
usually at the head of things. It is predicted that he
will be found at the top of the north pole when that is
discovered. He is certainly at the top of the north pole
of many a great manufacturing concern in America.
It does not take long to make a good American out of
a Scotchman — if he is caught young. Dearly as he
loves the land of brown heath and shaggy wood, he
rarely wants to return to it. Dr. Johnson said that the
prettiest sight in all Scotland was the road out of it.
At the Burns dinner in New York, I heard many vari
ations of this sentiment mixed with fervent love of the
old country. One canny speaker referred to the tradition
of the Scotchman's private ark at the Deluge, and hoped
that his hearers had long since burnt this ark so that
they could not get back to their beloved land — unless it
be, said he, to mak' a visit. Our countrymen from
15

226 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
"ayont the Tweed" have made a splendid record in
America. They have furnished much of the stuff that
has made America great. Look at the array of Scotch
names prominent in mercantile and financial circles of
New York: Mackay, Morton, Murray, Mills, Grant,
Stuart, Kennedy, Carnegie, Paton, Irvin, Henderson,
Donald, Cameron, Ferguson, Macdonald, Reid, King,
Maitland, Wallace, and a score of others. And all over
the country similar lists could be found.
The predominance of English names in America is
striking to one who has been impressed by the statistics
of German and Scandinavian immigration. In a group
of a score of native Americans, I counted the other day
eighteen of distinct British origin; and one of the others
was probably English. A book before me consisting of
papers by seventeen writers — Harper's First Century of
the Republic — does not contain a name that is positively
un-English. Lists of Congressmen and Senators show a
like preponderance; and there is hardly an honoured
name in American history that is not English. The
rotunda at Washington is full of statues of great Ameri
cans, every one of British stock. All the presidents and
vice-presidents have been English — except perhaps Van
Buren, and his first name was Martin. The long list
of past judges of the Supreme Court contains but one
foreign name. Mr. Bancroft estimates that during the
first fifteen years of colonization, 21,300 persons, or
4000 families, arrived in New England. In 1840 the
descendants of these, he estimates, amounted to four
million — nearly one fourth of the whole population.
Continuing the calculation, there would be at least
eight million descendants of the earliest Puritan emi
grants in 1870, and twelve million in 1885. Thus one

STAR-SPANGLED BRITONS. 227
person in every five in America is probably descended
from the English who migrated to New England dur
ing the first fifteen years of colonization. This ratio
would be greatly increased if we could estimate the
numbers descended from the later colonists. Ger
man and other alien immigration is only of recent
origin; and even now British immigrants are the
most numerous. With few exceptions, relatively to
their numbers, the American people are of pure Eng
lish ancestry. They are in fact but star-spangled Brit
ons. The exceptions are easily discovered. Even they,
however, have been anglicized. German surnames have
often English prefixes; and in many instances the name
is translated. A German translator once said he had
" overset" (iibersetzt) the English. Many foreign names
have been so overset, that their original form is no
longer recognizable. Not in name only, but in nature,
does the foreign element quickly become anglicized.
The English language, literature and history are the
joint heritage of the children of German immigrants
and the descendants of the Puritans; and under their
infiuence and that of the common school, the plastic
youthful mind is soon moulded into harmony with its
English environment.
When America broke away from the mother-country
and started out for itself, its political
loyalty was destroyed; but there has
survived a higher sentiment — a loyalty
to race traditions. As Englishmen at
home are proud of the achievements of
Englishmen beyond sea, so our trans
atlantic kindred share the greatness ''^^.--
of our own branch of the race. They

