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diff --git a/old/56185-0.txt b/old/56185-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6881402..0000000 --- a/old/56185-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2687 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Abounding American, by -Thomas William Hodgson Crosland - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Abounding American - -Author: Thomas William Hodgson Crosland - -Release Date: December 16, 2017 [EBook #56185] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ABOUNDING AMERICAN *** - - - - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - THE - ABOUNDING - AMERICAN - - BY - T. W. H. CROSLAND - - Author of - “Lovely Woman” and “The Unspeakable Scot” - - London: - A. F. THOMPSON & CO. - 92 Fleet Street, E.C. - 1907 - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - - THE PROPOSITION 7 - - MILLIONAIRES 19 - - HUMOURISTS 29 - - THE AMERICAN WOMAN 37 - - LITERATURE 45 - - THE PRESIDENT 55 - - ADVERTISEMENT 61 - - THE PEA-NUT MIND 71 - - THE DRAMA 81 - - SPORT 91 - - HOGS 101 - - VERDICT 109 - -[Illustration] - - - - - COPYRIGHT 1907 - BY - A. F. THOMPSON - IN - THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - AND IN - GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND - - All Rights Reserved - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE PROPOSITION - - -“And what, prithee, hath overtaken Guy?” - -“Guy—why Guy diced and drabbed and ruffled away his inheritance, and to -save his neck took shipping for the tobacco plantations where, they say, -he married a daughter of Lo, the poor Indian, and none hath since heard -of him.” - -This is the kind of talk that one could hear in the clubs of London a -matter of, say, two hundred and fifty years ago. In plain terms, Guy, -poor devil, being a wastrel,—and a broken wastrel at that—had betaken -himself to America, there probably to found one of the “fine old Virginia -families” of which American writers, and particularly American fictional -writers, are so prone to babble. - -America, of course, was really started not by the Indians or Columbus, -but by the Pilgrim Fathers, assisted and backed up by several cargoes -of blue-brained and cleverblooded spirits from the British Isles, whose -minds were full of theology and whose souls were full of tea. I shall be -told that it is unkind of me to make such remarks. - -But, quite apart from all questions of kindness, it is desirable that -you know something of the antecedents of a man before you set about -a proper estimate of him. If you wish to understand him thoroughly, -you must never let sleeping dogs lie nor allow bygones to be bygones. -It is notorious that the average frantic Fourth of July American is -an adept at showing the best side of himself and his institutions to -an admiring world. If you are to believe him the first American was -Christopher Columbus, whose name in this connection I had hoped not to -mention. But Don Columbus made the mistake of “discovering America.” For -the accomplishment of this feat the Americans bestow upon his memory -unqualified pæans. Really, of course, the fact that Columbus steered -his leaky lugger desperately for Coney Island and Long Branch, when he -had the rest of the world—including China and Gozo—before him where to -choose, proves that so far from being a hero and a man of genius, he was -a dull and evilly disposed person. - -According to the bumptious, khaki-tinted gentleman from Indiana too, -the Pilgrim Fathers already referred to were high-minded, blameless, -and entirely disinterested saints, incapable of hurting a fly or -causing butter to melt north of the colour line. They “inaugurated -America for conscience sake, sir, and you can bet your pile that I am -proud to have them for ancestors.” In which connection I shall pass -no rude observation, contenting myself rather with the hint that the -reader who wishes to acquaint himself with the true inwardness of the -Pilgrim Fathers and their doings in America should look up some of the -serious literature on the subject. The Americans, be it noted, read that -literature very privately, and neither in the basket nor in the store. - -I might proceed indefinitely on these lines of disillusion for Master -Phineas B. Flubdub; but as it is not my particular business to amuse him -inordinately, I shall desist. - -In Europe, or at any rate in England, there is a disposition on the part -of the sandblind to look upon the United States and the people who dwell -in them with an eye of amused wonderment, as well as admiration. For -reasons that are not difficult to appreciate America has never been taken -quite seriously by the superior European. In spite of all her boasting -and shouting, in spite of her e-normous population and her equally -e-normous wealth, in spite of the fact that there is a U.S. Army and a -U.S. Navy that can lick creation, and that the U.S. also boasts of a -reeking, shrieking press, together with the most gaudy and scintillating -“Courts of Justice” that ever delighted civilisation, no person in Europe -believes in the back of his mind that the land of hustle and bluff is -a nation of any weight where nations count, or that she is capable of -exercising the smallest direct or indirect influence upon the manners, -customs, tendencies, or destiny of haughty feudal Europe. - -The Americans are hot stuff. They go in for cut-throat finance and -lime-light lynchings, their swindles are beautiful, their fortunes -colossal, and their corruption is picturesque. They have a wonderful -country. It is theirs and not ours, and they are welcome to do as they -like in it. They can never hurt us. Knowing this, the Englishman sleeps -snugly of nights, and when he meets a “Yank” in London or on the Riviera -or in Paris, he smiles to himself, professes to be tickled, tolerates -him if there be occasion for it, grapples him to his bosom with hooks of -steel if there is money in it, and parts from him pretty much in the mood -of a man who has been inspecting a new motor car. - -And, truth to tell, in the guileless, sight-seeing, rush-about American -whom the Englishman encounters on his own midden, there does not appear -to be anything which is either very outrageous or very formidable. All -you see of him is a somewhat undersized, loosely built human biped, with -a fat jowl, straight hair, a nobby suit, a little round white or brown -felt hat—and a guide-book. Of course, there is also the smart swagger -American, accompanied by a feminine entourage of peaches and dreams. But -usually your man from Yankeeland has with him a plain, up-and-down, sad -sort of woman who might have stepped out of Noah’s ark—and that is the -end of it. When he engages you in conversation, which he commonly insists -upon doing, he blows foolishly about his own Country, admits that yours -“hez the bulge in antiques,” says that he is glad that he came over, and -sticking out his finger in the direction of the woman, remarks: “This -is Mrs. Sarah B. Gazabo, my wife.” The real “insides” of the man never -strike you, partly because you are busy loathing his accent and admiring -his ginger, and partly because he has left his vital concerns, his -private essence and sheer Americanisms “way back to hum.” All Americans -imported for us by Thos. Cook & Son and his imitators are of this order. -For them England is a place in which to tread softly and speak low, or -at any rate as low as possible. They visit us in the same spirit that a -prize-fighter might visit a cemetery, and though the casual observer -would scarcely suspect it, their intention is to be subdued, sober, -decorous, and civil. - -Eight times out of nine the American is a fine specimen of a manly -man, but it is the ninth that is such a wonder. We, the obtuse and -effete people of Great Britain, now and again wake up suddenly to the -circumstance that we have been the victims of an American invasion. -Such a ghastly conviction may at any moment overtake the best of us, -for no class of society knows whose turn is likely to be next. There -was an American invasion of the turf a year or two back, and English -sport is sore and poor about it to this day. There have been sundry -social invasions which those most directly concerned find it difficult -to forget, and at the present moment we are in the thick of a theatrical -invasion which is not doing us an appreciable amount of good. The fact -of these invasions and of their always unpleasant consequences so far as -the invaded are involved is, in my judgment, a fact of the most serious -import to Englishmen. - -I shall for a moment drop the American as he seems to be, and regard him -as he actually is. What can one record of him that is to his credit? -Imprimus: He has devoted three hundred years more or less to the frantic -and bloodthirsty pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. Item: During those three -hundred years more or less he has done absolutely nothing but pursue -dollars. Item: He is still pursuing them. Item: But he makes the best -husband in the world, and places woman in the high place to which she is -so amply entitled. I will put so much to the credit side, though I make -no doubt that there are people in the world who will find themselves -unable to commend me for doing it. - -Now for the obverse or discredit side. I shall ask you to note: - -(1) That the Americans are the only nation who are ruled by a bureaucracy -of millionaires and at the same time croon themselves into a state of -vacuous coma to the touching strains of “vox populi, vox dei!” - -(2) That they are the originators of the yelling yellow press, the -pioneers of the New Humour and the apostles of the New Pathos. - -(3) That they are the only civilised people who make a point of exporting -the finest specimens of their womankind to foreign countries, included -in a consignment of cold dollars calculated pro rata with the antiquity, -decay and general worthlessness of the name which the former take in -exchange. - -(4) That having inherited, borrowed or stolen a beautiful language, they -wilfully and of set purpose degrade, distort and misspell it apparently -for the sole purpose of saving money in type-setting. - -(5) That out of twenty-six Presidents of the United States, three have -met death at the hands of the assassin.[1] - -(6) That having by sheer accident or because of the care and forethought, -which Providence has for fools, become possessed of a President who is -a man among men and a ninety horse-power statesman with direct drive on -all speeds, they allow him to be handicapped by a spectacular gang of -undesirable citizens. - -(7) That they consider no function, public or private, sacred or -profane, to be complete without a newspaper correspondent, a lime-light -photographer, and a sky-sign contractor. - -(8) That willingly and of their own unfettered volition they have -thrown back to the customs of their aboriginal ancestors in the matter -of diet, which diet is rapidly reducing them morally, physically and -intellectually to the level of primordial protoplasms. - -(9) That they are the only nation who in civilised times rate noise above -all else, save dollars, and who in their theatres acclaim as the greatest -actor or play the one that in the shortest time makes the greatest uproar -for the smallest reason. - -(10) That they have resolved their sports and pastimes into business -propositions in which the avowed aim and object of every competitor is -the utter destruction of his opponent by any means that can be found, -devised or conceived. - -(11) That they are the only nation who in civilised times have been happy -and content to sink their individuality in an all pervading and evil -smelling atmosphere of hog and by-products. - -The foregoing are merely a few of the main counts in the indictment. -Behind every one of them lies a history of gaiety, graft, dyspepsia, -bossism, fakery, flamboyancy, hysteria, vociferation brain storms -and dementia Americana of the most disconcerting and entertaining -kind. The details are on record, and I do not propose to harrow the -reader’s feelings with examples of them. I shall suggest simply that it -is questionable whether any other known race of men, white or black, -has managed to pack into three centuries such a volume of unthinkable -excitement and picturesque iniquity as can be rightfully and without -exaggeration laid at the door of these abounding Americans. - -A certain Western city has been described by a friendly visitor as “hell -with the lid off.” For the greater part of her existence as a nation that -description might with justice have been applied to all America, and I -am by no means sure that it is not still applicable. It would seem that -under the inspiring ægis of the much-vaunted American constitution the -whole of the vices of civilised man have become grossly and incredibly -intensified. For unscrupulousness, insincerity, cynicism, and the pure -worship of mammon the United States stands without rival among the -nations to-day. - -I believe the man lied who said there is not an institution in the -country—political, social, economic or even religious—that is not based -on a species of ingrained rottenness and not infested with the worm of -corruption and the scrawl of scandal. But there is no national aspiration -that does not have at the back of it the root idea that the sole duty -of an American man is to get rich and to get rich quick. There are few -standards of American life that are not gold standards and few kinds of -American effort that are not directed towards the rapid acquisition of -other people’s money. - -It can be proved out of the history books that, broadly speaking, your -average American is a nondescript and nefarious hybrid composed of -three parts promoter, three parts missionary, three parts slave-driver, -and one part Indian. On this unsavoury soil the worst passions of the -soaring human animal have grown and run hoggishly to seed. Out of such -blood nothing that is honest or of good report could be expected to -rise. And when we in England, as has been the tendency in the past few -years, condescend to the adoption of American methods and American -notions, and applaud rather than rebuke American smartness and American -impudence, there can be no question whatever that we are on the -toboggan. The gradual Americanisation of this grand old country is not -only flattering to American vanity, but gratifying to American greed. As -I shall presently show, America has no more love for England than would -easily cover a threepenny-bit, and her insatiable cry is for markets, -markets, markets—a howl in which she is dulcetly supported by her dear -friend Germany. The causes for alarm in so far as they affect the larger -concrete issues are as yet comparatively slight. But it behoves every -Englishman to meditate on the possibility that Macaulay’s New Zealander -may in the long run turn out to be an American. - -[1] This is a greater percentage than has obtained in the case of the -Czars of Russia, and in America there are no Nihilists or at any rate -none who are actively opposed to the American Presidency. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER II - -MILLIONAIRES - - -The population of the United States, according to the last census -returns, is about a hundred millions. Names in American directories -invariably begin with Aarons and end with Zaccharia, and millionaires are -marked with a star—thus *. In a town, or—as the puffed up merchant in -stars and stripes would call it a city—of fifty thousand inhabitants you -will find that the local directory stars quite twenty-five thousand as -millionaires. - -It is pretty certain that fully ninety-nine per cent. of these bloated -plutocrats do not know where the next dollar is coming from. I have it on -the authority of an American that “in introducing a man in high American -society the introducer thinks it proper to say, ‘This is Obadiah S. -Bluggs of Squedunk, Wis.—one of the richest men in the city. He’s worth -his million dollars—ain’t you, Obadiah? And he’s president of a National -Bank and owns a block of buildings on the main street. His wife has the -largest diamonds in the northern part of the State, and his daughter, -Miss Mamie Bluggs, gets her gowns in Paris, and uses lorgnettes.’ -Such words of recommendation, I am told, move Mr. Bluggs to a profound -delight. Within five minutes half the men present—this is true even of -the most exclusive circles—will cluster around Mr. Bluggs to sell things -to him; champagne, a horse, shares in a bogus mining company, or to ask -him if Miss Bluggs is engaged, whether she is a blonde or a brunette, and -whether he, Bluggs, thinks it is worth the questioner’s while to run up -to Squedunk, Wis., take Miss Bluggs out buggy riding and size her up one -afternoon.” - -It is highly probable that Mr. Millionaire Bluggs possesses no ready -cash whatever, though he is prepared to discuss five-million dollar -propositions in the loudest tones and in any quantity, and it is -probable, too, that Miss Bluggs is neither a blonde nor a brunette that -matters, but an ordinary good strong country girl whose principal diet is -pumpkin pie and chewing gum, and whose single go-to-party gown was bought -in Paris truly but fell to the lot of Miss Mamie Bluggs at third hand and -at bed-rock bargain-day price, at the corner store in Squedunk, Wis. - -I have no desire to suggest that the millionaires of America as a body -are in straitened or difficult circumstances, or that an American here -and there has not succeeded in amassing vast sums of money. But I assert -flatly that the great majority of them are not within a mile of being -anything like so rich as they pretend to be, and that, taking millionaire -for millionaire, they are an entirely Brummagem and specious company. -They maintain all the appearances of riches, not on solid bullion or -property, but on a little paper. They come like water and like wind they -go. Since millionairedom became fashionable, New York State alone must -have produced, literally, thousands of them. - -Of the real authentic untraversable American millionaire, one is inclined -to speak with bated breath and whispered humbleness. There are three -men of means in America at the time of writing who will probably be -remembered for the wealth they possess as long as this weary world holds -together. The virginal chaste names of them, need one say, are John D. -Rockefeller, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Andrew Carnegie. No doubt there are -others, such as the Vanderbilts and the Goulds, and Mr. Astor and Mr. -Harriman, and that great patron of the drama, Mr. John Cory, whose wealth -transcends the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind coming in together. But it is -on Messrs. Rockefeller, Morgan and Carnegie that the brunt and burden -and glitter and glory of real unlimited and omnipotent millionairedom -has fallen. Mr. Rockefeller, indeed, is commonly credited with being the -richest and most powerful capitalist in the world. So rich is he, and so -enormous are his accumulations of earned and unearned increment, that -he is rapidly becoming the overlord of all the other millionaires, who -even now are, to a great extent, playing with his money and must, to a -corresponding extent, do his bidding. - -Of Mr. Rockefeller the world knows next to nothing, excepting that he -is fabulously and pitifully rich, that he has absolutely no hirsute -covering for his stupendous brains, that he suffers from indigestion, and -that he plays golf and teaches a Sunday school in a Nonconformist place -of worship. Every other morning he appears to present to this or that -American city a few odd millions “for educational purposes,” the which -millions are promptly spurned by the local authority as “tainted money,” -but ultimately accepted “in the interests of the industrial class.” - -Probably Mr. Rockefeller is the best abused man on this footstool. He has -been variously described as a thief, a ghoul, a bloodsucker, a murderer, -a miser, a cannibal, a wrecker, a tiger, a devastator, a jackal, and a -wolf. All the notice he takes is blandly to play golf and unobtrusively -to dodge the lawyers and officers of the law who desire to bring him to -book for the alleged malpractices of the Standard Oil Trust. Yet you -have to remember that this placid, smiling, hairless old gentleman of -sixty-five, “with a glad hand for everyone,” takes out of the United -States an income greater than the incomes of all the Royal Families of -all Europe, and that, in addition to his controlling interest in the -Standard Oil Trust, which last year paid dividends to the tune of fifty -million dollars, he owns the entire Electric Light and Gas Plants of -New York City, controls the American iron industry, has almost complete -control of the railways and copper mines, and of the largest banks in New -York and throughout the country. The which sad data go to show that he -is at once a wicked man and a foolish, and that the American people are -even wickeder and more foolish. You can never bring an American to see -that there is no conceivable advantage in possessing too much money; and -in spite of his “shattered nerves,” “enfeebled mind,” and “unenviable -reputation,” there is not a man in America who would not jump at the -chance of standing in the shoes of Jawn D. - -As for Mr. Pierpont Morgan, he is chiefly noted as the head and front of -a Steel Trust that is making money at the rate of one hundred and forty -million dollars per year, and as a gentleman who has a pretty taste in -pictures and objects of art. Mr. Morgan is a man with a large and poetic -imagination. It was he who conceived the noble idea of Americanising the -British Transatlantic carrying trade by buying up the principal fleets -engaged in it. In this deal, as in most other American-English deals, -the American came forth to shear and got shorn. The woolly, bleating, -unsuspicious Britisher sold his vessels at inflated figures, snickered -in his sleeve, and built new ones with some of the money. Mr. Morgan is -a frequent and welcome visitor to these shores, and the London picture -dealers and their touts no doubt do very well out of him. But if you say -“Liverpool” to him he goes hot all over. - -For a bonne-bouche I have kept Mr. Andrew Carnegie, of Skibo Castle -and sundry other addresses. Mr. Carnegie has the misfortune to be a -Scotch American—surely the least admirable of the less admirable types -of humanity. He will live in men’s memories as the sturdy, forthright -Scot who managed one of the most desperate strikes that ever took place -in America from the safe vantage ground of his native heath. It must be -remembered that in spite of his ridiculous possessions Mr. Carnegie is -an avowed democrat, and the author of a book that makes him out to be -quite a benevolently minded philosopher. But during all the terrors of -the Homestead lock-out, he lay snug at his shooting box of Rannoch, N.B., -and refused to say a word that would tend to still the storm, although he -knew that blood was being shed at Homestead, and that his own partner, -Mr. Frick, had been seriously wounded. - -Being a Scotchman it is impossible that Mr. Carnegie should have been a -coward. Let me say rather that he was cautious and canny, and indisposed -to take unnecessary risks. When the row was more or less over he told a -representative of the Associated Press that “the deplorable events at -Homestead had burst upon him like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. They -had such a depressing effect upon him that he had to lay his book aside -and resort to the lochs and moors, fishing from morning to night.” Which, -on the face of it, is pawky Scots, and as who should say “the deplorable -news of the death of my wife had such a depressing effect upon me that I -had to go to a fancy dress ball and dance and dance till cock-crow.” - -It will be seen, therefore, that in the main the American millionaires -do not shine with any startling or blinding effulgence. With here and -there an exception, they are common, vulgar, snobbish, undistinguished -men who happen to have come out top-dog in a series of financial bruising -matches in which few persons above the quality of a savage would have -cared to engage. For the possession and administration of even reasonable -wealth their qualification would seem to be of the meagrest. Outside the -dull mechanical reduplication of their mammoth fortunes, their stunted -intellects permit them only two very doubtful joys, namely, sensational -house building and sensational charity. Mr. Morgan may be taken as -the type of the house-proud money-snatcher. Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. -Carnegie are the charity-proud; and they have reaped the reward of the -charity-proud—the colleges of the one being a by-word and a mockery in -America, just as the “Free Libraries” of the other are a by-word and a -nuisance in England. - -I do not believe that in their heart of hearts the Americans -themselves—that is, the great mass of the people—have any feeling -of admiration for the gigantic money-grabbers who rule them. The -American has just perception enough to discern that millionaires are -not altogether the best possible kind of man. On the other hand, if you -take away the country’s millionaires you have robbed her male population -of one of its chief objects of envy and its chief subject of blurring -conversation. - -The shadow of each of the fascinating trinity that I have mentioned -is as the shadow of a Colossus, and is so enormous that it is almost -impossible to pick up an American newspaper or other publication in which -they do not figure and figure prominently. Especially is this the case -with respect to Mr. Rockefeller, upon whose doings or misdoings every -scribbler in America has some comment to offer or some theory to base. -The other day I came across a book of essays published in Boston, which -contained a review of Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace’s “Man’s Place in the -Universe.” And right in the middle of it I found this passage: “When a -little child looks out on the Earth he at first thinks it infinite. He -looks upon it as unorganised and unrelated. Only with increasing age and -understanding can he realise that it is finite and organised. So when -Rockefeller as a lad went into the oil business it seemed to him that -there was infinite scope for the extension of the oil business,” and so -on and so forth. Clearly it is a mighty business to be Rockefeller! - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER III - -HUMOURISTS - - -American humour has come to be a bugbear in England, pretty much like -American canned meats. - -Twenty years ago, when anybody on this side of the Atlantic wished to -be rather crudely and shockingly amused, he sent to the libraries for -something American. In that day and generation Mark Twain was at the -zenith of his fame and powers, and the names of Artemus Ward and Josh -Billings were names to conjure with. Autres temps autres moeurs. The -popularity of Mark Twain has suffered woeful eclipse, and Artemus Ward -and Mr. Billings have gone clean out of vogue, and are remembered only -as the originators of a very tiresome kind of humour which depends on -phonetic spelling for its more excruciating effects. - -The fact is that America and England alike have been dosed to death -with the lucubrations of handy scribblers who caught something of Mark -Twain’s trick and pretended to something of his gift, and the label -“American humourist” nowadays repels with an even greater insistence than -it formerly attracted. Mr. Twain made desperate and valiant efforts to -retrieve his waning popularity with a book called “A Yankee at the Court -of King Arthur.” If ever there was a piece of writing nicely calculated -to tickle and make purr the fat-necked American here was the article. But -it fizzled in the pan, failed in short to bring ’em on again. And it now -belongs to the category of books that people have forgotten. So much for -Mr. Twain, whom I admire, but of whom, nevertheless, I have taken leave -to speak the truth. - -Artemus Ward and Josh Billings are dead, and their souls, I trust, are -with the saints; so that they will pardon me when I venture on the -opinion that the humour they gave us was of the thinnest sort, and, -taking into account the furore it created, extraordinarily ephemeral. -However any person of sense came to accept the following for humour -passes my comprehension:— - - -EXPERIENCES AS AN EDITOR - -“In the Ortum of 18— my friend, the editor of the Baldissville Bugle, was -obleged to leave perfeshernal dooties & go & dig his taters, & he axed me -to edit for him doorin his absence. Accordinly I ground up his Shears and -commenced. It didn’t take me a grate while to slash out copy enuff from -the xchanges for one issoo, and I thawt I’d ride up to the next town -on a little Jaunt, to rest my Branes which had bin severely rackt by my -mental efforts (This is sorter Ironical) So I went over to the Rale Rood -offiss and axed the Sooprintendent for a pars. - -‘You a editer,’ he axed, evinebtly on the point of snickerin. - -‘Yes, Sir,’ sez I, ‘Don’t I look poor enuff?’ - -‘Just about,’ sed he, ‘but our Road can’t pars you.’ - -‘Can’t hay.’ - -‘No Sir—it can’t.’ - -‘Becauz,’ sez I, looking him full in the face with a Eagle eye, ‘it goes -so darned slow it can’t pars anybody!’ Methink I had him thar. It is the -slowest Rale Road in the West. With a mortified air, he tole me to get -out of his offiss. I pittid him and went.” - -The essence of this excursion into the realms of the Comic Spirit is -about as cheap and small a thing in essences as one is likely to come -across. Mr. Ward had made or heard somebody make a punning retort of -an ultra-feeble quality, and straightway he rushes off to turn it into -humourous lucubration. The Americans believed it was “darned funny,” -it raised “gales of laughter” among them, and they shouted about its -excellences till the English also began to recognise them. At best -Artemus Ward is humour of the “Wot-the-orfis-boy-finks” order, and as -such it has always been eschewed by persons blessed with a trifle more -than the milk-maid order of intellect. - -And lest I be accused of raking up what the Americans themselves choicely -term “dead dog” I will ask your attention for the space of a paragraph or -two to the brand of the New Humour generally consumed by the inhabitants -of the United States in the present era of grace. In this connection -it would be easy for one to take a distinctly bitter line; inasmuch as -the books of humour as distinguished from the humourous periodicals, -nowadays published in America are not really books of humour at all, but -aggregations of acrid and wicked cynicism. The authors of them either -do not intend to be funny or have no conception of the meaning of fun. -Sourness of spirit, meanness of thought, and savageness of expression -are their principal standby. In the humourous periodicals, however, you -discover a well-defined intention to be funny—though the cynicism and the -vitriol are not of course forgotten. - -I believe that these periodicals are nicely adjusted to the public -requirements, for the American is not out to produce even comic papers -“for his health,” and being nothing if not practical, he gives his public -exactly “what they want.” Here are some samples of “exactly what they -want,” published so recently as May of the present year. First as to -verse: - - -IF - - If all the trips I’ve had at sea - Should take effect at once on me, - In one huge, nauseated spell - Gee! wouldn’t I be sick! Well, well! - -But possibly the fault is mine. You see I’m English. Perhaps the above -example of the New Humour is really a choice sample of the New Pathos. - -Again; and this smacks of genius: - - -NOW BIRDIE GETS HIS - - Of all the things that swim or run, - Man beats in easy pace; - He gives big odds to fin and fur, - And wins in every race. - - He hops into his auto-car - And handicaps the horse; - Or takes the greyhound for a try - And licks him even worse. - - Perhaps the whale or shark get gay - And want a little go. - Man dives into his submarine - And does them down below. - - And now the chesty feathered chap - Must close his gay bazoo, - For man puts on his flying gear - And wallops birdie, too. - -As to prose, here you are: - - -WANT TOO MUCH - - “Some time ago two surgeons took a ten-pound tumor out of - Dave Saunders, an’ to-day he got a terrible big bill for the - operation.” - - “Is Dave goin’ to pay it?” - - “No; he sez, ‘they’ve got enough out of him already.’” - - -MONKISH - - Behold the tippler and mark how he tippeth in the streets. - Whoso hath discolouration of the optic? Is it not the - meddler? Yea. He that is a lunkhead condemneth that which he - comprehendeth not. - - Be thou not envious of them that have vacation in time of - influenza. - -I have not gone out of my way to search for these excerpts in the cheaper -class of American comic publication. Nor have I been at special pains -to search for blemishes through the files of the ten cent “high class -journal” which is laid under contribution. In point of fact, I find them -in the first number of that journal which came to my hands, namely, its -latest issue obtainable in London. How really foolish and vulgar these -samples are! The first set of verses is about being sick; the second set -is slangy, ill-expressed and contains a childish mistake in grammar; the -first piece of prose is objectionable because of its reference to “a -ten-pound tumor,” and the second piece is sheer banality, meaning nothing -that is worth a smile. - -The plain fact is that humour in America is the humour of fatty -degeneration of the intellect. America’s funny man was at one time a -fairly clean, healthy creature, with a droll outlook on the facts of -life. That he was a trifle over-devoted to rye whiskey and effusive -practical jokes, and had a tendency to rank irreverence, were among the -defects of his qualities. The great American people speedily learnt -to vote him slow, and into his shoes they hurried the hard-faced, -terrier-toothed, cigarette-smoking, anæmic, fleering decadent. And at -long and last they have set up for their humourous god the sheer hoodlum -or larrikin, whose sense of what is comic is even more degraded than -that of a Chinaman, and whose view of morality is the view of a naughty -parrot. There can be no possible hope for a country whose risible -faculties are exercised only at squalid moments or excited only by -squalid writing. - -No matter how wealthy and hard-headed your man, and no matter how -beautiful or accomplished your woman, they are spiritually and morally -topsy-turvy if they laugh at the wrong things, and I maintain that the -twentieth-century American is consistently laughing at the wrong things, -and quite incapable of appreciating the right and proper humour even when -you have explained it to him. The Scotch cannot see a joke, the Americans -can see only bad jokes. - -Nearly all the vilest and most offensive jokes that creep into the -third-rate English comics are of American origin. The Weary Willie -and Tired Tim business is purely American, so are the Buster Brown -and grinning Pup futilities, so are the idiotcies associated with the -patronymic Newlywed; so are the disgusting buffooneries about whiskers. -The English have learnt that American canned meat is a dubious viand. The -sooner they learn that the current American humour is even more noxious -the better it will be for the English. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE AMERICAN WOMAN - - -The abounding gentleman from Idaho, or Cincinnati, or Nahant, will tell -you that the American woman is a dream of beauty and goodness. If I am -to credit the American he would not take eighty thousand dollars for -her—no, sir! At least, he doesn’t calculate that he would. The American -woman, sir, is a peach. The American man believes in her down to the -soles of his store boots, and has been educated to regard her as a being -of angelic antecedents and destiny. Far be it from a simple scribbler -to pluck from her, unless it were by way of a memento, one single angel -feather. But at time and time I have seen a considerable deal of her, and -I shall venture to put her down here as she seems to me, who am no judge -and do not matter anyway. - -In the first place I shall assert, though it were at the risk of my -life, that the American woman is not always beautiful, and that even the -beautiful American woman is not always beautiful. I shall go further and -say that for one beautiful woman per thousand head of the population in -America we can produce at least three in England and four or five in -Ireland. Furthermore, the English or the Irish beauty will last you three -times as long as the American variety, and in point of fact it seldom -really wanes, whereas, in America, feminine beauty nearly always passes, -and passes quickly. - -It should be clearly understood—and I say it with my hand on my -heart—that this is not the fault of the American woman, with whom I have -no quarrel, and upon whom I desire to pass no aspersion. The vulgar -commentators on the American woman’s physical blemishes and shortcomings -have assured us that they are the direct result of her diet, which -is said to consist of pea-nuts, griddle cakes, oysters, pie, turkey, -stewed terrapin, tinned mushrooms, fat ham, cheese, chocolates, and ice -cream. As is usually the case, however, the vulgar commentators are -entirely wrong. The real enemy of the American woman’s beauty is the -American climate. In the process of time it is climate that makes and -mars everything. It is climate that has made the African black and the -European white. It is climate that is rapidly transforming the American -man into a sort of ignoble red man or Kickapoo Indian, and it is climate -that may eventually make the American woman resemble a squaw. The -American climate produced the American Indian. The American climate is -modifying the physique of the American man and marring and obliterating -the great and undeniable beauty of the American woman. - -Most male Americans that one meets nowadays have a curiously Indianised -cast of figure and countenance. Their blood as we know is hybrid blood, -but somehow you never find an American that looks like an Italian or a -Spaniard or an Englishman. Always and inevitably there is that about -him which reminds you of the Indian. Climate is stronger than blood, or -at any rate, the American climate has proved stronger so far. Roughly -speaking, it may be said to induce in the human male black straight hair, -horse features, a swarthy complexion, inclining to a coppery redness, a -thick neck, large hands and flat feet. Its effects upon women I shall -refrain from rehearsing, but you will not fail to discern them if you -look carefully at the next American woman you happen to come across, that -is if she happens to be anything other than one of those splendid and -alluring peaches for the production of which in such charming numbers all -men should be eternally grateful. - -I have further to reflect that the American woman’s beauty and charm are, -as a rule, very seriously discounted by the circumstance that she talks -through