228 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
love, of course, their own land best, just as we do;
but after America, England. Americans share our
pride in Shakspere, Milton, and that galaxy of poets
and writers which has made our common language a
richer storehouse than the tongues of any people,
ancient or modern. Even in the nursery, the young
American is soothed by an English lullaby, or charmed
by the rhymes and stories of our own infancy. They
sing to him a " Song o' Sixpence" — not of twelve cents;
and Fe-fo-fum even in California smells "the blood
of an Englishman" in preference to that of a Bostonian.
The melody of their national anthem "My Country, 'tis
of Thee" — is that of our own " God Save the Queen;"
and " The Red, White and Blue" — is as familiar to Uncle
Sam as it is to ourselves. Dear Dibdin's " Tom Bow
ling," heard in the Navy Yard at Annapolis or Wash
ington, sounds as well as at Spithead or in the harbour
at Malta. "Although his body's under hatches, his
soul has gone aloft!" — gone aloft from many a ship with
the Stars and Stripes at half-mast. Even at Cam^
bridge they have a great seat of learning; and Yale
and Harvard universities — light blue and da,rk blue^
have their annual boat-race on the Thames. America
is in truth New England. The history of old England
is the history of Americans to within recent times. The
halls and castles that moulder in the damp of England,
live in pristine grandeur in transatlantic memories.
Their names are revered and saved from oblivion by
adoption. Our towns, where the pilgrim forefathers
first drew breath, are kept green in the memory by
transplantation of names. Boston or St. Biddulph's
town in Lincolnshire, is still the acorn-hamlet it was
two hundred and fifty years ago ; Boston, Massachu-

STAR-SPANGLED BRITONS. 229
setts, its offspring, has become a city of world-wide
renown, and a centre of intellectual activity which has
made it the Alexandria of the New World. The name
of Pendleton in the Blue Mountains of Oregon has
doubtless a home-like ring to some wanderer from the
banks of the Irwell. May the affection which crystal
lizes into forms so beautiful ever endure! May every
loving thought borne on western breezes to " the old
country," meet another on its way to some kinsman
across the sea! May the community of blood, language,
traditions and literature, be strengthened by a com
munity of interests, which will bind mother and child
more closely together than can political bonds ! Per
haps in the future, which gives such bright promise to
the Greater Britain that has grown up beyond sea. Child
and Mother-land shall stand together as of old — not in
feudal dependency, but as leading states in the Federa
tion of the World.

230 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

CHAPTER XVI.
A FEESH LOOK AT MANIFEST DESTINY.
" The future of the world belongs to us, to us who are of the
same blood and language, if we are true to ourselves and to our
opportunities, not of conquest or aggression, but of commercial
development and beneficent influence." — Gladstone.
^HE brilliant future of the Ameri
can nation has probably furnished
a text for more patriotic speeches
than have ever been made out
side the Republic. On this glow
ing topic the Fourth of July
orator, ever since the Declaration
of Independence, has annually got "inebriated with the
exuberance of his own verbosity" and his country's
resplendence. Here is an example which for patriotic
braggadocio, is probably unparalleled even in America it
self. It is a strain of exultation from distant Dakota:
" Where is all this gigantic growth and development to end?
Will not the close of our century see all North America, from
Behring's Strait to the Isthmus of Panama, under one glorious
free government and tri-colored flag? Will not the mystical fig
ures 'A.D. 1900 ' find us all, Canadians, United Statians, Mexi
cans, Guatemalans, and Nicaraguans, brethren and friends and
fellow-citizens, marching beneath the starry banner of the free and
the brave, to a grand common destiny of illimitable wealth and
power and renown? Then shall Columbia's proud pet eagle
(which is being so numerously and diversifiedly squeezed until he
squawks to-day), perched upon the loftiest pinnacle-crag of the