her nose, with that atrocious intonation that is commonly called -the American accent. I should defy Venus herself to impress with her -beauty anybody above the quality of a dollar hunter or a pork-packer if -she could be imagined to speak in the average American way. - -Coming now to the question of goodness, which is a delicate question, it -seems to me more than probable that the American woman is just as good, -and no better, than the rest of womankind. She has been accused of all -sorts of frightfulness—mainly on account of her unfortunate accent and -her free and easy methods of talk. It is certain that she is capable of -the higher forms of devotion and self-sacrifice, even if her views on -divorce are entirely airy and liberal. - -But I do not believe that her heart is wicked, and as women go in the -virtue way, she is unsurpassed. In some other respects I must confess -she is to be forgiven, although she is, so far as mind, disposition, and -outlook are concerned, a great deal too much like her half-civilised -Poppa, and affects a great deal too much of the cheap smartness and -abounding audacity that are the stock-in-trade of her still less -civilised brother. - -If you talk with an American girl for any length of time you will -discover that among other defects she is troubled with what one may term -a statistical, or, perhaps, more correctly, an arithmetical mind. Her -male folk talk dollars and put everything into the terms of dollars. -She, cute little bon-bon head, talks figures. She is as full of dates -as a Scotchman, and as full of heights, depths, widths, dimensions, -aggregations, and general computations as a guide-book. She will pour -into your willing ear particulars as to the population of the city in -which she was “raised,” and the next city to that, and the next. She is -sure to tell you that she came over on such and such a liner, that they -had exactly one thousand three hundred and forty-nine persons aboard, -including three hundred officers and crew, two hundred and seventeen -saloon passengers, and a precise number of second class and steerage -people. “That ship has got eight thousand electric lights, five hundred -portholes, eight thousand seven hundred and twenty-five tons of coal -in her bunkers, when she leaves port; her stores include four thousand -knives, forks, and spoons, and ten thousand bottles of old rye whiskey; -she is an American boat, and there are twenty performers in the band, -and her captain has made the return trip two hundred and seventy-three -times,” and so on, until you begin to feel as if you had fallen into -a ready reckoner, and to wonder whether in some occult way the young -lady receives a commission from the steamship company. Like every other -American man, woman or child, Mark Twain included, she is plagued also -with the “pass-a-given-point” mania. The Americans are literally eaten up -with processions, and the glory of every one of them is determined by the -circumstance that it took so many minutes to pass a given point. Of the -latest records in this connection, the American girl is sure to prattle -to you with amazing zest. In brief, her mind, besides containing much -that is really valuable and certainly interesting, is a storehouse of -unimportant and altogether gratuitous and unnecessary facts. Summed up, -she is pert, provoking, chock full of information, moderately pretty, a -good deal of a bore, and—an obvious peach. - -Then there is the American married woman, who may or who may not have -been married in several different places. If you meet this lady casually -in London or on the Continent, it will take you quite a week to discover -which of the numerous men by whom she is always squired, happens to be -her husband. - -Of course, the Americans consider their women the pink of propriety. -“The ladies of this State, sir,—and I am proud to say of every other -State in the Union—are h—l upon propriety!” I do not doubt it, and I -should not say so if I did. The American woman has her good points and -her good qualities, otherwise American man, dazzler as he is, could not -be so idiotically contented with her, or, as he himself phrases it, “sot -on her.” At the same time she has, on the average, omelettes soufflées -for brains and tenderloin steaks for hearts—and in spite of her charming -curves she exhibits defects of mind, emotions, person, and breeding alike -which, in my opinion, condemn her to obscure, or exalt her to take the -highest, rank in the table of civilised feminine precedence according -to the way you look at her. Always excepting, of course, the obvious -peaches. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER V - -LITERATURE - - -Mr. William Dean Howells, who is one of the leaders of that small band of -American authors who have a right to literary consideration in England, -has lately published an entertaining romance which he calls “Through the -Eye of the Needle.” With Mr. Howells’s story as a story I have nothing -to do. In the process of relating it Mr. Howells offers us some candid -criticisms of his countrymen which will serve to illustrate the real -opinion of the cultivated American as to himself, and all that to him -appertains. - -“My hero,” writes Mr. Howells, “visited this country when it was on the -verge of great economic depression extending from 1894 to 1898, but, -after the Spanish War, Providence marked the Divine approval of our -victory in that contest by renewing in unexampled measure the prosperity -of the Republic. With the downfall of the Trusts, and the release of our -industrial and commercial forces to unrestricted activity, the condition -of every form of Labour has been immeasurably improved, and it is now -united with Capital in bonds of the closest affection.” - -Mr. Howells does not mean this passage satirically. He is really of -opinion that Providence marked the Divine approval of America’s victory -over Spain “by renewing in unexampled measure the prosperity of the -Republic.” He believes, good easy man, that the Trusts have been humbled, -and that “Labour is now united with Capital in bonds of the closest -affection.” Isn’t it delicious? Mr. Howells further informs us that the -servant problem in America has been “solved once for all by humanity,” -and that New York is no longer a city of violent and unthinkable noises. - -“The flattened wheel of the trolley,” he says, “banging the track day and -night, and tormenting the waking and sleeping ear, was, oddly enough, -the inspiration of Reforms which have made our city the quietest in -the world. The trolleys now pass unheard; the elevated train glides by -overhead with only a modulated murmur, the subway is a retreat fit for -meditation and prayer, where the passenger can possess his soul in a -peace to be found nowhere else; the automobile whirrs softly through the -most crowded thoroughfare, far below the speed limit, with a sigh of -gentle satisfaction in its own harmlessness, and, ‘like the sweet South, -taking and giving odor.’” It is beside the mark to note that Shakespeare -did not write “taking” but “stealing,” and he certainly did not spell -odour Mr. Howells’s way. - -Our author proceeds to assure us that American men are not now the -intellectual inferiors of American women, “or at least not so much the -inferiors”; that American men have made “a vast advance in the knowledge -and love of literature,” and that “with the multitude of our periodicals, -and the swarm of our fictions selling from a hundred thousand to half a -million each, even our business men cannot wholly escape culture, and -they have become more and more cultured, so that now you frequently hear -them asking what this or that book is all about.” - -Later he says of the New Yorkers: “They are purely commercial, and the -thing that cannot be bought and sold has logically no place in their -life. They applaud one another for their charities, which they measure -by the amount given, rather than by the love which goes with the giving. -The widow’s mite has little credit with them, but the rich man’s million -has an acclaim that reverberates through their newspapers long after his -gift is made. It is only the poor in America who do charity—by giving -help where it is needed; the Americans are mostly too busy, if they are -at all prosperous, to give anything but money; and the more money they -give, the more charitable they esteem themselves. From time to time some -man with twenty or thirty millions gives one of them away, usually to -a public institution of some sort, where it will have no effect with -the people who are under-paid for their work, or cannot get work; and -then his deed is famed throughout the Country as a thing really beyond -praise. Yet anyone who thinks about it must know that he never earned the -millions he kept, or the millions he gave, but somehow made them from the -labours of others; that with all the wealth left him he cannot miss the -fortune that he lavishes, any more than if the check (English, cheque) -which conveyed it were a withered leaf, and not in any wise so much as an -ordinary working man might feel the bestowal of a postage stamp.” - -We have here, as I have said, views on America not by a shouting American -bluffer or dealer in hyperbole, but by a man of recognised literary -parts and judgment. Furthermore, Mr. Howells is plainly not one of those -Americans who affect a contempt for their country. When he speaks -of American success he attributes it to the favour of Providence; he -can perceive a “vast advance” in the American’s knowledge and love of -literature, and while he reproves the American millionaire, he does so -more in sorrow than in anger. So that on the whole his testimony cannot -fairly be traversed. - -And reading between the lines of it, the intelligent observer will not be -slow to discern that it amounts practically to a pretty severe indictment -of the Americans. A man who has no place in his life for a thing that -cannot be bought and sold, is not, after all, the kind of man one can be -expected to admire, even though Providence may appear to smile upon him. -Neither can I express myself violently taken with the man who is “not so -much the intellectual inferior of our women”—and such women—even if you -do frequently hear him asking what this or that book is all about. And -Mr. Howells’s opinion of millionaires and their charity coincides pretty -well with the opinion of Europe. - -Mr. Howells, of course, is a well bred, well mannered and entirely -discreet author; he sets down naught in malice, his tendency being -rather in the direction of a little gentle extenuation. Irony, sarcasm, -reproach, and, least of all, flouts and jeers are not among his literary -weapons. - -It goes without saying, however, that America has been written about -in much harsher tones than those of Mr. Howells. From an American book -published pseudonymously two or three years back, a book that does not -appear to have received anything like its due share of recognition either -in England or America, I cull the following picturesque details:— - - “From the moment he takes his seat in his office, until he - goes home, an American’s business consists of a succession of - swindles. He either picks the pocket of each man he interviews, - or the men pick his.” - - * * * * * - - “The American gloats over his ability as a liar. He prides - himself upon the fact that his lie is a plausible one and - likely to deceive. If it does not come up to the specifications - he regards it and himself as failures, and a shadow is cast - upon his life.” - - * * * * * - - “The American who has just borrowed a dollar immediately rushes - into the nearest bar room and announces that he has raised - 500,000 dollars from a prominent millionaire who has become his - partner, and will back him to any amount in any enterprise, - sane or insane, in which he may agree to embark. Then for the - succeeding three hours he talks about himself so loudly that - the entire neighbourhood throngs around him to join in the - debate.” - - * * * * * - - “The American trader in Europe has created the same feeling - that prevails among a party of honest cardplayers when the - card-sharper appears at the table.” - - * * * * * - - “The American politician never speaks but always ‘orates.’ - If the matter under discussion in the legislative body is a - question whether five cents shall be expended on pencils, or - whether Mrs. Bridget O’Neill, or Mrs. Patrick O’Reilly shall - be appointed scrubwoman of the Senate House, he considers it - beneath his dignity to say anything that will not recall the - diction of Cicero or Demosthenes. If the ceiling is to be - cleaned and a three-and-elevenpenny contract is to be given - out, he takes the floor and with a loud preliminary bellow - announces that he is an American citizen, and anyone who says - that he is not is a confirmed and hereditary liar.” - - * * * * * - - “If an American learns that a man has been bribed he does not - hate him—he envies him.” - - * * * * * - - “In New York society no man is ever referred to as ‘Mr. Jones’ - or ‘Mr. Smith.’ He is always referred to as ‘Mr. Jones, who is - worth two million dollars,’ or ‘Mr. Smith, who is worth four - million dollars and stole every cent of it.’” - - * * * * * - - “The average Chicagoan has not the faintest conception of the - true meaning of right and wrong. Right is the method that - succeeds in getting money. Wrong is the method that does not.” - -I shall beg the reader to observe particularly that I do not myself make -these stinging assertions. In the words of the late Sir William Harcourt, -“I merely quote them.” In a sense, perhaps, they may be most correctly -described as exaggerations. But they are exaggerations of a kind which -have more than a substratum of truth in them. I commend them to the -swaggering rubber-jawed American for what they are worth. - -Did the scope of this book allow, it would be possible to cite numerous -other animadversions upon American manners and customs by other pens. - -No British author of standing has visited the United States and come -back in love with the American people. Dickens loathed them, Thackeray -could not put up with them, Mathew Arnold despised them, and Browning -laughed at them, while as for Tennyson he absolutely refused to go near -them. Even the sensational litterateurs of our own generation, such as -Hall Caine or Bernard Shaw, have failed to find much or anything to -shriek about. The Bishop of London and Father Vaughan are not authors -but diplomats. Rudyard Kipling has been in America more than once, and -remains dumb as to the whole concern. Mr. Zangwill is equally travelled -and equally silent. Mr. Wells, who went out for the purpose, has written -his book and said practically nothing. All of them, and others who -might be named, recognise that what ought to be said would be better -unsaid—unpleasant for the Americans, and consequently likely to provoke -bad feeling. It is gentlest to the Americans to write of them without -paying a preliminary visit to their native air. What would happen if a -person who wields a plain blunt pen were to make a call upon them and set -forth his impressions in good cold type and without fear or pity, no man -may tell. Probably the Americans would shoot him. - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE PRESIDENT - - -It is said that killing a man will not prevent him from going to Chicago, -and you may be certain that nothing will prevent an American from getting -himself elected President of the United States if he can possibly manage -it. - -The United States Presidency is believed by the patriotic American to be -the very finest position that mortal man could possibly desire to occupy, -outshining in glory and honour, if not exactly in importance, all “the -effete thrones of Yurrup” rolled into one paroxysm of purple. Tremendous -and almighty as the United States Presidency may be, however, its real -lustre and attraction for the American imagination lies in the fact that -it is within the possible attainment of any and every United States -citizen who does not happen to be a nigger. Of course, your United States -President has sometimes been a very different affair from the United -States Presidency. But that is neither here nor there; because a man who -can write “President U.S.” after his name is, on the face of it, clearly -entitled to think that he casts a large shadow. And he does. - -Though the history books will tell you otherwise, astute people—which -phrase includes a fair handful of Americans—are of opinion that the -Republic of the United States has had only a matter of three Presidents. -The first of them was George Washington, who, let it be said, set the -fashion of not relishing the job; the second of them was Abraham Lincoln, -rail splitter, lawyer, statesman and martyr; and the third American -President—one blushes with pride to name him—is none other than Theodore -Roosevelt, now more or less happily reigning. - -I am no great hand at either history or biography, so that the reader of -these pages will be spared the usual entertaining biographical details. I -am not even aware if Mr. Roosevelt arrived at the White House by way of -the traditional Log Cabin, or whether he took a pleasanter, less stony -and less circuitous route. It is sufficient for me to have reasonable -hearsay evidence that he is there, and that he has filled up frantically -every hour of his time since he got there. - -For the ruler of a great state Mr. Roosevelt is, to say the least, an -appealing and exciting figure. He may be said fairly to out-rival -anything of the kind that has hitherto been offered us this side of the -Atlantic—with one diverting and rhetorical Teutonic exception. - -In Mr. Roosevelt you have the following popular and captivating elements: - -He is:— - - A Dutchman. - An American. - A Diplomat. - A Soldier. - A Lawn-Tennis Champion. - A Cow-boy. - A Big Game Shooter. - A Strong Man. - An Anti-Malthusian. - A Hand-Shaker-of-All-Comers. - A Stump Orator. - A Spelling Reformer. - An Apostle of the Strenuous Life. - A Husband. - A Father. - A Family Man. - A Deacon. - A Humourist. - A Pugilist. - A Harriman-hunter. - A Hardy Horseman. - A Dog Fancier. - An Author. - A Judge of White Mice. - A San Juan Hero. - A Nobel Prize Winner. - A Statesman of the First Order. - A Hustler; - and - President of the United States of America. - -Probably it has never been possible to compile such an inventory in -favour of any other example of the human species, and when one looks down -its massive proportions one is at no loss to understand why the American -people consider themselves to be the very finest people on earth and -entirely denuded of flies. - -In a comparatively short if variegated career President Roosevelt has -accomplished so much that is extraordinary that one never knows where -he is likely to break out afresh. Before his term of office is out he -may conceivably become many other things besides those I have listed. -It would not surprise me if he turned Vegetarian or King. Nothing -is too high for him, nothing too humble, nothing too exceptional or -unconventional, nothing too imperial. And withal there is a rugged and -stern and solid dignity about him. He wields the big stick throughout -his vast dominions, and spanks down evildoers as a housewife spanks down -wasps. At home he stands no nonsense; abroad he wants peace, perfect -peace, but equally stands no foolery. People of all nations admire him -and wave banners over his head and cheer him to the echo. He is a sort -of quick-firer, strong in the arm and lively in the head, and built by -heaven to rule over the people of the United States. - -In many respects President Roosevelt appears to be a sort of republican -replica of no less a personage than Wilhelm II. of Germany. The parallel -between the two potentates is interesting and diverting and to some -extent disconcerting. That they are friends, that they think together on -certain big subjects, that they have exchanged telegrams, that they love -each other, and that they have both been a trifle flighty at times cannot -be doubted. - -The really interesting point about Mr. Roosevelt is that he may be -reckoned to stand for the finest expression and exemplar of the American -people. A nation that can manufacture such a President must be possessed -of national characteristics altogether out of the common. He is the -absolute personification of the United States. He is absolutely fearless, -he is absolutely honest, he is absolutely magnificent. Someday he may be -absolutely absolute. - -You may be sure that President Roosevelt will go down to posterity as -the beau ideal of American Presidents. In the eye of the Americans he -has made few if any mistakes, and though there is a party in the States -that can be very bitter about him and very rude to him, their bark is -considerably worse than their bite, and secretly they glory in him. -By dint of a good deal of adroitness he has succeeded in keeping his -diplomatic end up in Europe and particularly in England, and nobody -between Tipperary and the Great Wall of China has hard words for him. The -world recognises in him a great genius—unparalleled in modern times. - -If ever an American had sound reason to look back with satisfaction on a -well-spent life, Mr. Roosevelt is the man. And if ever republic had just -cause to thank Providence for its luck in the matter of a President, the -United States is that Republic. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -ADVERTISEMENT - - -“The man who would in business rise must either bust or advertise” is -the American’s article of faith. In civilised countries advertising is -confined to its proper limits, that is to say, it is part of the business -of a tradesman. In America everybody advertises, and advertises through a -megaphone. - -The United States appears to have been created for the pure purpose of -advertising itself and everything that occurs in it. In England of late -we have been a little overtroubled with the persistent and flamboyant -advertiser. His flaring posters, his disconcerting circulars, and -particularly his promises of fabulous prizes if one will but buy his soap -or his half-penny paper or his gaspipe bicycles have jarred upon most of -us. The London hoardings blaze with all sorts of invitations to drink -cocoa, swallow pills, go to the theatre, and demand bottled trouble of -one label or another. - -The plague is upon England, and probably we shall not get rid of it for -a couple of generations or so. In the meantime, however, we may console -ourselves with the knowledge that gaudy and excruciating as London -advertising may be, it is a mere tea-party compared to the orgie of -announcement that is always in progress in every bright American city. -Furthermore, while the English advertiser has admittedly done his best -to destroy for us the mild delights of a railway journey by erecting in -every second meadow funereal signs with the names of liver pills and -cattle foods upon them he has not yet attained to the audacities of his -American confrère who, in his delirium of publicity, paints the names -of nostrums on the sides of innocuous cows and adorns the scenery with -purple and yellow posters that are positively zoo-like in their noise. - -The rocks and hills of America are daubed over with wild entreaties to -the passer-by to fix up his liver with some newly invented mixture, or to -sow someone’s invaluable hair seed on his bald head. Each country barn is -decorated with huge signs bearing disinterested advice as to what sort of -medicine a wayfarer should use in the spring. In no part of any State can -one escape the huge advertisement. If you penetrate into the recesses of -the highest mountain and find there the hut of a bewhiskered hermit, the -chances are that when you approach him he will give you some handbills -containing details of the marvellous cures effected by So-and-So’s -sarsaparilla. The sails of yachts are adorned with statements as to -medicines. Landscapes serve but to promulgate the claims of the quack. -If a man plants a bed of geraniums the chances are that the flowers are -arranged in such a way that they immortalise the fame of somebody’s -ipecachuana. The gardener is induced to do this by a present of free -seeds. - -In the trolley cars of New York one is always in danger of finding a -seat under some such notice as, “The gentleman sitting beneath this sign -is wearing a pair of our inimitable three dollar pants. They fit him -beautifully. Don’t you think they do?” Or, “The gentleman sitting below -has a very yellow complexion this morning. He looks as if he had drunk -too much last night. If he had had proper advice he would have taken a -dose of Green Jackdaw Effervescent before breakfast, then he would feel -very much better than he does now.” - -Pills, potions, pick-me-ups, blood purifiers, liver mixtures, lung -tonics, corn cures, and preparations for tender feet appear to be the -only articles of commerce that half the population of the United States -trade in and manufacture. You cannot move in America without having -these nostrums cast violently into your teeth and shoved down your throat -by every species of reminder that printers’ ink and the ingenuity of the -devil are capable of compassing. - -With a view to the maintenance and upkeep of this extraordinary jumble -of publicity the country is patrolled year in and year out by thousands -of advertising vans, each accompanied by a considerable staff of “old -hands.” American papers commonly contain paragraphs like the following: -“Advertising car No 2 of Pawnee Bill’s Wild West has the following -people: Al Osborn, manager; Doc Ingram, boss billposter; A. Clarkson, -lithographer; J. Dees, banners; N. C. Murray, J. Judge and twelve other -billposters; B. Balke, paste-maker; and R. Richardson, chef.” That the -boss billposter should rank after the manager and the chef after the -paste-maker is a choice American touch. - -When you turn to the question of newspaper advertising you encounter -pretty much the same characteristics, supplemented by a great deal of -top-speed bellowing. In a high-class paper that lies before me as I -write, a gentleman in the wholesale way announces in indecently tall -black type that he is the “only live hardware man on earth,” and that he -has “figured out a way to boost the business of his customers as well -as build a good foundation.” Another dweller in the land of brotherly -love—an artiste this time, if you please—announces himself as “The Death -Defying Daredevil King of the High Wire” and assures us not only that he -has been “the Feature Attraction for Three Seasons in Succession at Luna -Park, Coney Island,” but that his “Reputation Talks for Itself.” - -The tone of these announcements is typical. Every American advertiser -insists that he is the greatest man of business alive, and that the -article he is so anxious to get rid of is the only fine thing in the -world. You note, too, with a certain restrained joy, that every second -advertisement appearing in an American paper or magazine starts off with -the magical words: “It Will Pay You.” Thus if we are to believe the -veracious publicity-monger it will pay you to wear So and So’s Collegian -clothes which “are the only garments made in this entire country with -real dash to them”; it will pay you to buy Thingamy Suspenders because -they will make your boy “comfortable and good-natured”; it will pay you -to go about in Thingamy Shoes because when you pay three dollars for the -Thingamy Shoe “you can know that all of your money goes to the purchase -of protection for your feet”; and it will pay you “to keep step with -nature and tempt the fussy appetite with ‘Ten Liberal Breakfasts for Ten -Cents.’” The authors of these touching suggestions evidently understand -the public with whom they have to deal. They have learnt the sublime -lesson that the American has but a single inducement in his nightmare of -a life, namely—the inducement of money or noise. - -I shall now consider the advertising feats of that class of American -persons who advertise not for financial gain, but for the sweet sake -of notoriety. A great lady of American birth is said to have advised -her sons that if they were to succeed in life they must make a point of -getting their names into the papers at least once a day. The sons of the -lady appear to have taken the hint, with the result that they have made -themselves fairly snug out of very small beginnings. - -In the United States the bare getting of one’s name into the papers is a -comparatively easy matter. Pretty well any American reporter will arrange -that much for you in return for a ten cent drink, while for two such -drinks he will run to a photo-block and a description of yourself as “a -prominent society and club man who made his pile in Wall Street.” - -You must always remember, however, that the accomplished American private -advertiser has a soul vastly above the mere elements of the game. Usually -he is rich and often his life has contained episodes which an ingenious -press can work up into scandals with half a column of sensational -headlines—pin new and piping hot—on the shortest notice. Most wealthy -advertising Americans, and indeed many of those who do not advertise, -have been treated to this beautiful brand of publicity. - -As a matter of fact it is an ancient and over-worn fetich, and as the -newspaper-reading American is no longer to be excited by it, there is -little or nothing in it for anybody. Consequently the American who is -thirsty for advertisement is compelled to have resource to what are -called “stunts.” So far as one is able to make out you are considered by -American society to achieve a “stunt” when you do something that nobody -but a lunatic could possibly have thought of doing. For example, if you -give a dinner party at a big New York hotel and let it be known that -the guests were all of them chimpanzees you have done a “stunt.” And -the reporters of every paper in the city will rush to you as one man to -find out the facts. They will describe you as a multi-millionaire and a -high-life club man whose existence is a sort of perennial grand slam. -They will assert that your notion of bringing together a company of -chimpanzees for dinner is wildly and unprecedentedly clever. They will -go on to explain that the number of chimpanzees present was 47, that -they turned up in the very smartest evening dress, that they ate and -drank off plate of solid gold and that the champagne bottles were studded -with rubies. And they will wind up by announcing that one of the most -distinguished of the chimpanzees, who made his entrance to the dinner -party out of a balloon made of fifty dollar bills, has just found a -$500,000,000 gold-brick mine in a remote district of Omaha, where he was -“raised,” and is as a consequence about to be elected President of the -National Bank. - -Result: your dinner becomes the talk of America for at least a few hours, -and you consider yourself a fortunate and public man. That is, if you -are an ambitious American. Of course, this sort of advertising requires -a good deal of coin to keep up the pace. And while there is not an hotel -keeper in the Union who cannot supply you with a steady succession of -idiotic freak ideas, the cost is a trifle heavy, and you soon find -yourself growing rather tired. - -But the American is nothing if not clever. For a change, perhaps, he -acquires an affinity or elopes with another man’s wife in a series of -gorgeous motor cars and specially reserved steamships. He writes letters -to his own wife explaining in ecstatic language what he has done; and -she, good soul, serves them out to the reporters like so many doughnuts. -Again, he gets his boosting—his roaring, rolling advertisement. Two -months later the whole affair may turn out to have been a merry little -“plant”; but your bright American has had his glad columns in the papers, -and nothing in the world can take them from him. - -Of course, the “stunts” I have here indicated are really of a rather -out-of-the-way sort. The common or garden “stunt” usually takes the shape -of an appendicitis dinner, pies with girls in them, fountains running -champagne, or Adam and Eve suppers. - -American women’s “stunts” are generally giddier still. One lady compassed -social distinction by having her sunshade heavily embroidered with -diamonds, another has tiny musical boxes fitted into the heels of her -shoes that play when ever she puts her feet up—which is often—and a third -wears a live newt in her hair, and has a boudoir full of snakes and lucky -bears. - -But the soul and essence of it all is advertisement. “Be singular and -you will get talked about; get talked about and you will be happy” is -America’s golden rule. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -THE PEA-NUT MIND - - -I am in the happy position of never having gazed upon a pea-nut in my -life. Therefore my notions of what the pea-nut may be are of the haziest. - -But I gather as the result of some research that it is a species of -provender, and that it is purchased and consumed by the American masses -in pretty much the same spirit and on pretty well the same occasions -that the common Cockney of our own happy British Islands purchases and -devours barcelonas and whelks. In other words, a pea-nut is an inevitable -concomitant of a lower-class American holiday. It is always with them. It -is the one article that you may depend upon obtaining not only at every -American dry goods store, but at every street-fair, park, beach, and -entertainment ground throughout the country. It is a comestible beloved -of old and young alike, and when the American boy or girl’s mouth is not -at work on chewing gum it is working overtime on pea-nuts. - -When a working-class American wants a holiday—and sometimes when he would -rather stay at home—he sets out with his wife and family for the nearest -park. In England, of course, a park means, for the working classes -at any rate, a somewhat decorous and over-laid-out open space where -there is a band-stand, a range of concrete promenades, a Swiss châlet -where bad tea is provided, a policeman, and a number of hard seats. In -America, however, the park is an entirely different affair. It is always -a place in which you can buy pea-nuts. Not only so; it is a place in -which the benevolent American entrepreneurs throw together aggregations -of “attractions” such as are to be seen nowhere else on sea or land. I -find, for example, that for Cream City Park, Lyons, Ill., the following -amusement devices are to be provided during this present summer:— - -“Old Mill, Merry-Go-Rounds, Penny Arcade, Circular Swing, Cave of the -Winds, Billiard and Pool Parlours, Jap Ping-Pong Parlour, Cane Rack, Baby -Rack, Illusion Shows, Baby Incubator, Pony Track, Razzle-Dazzle, and -‘other novelties.’ There are also to be Japanese Tea Gardens, Ice Cream -Stands, Soft Drink Stands, Candy and Pop Corn Stands, and facilities for -the sale of pea-nuts.” - -Another of these parks at Aldoc Beach, near Buffalo, is described as -“running seven days a week” and as possessing “the most magnificent -Pine Grove and Great Lake,” together with “a $100,000 Summer Hotel, a -$15,000 Figure Eight, a $5,000 Rustic Vaudeville Theatre, and a $5,000 -Dance Pavilion,” in addition to a Blinding Array of Restaurants, Chubbuck -Wheels, Houses of Mirth, Box-Ball Alleys, Shooting Galleries, Circle -Swings, and Stands for the sale of Soft Drinks, Tobaccos, Sandwiches, Ice -Creams, Frankfurters—and pea-nuts. - -There are literally thousands of these parks scattered throughout the -United States, and at all and each of them roaring provision is made for -the people’s enjoyment. Compared with our English parks, with their sad, -uncertain County Council bands, they fire the imagination. Practically -they represent the old English fair—which the drab English authorities -have so ruthlessly stamped out—very much modernised, Americanised, -and “notionised.” Here the pea-nut reigns supreme. You chew it on the -Razzle-Dazzle and in the Baby Rack and the Old Mill and the House of -Mirth and the Chubbuck Wheel, and even in the $15,000 Figure Eight and -the $5,000 Rustic Vaudeville. It is pea-nuts, pea-nuts, pea-nuts all the -time, and nobody hopes, and nobody has the least desire to get away from -them—from pea-nuts. - -Now, as the parks are open throughout the year and run seven days a week, -and are all situated within easy distance of large centres of population, -it follows that the consumption of pea-nuts in America is something -enormous. If the yearly supply were to be put into trucks and looped up -into a procession, it would probably take that procession 368 days to -pass a given point. - -The big fact that I wish to bring out is that the Americans are a -pea-nut-fed nation. With this simple statement it is possible to account -for a great deal that is otherwise inexplicable in the American genius -and character. - -Nut-chewing is a habit which has been in vogue on the earth for an -incredible period. Originally developed by the Simian races, it was at -one time the only known dietetic habit that did not involve bloodshed. -It fell into neglect in Europe with the coming of the white man, and -throughout the dark ages which ensued nobody appears to have given it -a thought. It remained for the genius of America to revive it, and -there can be no doubt that the renascence has been brought about in a -thoroughly adequate and successful manner. - -For, as I have shown, all America now chews pea-nuts. As the result, -they are a square-jawed, massy-faced race, martyrs to dyspepsia, fussy in -the matter of appetite, and indiscriminate in the general selection of -viands, their staples under this head consisting of fat pork and beans, -corn mush and jungle-canned beef. Moreover, by dint of the assiduous and -long-continued absorption of pea-nuts, they have acquired what may be -reasonably termed a pea-nut mind. - -If you can imagine the vast hordes of the original nut-chewers of -antiquity suddenly set down in the midst of the machinery and advantages -of twentieth-century civilisation, and imagine what they would proceed -to do in the circumstances, you have gone a great way towards a true -conception of the American people as they really are. Their habits and -manners and aspirations and desires appear in effect to be based entirely -on nut-chewing, which, as every naturalist is aware, tends to render the -chewer acquisitive, cute, tricksome, not given to reflection, tough and -nimble of body, and reasonably devoid of soul. The habit carries with -it, also, an innate love of what is noisy and showy, and a vanity which -passes ordinary human understanding. It is all based on the desire to -dazzle. - -So long as America has parks, so long will she chew pea-nuts, and -so long as she chews pea-nuts, so long will she continue to remain -as artlessly, amazingly and convincingly American as she is at the -present moment. To take a few pertinent instances, you will find that -all American oratory is simply and solely pea-nut oratory. I append an -extract from a speech delivered at the New York Board of Aldermen by a -representative from the Borough of Brooklyn, as reported in an American -paper:— - - “I demand this ordinance to your attention fer the sake of - humanity