MANIFEST DESTINY. 231
royal-ore-ribbed Rocky Mountains, spread his cloud-bathed wings
from the multifloral rainbows and frost wrought splendors of the
Aurora-Boreal ic realms, to where the billowed sunshine of Hondu-
rian gulfs chants its ceaseless anthem to shores of everlasting green
and gold, and trumpet forth in universe-reverberating tones his
' Cock-a-doodle-Yankee-doodle-doo ' of exultation and defiance to
all the world and the rest of mankind. Earth's two greatest
oceans, three thousand miles apart, shall roll up in thimdering
oratorio their echo of the high and glad refrain; the mightiest
gulf and grandest lakes in all creation shall join the chant; river
after river, huge, rolling floods, shall couspire to swell the giant
pseans; Superior's waves, old Mississippi's torrent, Niagara's misty
thunders, shall roar it far and wide; the hurricane crashing
through ten thousand mountain gorges, from the Alleghanies to
the Cordilleras, from the Adirondacks to the Sierras, shall chime
it; the raging blizzards, hurling six-inch hailstones on sky-bounded
Nebraskan plains, shall whistle and rattle it; the catamount shall
shriek it, the prairie-wolf shall howl it, the lone owlet hoot it, and
the grizzly bear shall growl it; and the burden of it all shall be*
'America for Americans! One country, one fiag, zwei lager,
from Greenland's icy mountains to Daken's golden strands! E
pluribus umim, now, henceforth and forevermore, world without
end — amen!' "
This fervid Yankee obviously mistakes bulk for great
ness. Emerson somewhere says that the true test of
civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor
the crops, but the kind of man the country produces.
Judged by this standard a large part of the superficial
area of the Republic, including the western home of the
orator just quoted, has hardly made such startling pro
gress as to justify a universal Lobgesang'. To many
western territories which surpass in area the most
civilized countries of the old world. Bishop Heber's
description of Ceylon and the Ceylonese might be aptly
applied. Stripped of its bombast there is, however, much in

232 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
the national progress of which America may justly
feel proud. In material wealth and population her
advance is marvellous. Ten years of progress in America
equal twenty years in England, and half a century in
some other parts of Europe. The wealth of the United
States has quadrupled in less than thirty years, and
multiplied sixteen-fold in the memory of persons living.
As Mulhall shows in his "Balance-sheet of the World,"
the increase of Uncle Sam's wealth since 1850 would
suffice to buy up the German empire, with its farms,
cities, banks, shipping, manufactures, Krupp guns and
millions of conscripts. The annual accumulation has
been 165 million sterling; and therefore each decade adds
more to the wealth of the United States than the capital
value of Italy or Spain! Each year witnesses the birth
of towns which in less than a decade surpass in size,
wealth and material comforts many old-world cities
whose names are found on every page of history. Geneva
is only half the size of Milwaukee; Cleveland is as large
as Genoa; Duluth, a fifteen -year- old city, exceeds Mecca
or Jerusalem in population; Venice is not as big as De
troit, and Rome is only half the size of Chicago. Though
many persons may consider such comparisons fanciful
and absurd, it is probable that these young flourishing
cities of America are destined to exercise as great an in
fluence on the history of the world, as any of the ancient
cities have done. Their power as cities may not be so
great; their influence may be but that of cooperating
units; but they are units of a magnificent Whole, which
is working out a revolution in political and industrial
methods more comprehensive than anything that has
preceded it in time.
Any forecast concerning America which goes further

MANIFEST DESTINY. 233
forward than ten or twenty years must seem chimerical
to many people. How would John Adams or Benjamin
Franklin or George Washington have received a pro
phecy which gave a full and clear account of the United
States in the year 1887: the population swollen to
twelve times the number they knew; the mile-a-minute
trains that would cross the then unexplored continent in
a few days; the material wealth greater than all the
world had seen before; the six days' sail to Europe in
mammoth steamships of palatial luxury; the British
House of Lords rising to honour the American minister;
and a funeral oration on an ex-president within sound
of Andre's monument in Westminster Abbey! The
condition of America in the year 1987 would appear
equally visionary if described to us to-day. Let us not
look so far ahead.
The population of America has repeatedly doubled
itself in twenty-five years. The census of 1880, how
ever, showed that the population was several millions
short of being double that of 1855, or four times that of
1830. Probably it will never again double itself in so
short a time. Taking thirty years or even more as the
period required, it is safe to say that during the lives of
persons now living, the Republic will count two hun
dred million citizens. Even with this enormous popula
tion, America will be five times less densely peopled
than the United Kingdom is now. If ever America
becomes as thickly peopled as England, the population
will number 1,785,000,000!
It is unquestionably the " manifest destiny" of Ameri
ca to leave all the nations of the world far behind. She
has already a greater population than any European
nation except Russia; and no people increase so rapidly.