and fer the cause of freedom. Has introduced two - ordinances on this subject before, and now I am submittin’ this - Bill instead of them two. Maybe I don’t know nuthin’ about how - things is over here on this side of the bridge, but I know just - how it is in Brooklyn. An’ I wanter tell you that them motormen - over in Brooklyn is grinded under the heels of their masters - just as the slaves was drove in the olden times by his masters, - an’ it’s time fer us to interfere in this here matter now. - - “Now you may want to know why them motormen don’t come over - here and speak up to you for their rights. If the is suffering - such outrages as this, you asks, why don’t they come here and - tell us that they is sufferin’ and ast us to life the yoke from - offen them? - - “I’ll tell yer why they don’t come. They dasn’t. That’s why. - - “They’re afraid, because they’re slaves and dasn’t speak up - fer themselves. If they was to come over here and say to this - committee, ‘We want you to protect us in our rights for the - reason that we’re sufferin’ and frozing in the winter,’ what - would happen? - - “Why, before them men got through speakin’ their names would be - taken and telegraphed to their masters, and when they got back - to their cars them masters would tell them they hadn’t no more - use for ’em no more furever.” - -Herein surely one may trace the effects of pea-nuts as easily as white -paint can be seen on a negro. - -Now let us turn to a sample of English “as she is wrote” and apparently -spoken by the American who can read:— - - The story about that fisherman wasn’t so bad. He was an old - guy, and so poor he had a hard time getting three squares a - day, and he had a wife and three kids to support. For some - reason too deep for your uncle, he had a rule to pitch his - nets in the sea only four times a day. One morning he went out - fishing before daylight, and the first drag he made, he copped - out a dead donkey. That made him pretty sore. Dead donks were a - frost, and he was out one throw. He win out a lot of mud, the - next throw, and he was sick, and he makes a howl about fortune. - - “Here I am,” says he, “hustling all day long and every day in - the week; I got no other graft but this; and yet as hard as I - wrestle I can’t pay rent. A poor man has no chance. The smooth - guys get all the tapioca, and the honest citizen nit.” - - Then he throws again, and finds another gold brick—stones, - shells, and stuff. I guess he was pretty wild when he sees - that. Three throws to the bad and nairy fish. - - When the sun came over the hill, he flopped down on his knees - and prayed like all good Mussulmens, and after that gave the - Lord another song. - -English of this description runs very badly to pea-nut. It is distorted -and degraded and entirely ungrammatical. Yet no one will deny that, if -it is not commonly written, it is at least commonly spoken, even in -such centres as New York and Boston. To American ears and eyes there is -nothing about it that can be quarrelled with. Every American knows what -is meant by “guys,” “tapioca,” “nit,” “gold-brick,” “nairy,” “squares,” -“hot-air,” and so forth; and he uses these and similarly squalid words -and phrases in his daily speech and conversation. If you were to tell him -that such a sentence as “he win out a lot of mud, the next throw” was -grammatically unsound and impossible, he would ask you please to be so -kind “as not to pull his leg.” He is mentally incapable of distinguishing -the kind of muss I have quoted from writing of a correct order, and when -it creeps into his newspapers, and fictional publications, as it is -continually doing, he never as much as suspects that there is anything -wrong. - -Such a pea-nutty view of language points its own moral. It is a view that -is universal among Americans, and it can be proved to obtain even among -the best of American authors, who habitually use some of the crudest -Americanisms without knowing it. - -I need scarcely add that the pea-nut flavour predominates in most -American affairs. The advertising of the country is done wholly on -pea-nut principles, its politics are run on pea-nut lines, and its -professional men and financiers indulge in every species of pea-nut -methods. No doubt one should be charitable enough to refrain from blaming -them for it. They are to the manner born, and the pea-nut idiosyncracy -is so firmly implanted in their natures that it would be impossible for -them to shake it out, even if they tried. So that they go on pea-nutting -and pea-nutting from generation to generation, and in spite of the -extraordinary number of colleges, free schools, reading clubs, and -general facilities for culture, they remain clear pea-nut right through. - -As I do not happen to wish them any particular harm, I shall express the -pious hope that they will long continue to pea-nut. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE DRAMA - - -The Americans are nothing if not fiercely and incorrigibly theatrical. -It is true that they have only one pose, namely, the pose of being -gloriously and unaffectedly American. Yet in all the large issues of life -they display a strong sense of the stage, they revel in the more obvious -situations, and they have an innate love of a good curtain. - -These facts are strikingly illustrated in the American law courts, -where all small matters are managed on the lines of comedy, and all -large matters on the lines of hot and lurid melodrama. The recent Thaw -trial may be taken as a typical case in point, so far as melodrama is -concerned. The speeches of counsel on both sides might have been written -specially for the Adelphi Theatre, and every gesture of the rival -declaimers would seem to have been modelled on the style of the adipose -itinerant actor who plays “Othello” in penny gaffs. - -So far as the real stage is concerned, the Americans are to be credited -with quite a number of startling innovations. They were the sole -inventors of the Deadwood Dick kind of play, which involves the tooling -on to the stage of an ancient and battered mail coach, accompanied by -feats of unthinkable skill with the shooting irons. I believe, too, -that they were the only begetters of the drama that has for its central -attraction a real set-to between bona-fide bruisers, who fight with the -gloves off and punish one another for all they are worth under American -rules. - -Then, of course, I must not forget to mention the world-renowned “Tank -Drama.” It appears that an American manager happened once upon a time to -find himself in a second-hand galvanised iron store. Here he discovered -an enormous iron tank which he found could be purchased for a song. -In a fit of abstraction, and in pursuance of the American tendency to -buy anything and everything that can be had dirt cheap, he purchased -the tank. And having it on his hands and no particular use for it, he -hired a dramatist to write a play around it. To this woolly genius a -tank of course suggested water and high dives and swimmers, and before -you could say hey, presto! Mr. Manager found himself in possession of a -sensational, if somewhat humid, melodrama, the like of which had never -before been seen on any road. - -The Tank Drama toured the States for years on end, to the approval and -delight of American audiences, and for anything I know to the contrary, -it is still running, the tank itself having by this time, no doubt, grown -a little leaky. - -In England the public is familiar with melodramas in which the principal -part is taken by steam-rollers, circular saws, fire-engines, and other -pieces of mechanism. The Tank Drama, however, was the progenitor of -them all. It was from the Americans, also, that we learnt to grace our -melodramas with the presence on the stage of real live cows, racehorses, -ducks and geese, faithful dogs, dancing bears, blue monkeys, and educated -asses. - -The American public prides itself upon the rapidity with which the -national dramatists, from Clyde Fitch or Augustus Thomas to David Belasco -or Theodore Kremer, can turn out almost any species of dramatic work to -order. On the production of a five-act tragedy recently in New York, -it was announced that the author had written “the whole contraption” -in under the twenty-four hours. I can well believe it. The majority of -American plays that come to us on this side bear unmistakable indications -of having been written in haste, and with a single eye to getting through -with the labour. This is no doubt due to the circumstance that American -managers have a mania for producing new pieces, and that the average run -of such pieces is exceedingly short. Authors do not feel it to be worth -their while to take pains, particularly as the majority of them have to -subsist by dressing up in dramatic guise some new and big mechanical -invention or some cause célèbre or tragedy in real life or some stupid -story, which happens to have caught on, but which they know cannot in the -nature of things keep the stage for more than a few weeks. - -Although one is continually hearing of the triumphs of this or that -American actor or actress in Shakespearean parts, it is a solemn fact -that the average of Shakespearean acting in America is very much below -that of any other country in which Shakespeare is consistently played. I -cannot, of course, forget that America produced the late Mr. Phelps and -gave us Miss Mary Anderson, whom all the world admired. But these are the -exceptions. The rule is that the American actor who plays Shakespeare is -a bull-necked, unlettered mummer who has served his apprenticeship to the -circus business or to the plumbing, and roars out Shakespeare’s lines -with a nasal intonation and an absolute lack of understanding. Nine out -of ten American actors ought to carry a net with them. - -I am aware that it may be contended that the foregoing aspects of the -American drama are things of the past, and that in all essential respects -the theatre in America is nowadays on an equal footing with the theatre -in England. In a considerable measure, this may be so, due, no doubt, -to the mixed beneficence of the blessed brotherhood: Frohman, Klaw and -Erlanger. - -Yet there can be no getting away from the fact that the American plays -and American companies that are from time to time brought to London for -our edification fail woefully to interest us. - -In London, quite lately we have been presented with two plays of American -extraction and rendered by American companies. One of them “Mrs. Wiggs -of the Cabbage Patch” to wit, at Terry’s Theatre, appears to have been -a success, from a monetary point of view, and nobody can witness it -without entertainment. On the other hand, it suffers from that pea-nutty -exuberance and thinness of interest which are so characteristically -American. The sentiment in it is of the floweriest and slobberiest sort, -the comedy forced and jerky, and the setting squalid and depressing to a -degree. It is said to be a transcript of life among the American poorer -classes, and herein conceivably it is instructive if not altogether -uplifting; for it indicates only too plainly that the hackneyed American -talk about “the full dinner-pail” and the general snugness and decency -of the existence of the American poor has precious little foundation in -fact. Of course, Mrs. Wiggs herself is made to exhibit singularly good -qualities of heart, and a certain shrewd and humorous wisdom. But the -rest of the characters—not even excluding the weepily-named Lovey-Mary -and Mrs. Wiggs’s troops of wild-cat children—are the kind of people whom -it sets one’s teeth on edge to meet. If, as I am told, America is full -of Cabbage Patches, I can only say that America should hasten to the -penitent form. - -The other play of which London was adjured to expect great things was -called “Strongheart.” It ran for a couple of weeks or more at the Aldwych -Theatre, and was then taken off. “Strongheart” purported to give us some -highly realistic glimpses of American college life. There was a great -deal of American football in it, and a great deal of ra, ra, ra-ing about -it. There were also unlimited quantities of ra, ra rant. But the plot -exhibited the usual thinness, the construction was slack and loose, -and the characterisation feeble and colourless. If the company which -supported the handsome Robert Edeson in this particular piece is to be -taken as a fair sample, I feel free to conclude that in the lump American -actors and actresses are a reasonably poor crowd. Play as they would, -the men failed to convince us that they were persons of any particular -breeding, and the women said their lines as if they were in pain, and -walked through their parts like so many uninspired clothes horses. Of -course I know America has many gifted actors and actresses such as -William Faversham, James K. Hackett, E. H. Sothern, Julia Merlowe, -Olga Nethersole and Mery Mannering—but, as luck will have it, with the -exception of the second-named, who is a Canadian, they’re all English. -And so is even the inimitable Hap Ward. On the whole, I think America -will have to make some very serious strides