234 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
France has taken one hundred and sixty years to double
her population, and now she appears to be declining.
Great Britain multiplies faster than any other European
people; yet she has taken seventy years to double her
number — nearly three times as long as America. In
half a century, indeed, America has added to her num
bers more than the present population of Great Britain,
of France, or of Austria!
Equally marvellous has been her progress in manufac
tures. In ten years the aggregate of industries rose
thirty-five per cent. The actual increase, as stated by
Mulhall, was 535 million sterling, against 337 million
of Great Britain. In 1870, American-made steel was
less than one fourth the quantity made in Germany, and
less than half that made in France. Ten years later —
only ten years — she made more than France, Germany,
Austria and Belgium combined! Progress is a word
which fails to express such an expansion! The manu
factures of America now exceed in value those of any
other nation — even of England, which has hitherto led
the world. In agriculture, of course, she is without a
rival. And our own branch of the English race — what are
its industrial achievements? In manufactures we still
lead the old world in a way that admits of no compari
son. Our textile industries have trebled in value in fifty
years, and our yearly product is two sevenths of the
world's output. Our cotton industry has trebled in
thirty years; and while our product is double that of
the United States, it is nearly four times as great as
that of any other country, and is more than one third
of the product of the world. The spindles of the United
Kingdom are nearly half the total of the world. Of

MANIFEST DESTINY. 235
steel we make as much as all the rest of Europe put to
gether; and half as much again of iron. More than one
third of the commerce of the world is ours. In forty-five
years it bounded from 95 million sterling to 570 milHon
sterling. We have acquired more than half the carrying
trade of the world; and five ships in ten the world over
fly the union jack. Our tonnage nearly doubled between
1870 and 1880; and between 1876 and 1885, the increased
tonnage of British steamships was two million tons — an
addition equal to twice the entire tonnage of the French
mercantile navy, after including such small fry as
fishing-smacks, pilot-boats, and vessels lying ashore!
During the present century the English in America
have added to their territory more than three million
square miles — twice the area of our Indian Empire,
which supports a population of 350 million. The Eng
lish at home have done more. They have taken posses
sion of all the choicest parts of the world; so that other
nations, ambitious to found colonies, have now to take
jungles and swamps in the torrid zone. The British
Empire contains nine million square miles — one fifth of
the habitable globe. Every nationality under the sun
is represented in this mighty Empire; yet there is no
where a single English-speaking community under for
eign rule. These sixty-five dependencies have for the most
part their own governments elected by the people. Each
is therefore a stronghold of democracy. In New Zealand
even the native Maoris vote, and they have elected five
of their race to the House of Representatives. Stated
briefly, the English race is in possession of one third of
the habitable world; under its rule lives one fourth of
the human race; its governments are everywhere con
trolled by the people — for even the government of India

236 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
is subordinate to the democracy at home. In brief, our
race is supreme in industry, in trade, in agriculture.
It is by far the most numerous of civilized races; it is
also the wealthiest; and what is more important, the
richest in character. It is dominant in the thought of
mankind; in political methods it is greatly in advance
of other peoples. In everything which makes a people
great, the supremacy of the English race is the most
prominent fact of this age.
It is in no spirit of vain-glory that I reiterate these
tokens of English greatness; although I consider them
a cause for legitimate pride. It is of implications that
I would speak. These facts are pregnant with a mean
ing which every year's growth of America and England
makes clearer. They indicate the ultimate predomi
nance of the English race, with the corollary that
our language will be the speech of the world. "Will
be," say I? It is already. Not long ago the native
representatives of China and Japan, during negotiations
at Tientsin concerning the affairs of Corea, conducted
their discussions in the English tongue.* Already
English is the native language of a hundred million
people — five times as many as at the beginning of this
century.. At present our language is spoken by nearly
two sevenths of the civilized world. In 1801 thirteen
Europeans in every hundred spoke English, while
about twenty spoke French, which was of all Euro
pean languages the most used. Now there are but
* Since writing this an American friend from China assures me
that at this conference, the contribution of the Japanese representa
tive to the discussion was the single expression My hop pa^ciflc.
The hope for peace concealed in the phrase is decidedly encourag
ing. May every extension of our language be accompanied by a
hop pacific!

MANIFEST DESTINY. 237
thirteen French in every hundred to more than twenty-
seven English.
At the close of the civil war in America — which has
so far lost its bitterness that it has come to be spoken
of simply as "the late unpleasantness" — Napoleon was
in Mexico. He was there, as he himself said, to assure
by means of French soldiers "the preponderance of
France over the Latin races, and to augment the influ
ence of these races in America." As soon as Uncle Sam
had put his house in order, he hinted to Napoleon that
Mexico was part of America, and came within the oper
ation of that law formulated by Monroe. The French
took the hint and left. Mexico has a share in the mani
fest destiny of the Republic which a keener man than
Napoleon recognized. Thirty-five years ago Lucan Ala-
man, the Mexican statesman and historian, left on
record the pathetic prophecy that the future greatness
of his country would "not be for the races which now
inhabit it." Since then the destiny of Mexico has be
come more manifest. Her rich valleys and mines have
tempted southwards thousands of rich Americans, who
are developing the latent powers of the country. It
will not be long before Mexico drops into the starry
group of States. From Mexico it is only a step to Cen
tral America, where there will soon be a ship railway of
primary importance to the Republic. America's au
thority has already been asserted and acknowledged in
Panama. The manifest destiny of the Republic cer
tainly includes Mexico and Central America. Then,
still looking south, it seems impossible that the vast re
gions included in the name of South America can re
main in the possession of the emasculated Europeans

238 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
and Latinized half-breeds who now live there. Eng
land already has a foothold there; great possibilities lie
in the future. Americans say of an unreasonable man
that he wants the earth. Without consciously wanting
it, it seems probaible that the English race will get it.
There is only one continent left for other nations to
wrangle over; and even of this we have picked out for
ourselves the choicest bits. The northern boundary of
the British possessions in South Africa now almost
reaches the Zambesi. It is barely a generation since this
river was practically unknown.
Here let me quote a paragraph from Prof. Fiske's
little book on American Political Ideas. It is especial
ly interesting to our branch of the English race, as ex
pressing the belief of an American in our common
"manifest destiny."
"The work which the English race began when it
colonized North America is destined to go on until every
land on the earth's surface that is not already the seat
of an old civilization shall become English in its lan
guage, in its political habits and traditions, and to a
predominant extent in the blood of its people. The day
is at hand -when four fifths of the human race tvill trace
its pedigree to English forefathers, as four fifths of the
white people in the United States trace their pedigree
to-day. The race thus spread over both hemispheres,
and from the rising to the setting sun, will not fail to
keep that sovereignty of the sea and that commercial
supremacy which it began to acquire when England first
stretched its arm across the Atlantic to the shores of
Virginia and Massachusetts. The language spoken by
these great communities will not be sundered into dia
lects like the language of the ancient Romans, but per-

MANIFEST DESTINY. 239
petual intercommunication and the universal habit of
reading and writing will preserve its integrity; and the
world's business will be transacted by English-speaking
people to so great an extent, that whatever language
any man may have learned in his infancy, he will find it
necessary sooner or later to express his thoughts in
English. And in this way it is by no means improba
ble that, as Grimm the German and Candolle the
Frenchman long since' foretold, the language of Shake
speare may ultimately become the language of mankind."
Returning to our Arithmancy, let us look at shadows
cast by some events which are not so remote. The
most conspicuous augury is that American industry,
free from the most oppressive burdens which feudalism
has bequeathed to other nations, will outstrip European
industry just as America is outdistancing everything
else European. Then in sheer self-defence, the warlike
nations of the Old World will have to drop militancy
as a pastime too expensive when starving for food.
Perhaps the burden of hereditary privilege will be
dropped at the same time. The first king was only a
leader in war : with cessation of war, royalty becomes
not only useless, but detrimental as a profitless burden
on industry.
America is fast becoming the market-garden and
provision store-house of Europe. Her shipments of
food are already indispensable to the Old World ; and
Europe's dependence on the RepubKc will increase.
Europe must give something in exchange for cargoes
of wheat, beef, pork, etc. What will she give when
America not only becomes self-sufficing, but sends her
cheap manufactures into the neutral markets of the

240 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
world ? Already her exports are 31 per cent in excess
of imports. This problem will get more difficult of
solution as it grows old. America, favoured by great
natural resources, and untrammelled by military taxa
tion or service, free from war debts and from the bur
den of royalty and large classes of non-producers, will
soon undersell the products of Europe in every market.
This is the way in which the Western Republic
will join the European concert. Her entry will pro
duce greater changes in governmental theory and
methods than the advent of a political Wagner or a Ber
lioz. It may be visionary to speculate how the other
musicians will receive such an advent. To me only
one result seems possible : Europe will have to send her
sons home from the barrack and camp, that in the
forge and workshop they may take part in a struggle
keener than that of Waterloo. The contest will be in
dustrial. Shuttles, picks and hammers will be the
weapons. The victory, like that of military encounters,
will be survival to the fittest ; but the fittest here is the
one possessing the most efficient and economical indus
trial system.
It is a doubtful question, however, whether the peo
ples of Europe will be content to wait until the indus
trial contest between themselves and America becomes
so keen as that described. To the most unobservant
person it must be growing clear that destructive forces
of unparalleled magnitude are rapidly accumulating
under the political systems of Europe: If the process
continues, there must ere long come a crash that will
hurl the last remnants of feudalism from the world.
Russian Nihilism, like a horrible catacomb of skulls and

MANIFEST DESTINY.

241

dead men's bones, forms a subterranean system which
undermines the empire ; and the eyes of the world are
turned, half in hope, in daily expectation of the crash.
Germany, with her hordes of socialists and hundreds of
thousands of discontented conscripts, is hardly more
stable in her political foundations than her northern
neighbour. France is perpetually simmering with ex
citement, and no prediction can say on which side she
will next boil over, perhaps bringing about the universal
ebullition that has been so long preparing. In Spain
plots are rife to overthrow the monarchy and establish
a republic. In Austria a demand has arisen for a
ZoUverein with Germany, which statesmen oppose.
England has armies of hungry men parading the streets,
demanding work ; agitations for the abolition of the
lords are becoming more vehement and more frequent ;
the demands of royalty are received with growing sul-
lenness ; and in Ireland we have a province almost in
rebellion. Turkey is toppling over, and threatens soon
to fall "bag and baggage" out of
Europe. Everywhere is unrest. Mil
lions of armed men cannot prevent dis
content among people who are begin
ning to learn that every honest man
is politically as good as any other man.
" The divine right of kings to govern
wrong" is being confronted by the di
vine right of the people to govern
themselves. The divinity that did
hedge a king, now hedges him in. The knell of kings
and nobles was rung a hundred years ago by the cracked
bell which now hangs mute in the old Liberty Hall
at Philadelphia ; and its reverberations have not ceased
16

' Letthere be Light !

242 UNCLE SAM AT HOME.
to be heard in Europe. Did Victor Hugo not speak
aright when he said, " It is the third gate of Barbarism.
— ^the monarchical gate — which is closing at this moment.
The Nineteenth Century hears it rolling on its hinges."
Some time ago a democratic paean in an English
newspaper was flashed across the Atlantic, to show the
sympathizing Republic how sentiment is tending to
complete democracy in the old country. The occasion
was the quiet return to private life of the late President
of the United States, and the inauguration of his suc
cessor. Here is a ringing verse from the paean:
" Hear this, ye kings with your tawdry crowns, ye dukes and
earls with your tinsel coronets, ye Lords of the Bedchamber and
Gold Sticks in Waiting with your salaries drawn from the hard-
earned wages and slender resources of the thrifty poor — salaries
paid to you for no service productive of good to the public, but
only for playing the flunky and the fool! Is it not time, O patient
English democracy, for us to open our eyes and
take counsel of our wiser children ? The money
wasted over the pomp and pageantry of courts
is spent in bolstering up the pretensions of
rank and birth. Would it not be better spent
in feeding the poor and teaching the ignorant?"
Every European who works for his
bread, and by his labour contributes to
Exit earl I maintain the hereditary drones of his
nation, will sympathize in heart with this outburst.
He may doubt whether the present be an opportune
moment for throwing off the incubus; but it is clear to
him as noonday, if he is keeping pace with the age, that
a tremendous change is needful and imminent. The
labourers of Europe are terribly overtasked; and in com
petition with the industrial system of the Western Re
public, the pressure is soon to become insupportable.

A FRESH LOOK AT MANIFEST DESTINY. 243
There is one aspect of this question of special interest
to Englishmen — an aspect often overlooked by royalists
and republicans at home and abroad. " The men who
make kings are not subjects," said the French chamber of
Louis Philippe. So too we Englishmen, who can end the
monarchy in three hours by repealing the Act of Settle
ment, cannot logically be classed as subjects. If any
one is a subject in England, it is surely the monarch,
who is subject to the will of the people. Even the
President of the Republic cannot be displaced by the
people as promptly as can our own monarch.
John Bright, "England's greatest Commoner and
America's staunchest friend," whose name is revered in
every home on both sides of the Atlantic, lately said:
" I am satisfied that if it were possible for England and
France and Germany and Austria and Russia and Italy
to abolish the tariffs and let commerce flow freely, it
would be beyond the possibility of King or Queen or
Czar or Kaiser or Statesmen of any rank to bring those
nations to war."
If the industrial capacities of Europe are tried in
competition with America to the extent expected, free
trade will become absolutely imperative. The federa
tion of the nations of Europe will then follow as " the
night the day" — or more correctly, as the day the
night. Come, happy day! Mankind has suffered long
and silently. Let feudalism follow slavery!
Though this end may be too remote to have any im
mediate interest for the passing generation, those who
believe in the ultimate triumph of democracy over privi
lege and legalized wrong, who cherish the thought that
industrialism is destined to conquer militancy, that feu
dalism must ultimately give way to f ederaHsm, can rejoice

244

UNCLE SAM AT HOME.

that the tendenciea of the age are towards the emancipa
tion of the race, once and forever. To hasten on this
change is America's "manifest destiny" — maybe, by
such prosaic means as underselling Europe in the world's
markets. Her statue of Liberty enlightening the
World is more than a gigantic toy: it is the symbol of her
mission to mankind. She has a nobler function among
nations than the invention of labour-saving
machines or caterer of provisions. She
stands a living example to the suffering
democracies of the old world. Liberty is
enlightening the World. Attempts to ar
rest its influence will be as vain as Canute's
imperious command to the tide. Those
who believe in the everlasting principle of
was Lighti" Progress may hear without dismay the
trumpet-blast " That shakes old systems with a thunder-fit.
The time is ripe, and rotten ripe, for change;
Then let it come: I have no dread of what
Is called for by the instinct of mankind."

THE END.

A F0ET.N^IGHT IN HeAVEN:
AN UNCONVENTIONAL ROMANCE.
By Habold Bbydges.

l2ino, Cloth, $1.25.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
"An instructive picture." — Saturday Review, London.
" Those who have a wish to be amused should read it.''— Queen, London.
"A clever and entertaining book."— Scotsman, Edinburgh.
" Very ingenious and a,mnsmg."— Manchester Examiner.
" A very unique worlt." — Glasgow Herald,
" A book perfectly original in every way, and we can compliment the
author upon the clever manner in whicli he has handled some of the most
dilHcult problems of the present day." — Irish Times, Dublin.
A " rattling socio-political romance." — New Tork Twines.
"His lecture on mundane affairs is a clever, concise statement of con
spicuous political and social difttculties." — The Evening Post, New York.
"He speaks in a brilliant, happy tone of common-sense, mixed with
humor and sarcasm, on questions of the day, local politics, anarchism, labor
troubles, science and art." — Book Chat, Boston.
"It is equally clever and biting in its sarcasm. Its humor, though verg
ing sometimes upon the extravagant, is keen and genuine; and the book
shows careful thought and a deep understanding of the themes that form
its staple, and which it treats with such grotesque imaginings. The hero
of the story is one Captain Grizzle, who is possessed of a second self, which
wanders spiritually from planet to planet and notes the various social
systems of the universe. There is a delightful mingling of the sublime and
the ridiculous, of lofty thought and the commonplace in his experiences;
and the quiet, grim wit' that seasons the whole is indescribably diverting.
The subject to which it is all devoted was never set forth more clearly or
more impressively, despite the comical aspects in which it is presented."—
Boston Gazette.

" A clever brochure which shows what might become of us all if the Henry
Georges and other fanatics could have their way and the government
should regulate every aifair of the people. It is only by such a reductio ad
absurdum that the mooney theories of our modern half -educated speculators
in social matters can be properly dealt v/ith."Sartford Courant.
"There is a good deal in this little book that will bear careful pondering by
serious persons, notwithstanding its sensational title and unconventional
treatment. Through the clear atmosphere of the upper region is professedly
observed this lower world with its follies, insincerities, extravagances,
social and political conventionalities and injustice, and the view is con
fessedly a startling one. The author looks at facts without flinching, and
reports what he sees in ai original style. Clear insight, good-humored
satire, shai-p criticism, and vigorous and pdngent statement mark the
volume, which is one way of directing public attention to very serious
matters." — The Churchman, New York.
"Who is Harold Brydges? Any one who reads the decidedly unconven
tional romance with the striking title, 'A Fortnight in Heaven,* will
aslc this question again and again. But Harold Brydges is, at any rate, an
unusually clever Englishman, with a notable style, flashing forth on every
page of his fantastic story brilliants on brilliants of the keenest sarcasm,
the sanest wisdom, the most bewitching humor. . . . The book is one long,
brilliantly sarcastic reditctio ad cibswdurn of the argument for government
interference in aB the relations of life, and a consequent plea in this novel
fashion for certain things which would undoubtedly tend towards the long-
sought golden age of peace. . . . For swelling and tumultuous, yet restrained,
expression of sarcasm and irony, there is nothing in recent literature that
excels the speech on ' Earth as Seen from Heaven ' and the sermon on
'Humanity's Golden Age,' in this volume. Here are jewels strung on
golden cords and waving under the sunlight in a Grecian wind. To be suie^
there is more head than heart in the book. It must be read in a critical
spirit, and with alertness of intellect. But it is alive with suggestion and
rich with illustration, and is one of those rare volumes that will be perused
at a single sitting. And then will arise the question, Who is Harold
Brydges?"— Sosiore Advertiser,

Heitoy Holt & Co., New Yobk.
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO., London.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 02409 7793

:^^t^

K^ y*