in the dramatic art before -she can fairly hope to show England anything that is worth looking at. - -When you turn to the music halls you find the American in equally sad -case. There is no performer of note on the English music-hall stage whose -training and experience have been American. From the other side we get a -few trick bicyclists, wire-walkers, high divers, and comic speech makers -whose pea-nutty witticisms are obviously culled from the comic papers. -They help to fill up the programme, without in any sense helping to fill -up the house. - -It is in this connection that the Americans have made a practical avowal -of their pathetic inferiority; for they are said to have made contracts -with some of the leading English stars for appearances in America, -on terms which plainly indicate that the American managers must be -singularly hard up for talent and quite incapable of finding it in their -own country. - -The fact is, that in this as in a variety of other matters, the -American’s cock-sureness and unblushing faith in his personal beauty -and powers have led him considerably astray. The American really -possesses scarcely any talent. All he can do is to boast and shout and -advertise. And having little or nothing behind him to boast and shout -and advertise about, he is bound in the long run to find himself at a -disadvantage. Half the actresses and female music-hall artists of America -are successful not because they can do anything, but because they have -been “boosted” into fame by the pushful, blatant manager. The sole -accomplishment of many of them is that they can undress prettily in full -view of their audiences. - -For the rest they bolster up their position by extraneous escapades -rather than by art. They are harum-scarum, feather-brained young women -who for the most part would find it exceedingly difficult to get a living -by the exercise of their alleged smartness before an English public. And -as for American actors and music-hall men, the best that can be said of -them is that when they are not vulgar they are deadly dull, and the worst -that their real sphere of life is the American circus. I wish they would -all take to the Tank. - -The average American theatrical man, invariably strikes me as being a -born circus-man, intended by nature to go around in a gaudy procession -by day and to fill up his nights showing off wild beasts and freaks and -Deadwood coaches. Unconsciously he does all his business and manages all -his affairs on circus principles. He is for ever beating the drum and -inviting the crowd to walk up and see the finest show on earth. The ideal -man of his private bosom is the late P. T. Barnum, who was the father of -advertisement and the originator of the fine art of “boosting.” It was -P. T. Barnum who said, or who got somebody to say for him, “When you have -anything good, keep on letting on about it, and you will get rich.” - -The American business man has always considered that saying to be the -extreme height of philosophy. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER X - -SPORT - - -The Americans are all “sports.” But to their credit, they are one and -all “dead games.” They have a sporting tradition which extends back to -the time when their great-grandfathers gambled for negresses and went -trailing for Indians in pretty much the same way that an Englishman goes -shooting wild duck. - -It is said, with what truth I know not, that the Americans hunt -the fox in red coats and top-hats, and that they are yachtsmen and -fishermen and big game killers. I have met a considerable number of -Americans—well-to-do and otherwise—but I never yet came across one whom -I could conscientiously figure in any of the latter connections. Of -course, there is the America Cup Race to confound me, and there are the -redoubtable doings of President Roosevelt on the rolling prairie and -in the Rockies, and there is young Mr. Jay Gould’s defeat of our Mr. -Eustace Miles at Rackets or Ping Pong or some such game. All the same, -I will never believe that the modern American is leisurely enough or -uncommercial enough to know much about real sport. - -That they play games in America even as we play games in England appears -to be fairly evident. The game of white man’s games, namely, cricket, -is, however, a game they do not understand. Baseball and football on -the other hand are exercises which they are alleged to have cultivated -out of all recognition. Baseball I know nothing about. And when I come -to consider it closely, I could wish that I knew nothing about American -football. - -Pugilism without the gloves having been forbidden by law in America, -the free and equal inhabitants thereof must e’en look round for a form -of sport which would allow of their “lamming the hides off one another” -without being pulled up short by the police; and they settled on -football. The essence of American football is not to kick or punch the -ball, but to kick, punch, break up, deface and destroy the next man. On -all American football fields a squad of surgeons, bonesetters, and nurses -have to be in continual attendance. The crushing of a player’s ribs, the -gouging out of his eye, or the splitting open of his head are regarded as -trifling matters among American sportsmen, and when the football player -goes forth to the fray, he makes a point of taking a fond farewell of -his relations and friends in case of even more serious accident. Here, -again, you have a distinct instance of the American tendency to outrage -and excess. They have overdone football to such an extent that they -themselves consider it in the light of something which approximates -closely to a murderous affray. So much for games. - -As Indians are no longer shootable, and negroes can no longer be -hunted with dogs, and the buffalo is extinct, and the grizzly a “rare -proposition” and difficult of access, the modern American sport has to be -content with smaller deer, such as possum and bobolink and wild turkey. -And when he goes gunning for these trophies he is a sight to see. Nobody -can rival him in the magnificence of his outfit. He insists upon donning -cow-boy attire and proceeding to the field of action on a fiery mustang, -with a magazine of guns slung all over him, and enough ammunition to take -Port Arthur. The whole of this equipment has been purchased at store -prices, and he acquires it not because it is likely to be useful to him -but because he thinks that it makes him look smart. When it comes to -yachting or fishing or racing you can depend upon him to display an equal -gaiety of demeanour and to “dress” and “swank” the part to perfection. - -For the fox-hunting I shall say nothing. The indigenous American fox does -not run straight, the imported fox has lost some of the best qualities of -his English forbears, and the American variety of foxhound is a romping, -ill-mannered, and indiscreet quadruped. - -The national sport of America is horse racing, qualified with a -considerable dash of trotting. And here, of course, the American -temperament in all its aspects is made to shine. The head quarters -of American horse racing—the Epsom, Ascot and Sandown of the United -States—is a place called Saratoga, where the trunks come from. Here you -find the American horse, the American racing man, and the American sport -in their highest and lowest and most perfect expression. It is said -that a Saratoga horse is poison-proof; being so accustomed to profound -potations of laudanum, bromide, and other sedatives that he can quaff -any quantity of them without turning a hair. The people who live at -Saratoga are all horsey and dishonest. They speak the most degraded form -of Anglo-Saxon—a sort of Americo-Negroid flash talk—and what they do -not know in the way of knavery and brutality has yet to be invented. -It goes without saying that all American racing men do not necessarily -dwell in this sublime spot. But a quite considerable contingent of them -have learnt lessons out of the Saratoga book, and are consequently as -dangerous to deal with as it is possible to conceive that white men could -be. - -The American sportsmen we are privileged to see in England have, with -some notable exceptions, failed signally to secure our confidence. There -are honest men among them—though never by any chance a “jay”—and there -are sheep of a blackness which would do no discredit to the nether pit. -On the whole their connection with the English turf has been unfortunate -for the English turf. We are most of us quite old enough to remember the -unpleasant things that happened when an organised gang of these gentry -descended upon our innocent English rings and racecourses some three -years ago. They got their hands well into the English pockets, depleted -us of much glittering money, raised what they were pleased to consider -“general h—l” in the scandal way, and left us outraged and aghast. Up to -this period in our history the astute English racing-man had regarded -himself as the last word in craft and wariness; but the Americans -despoiled him as easily as if he had been a “tenderfoot,” and when he -discovered it, Mr. Englishman was very shocked. The racing interests of -these realms is still suffering from the shaking it received during the -exciting period to which I refer. The only profit the poor Britishers got -out of the deal was a new-fashioned way of riding, which still remains in -vogue, and a lesson in caution which will last us a good century. - -What the American jockey really means was forcibly borne in upon us by -the vagaries of a Mr. Tod Sloan. By dint of the usual advertising and -bluff, coupled indeed with no ordinary gifts as a horseman, Mr. Sloan -made his early career in England a success at the first blush. He was -soon in receipt of an income of ridiculous dimensions, and hob-nobbing -with the best blood of the country. He got found out, as Americans will, -and ended up feebly by smacking a waiter across the head with a champagne -bottle. Luck does not appear to have looked his way since. He went back -to America a disgraced man, even for America; and took to giving tips -for a New York paper. At the present moment he is said to be engaged -in the gentle art of billiard-marking at a salary running to at least -ten dollars a week. I recite the history of Mr. Sloan to encourage the -others. Our experiences with the American racing-man in this country -justify us in assuming that he is an exceptionally sad dog at home. -America is overrun with him, and while she has done everything that lay -in her power to corral and exterminate him he still continues merrily on -his wicked way. - -It only remains to point out that the Americans as a people are frantic -gamblers, and that they are infatuated enough to regard gambling as a -form of sport. Probably more gambling at cards goes on in the United -States than in the whole of the countries of Europe put together. The -proper American is everlastingly playing at poker, which is a bluffing -game, and which he will assure you trains him for his business. The -American card-sharper has been famous in song and story time out of -mind. For sheer coolness, audacity, and skill at the job, he has never -had an equal. Occasionally he lands on these shores, with a picturesque -entourage, takes a flat in the West End of London, and relieves the -adolescent gentry of the neighbourhood of their little alls. Then he is -up and off, on the wings of the morning. - -Among themselves, too, the Americans play a great deal of roulette, -petit chevaux, and kindred fascinations. They count also amongst the -most enthusiastic patrons of Monte Carlo, where season after season many -of them turn up with very little money and make a fat thing of it. Last -season a long-haired gentleman from Kansas City scooped up between two -and three hundred louis a night for twenty nights running by the simple -process of walking from table to table and backing 17. He told me that he -and his wife were there for a little trip, and that he had hit on the 17 -idea because 17 was the number of their cabin on the liner which brought -them over. Of course 17 can refuse to come up at Monte Carlo for hours at -a time. But whenever this raw-boned large-handed citizen of Kansas chose -to put money on it, up it came inside two or three spins. - -There are American gamblers at Monte Carlo, however, who are not by any -means so consistently lucky as my friend. The money some of them get -through when they are having a bad time would probably astonish the old -folks at home. But it is only fair to them to say that they take their -losses with an unruffled, if rather moist, brow and go off solemnly to -cable for further supplies. - -When a certain sort of American millionaire turns up in the -Mediterranean paradise there are sure to be merry doings. I have seen -such a one mop his wet face after handing the bank a bundle of notes that -would have made a tidy year’s income for a man with a large family, and -remark, a little feebly, “Gee whizz!” Then he was led gently away by a -number of pretty ladies. - -It is in what one may term hard gambles such as he gets at Monte Carlo -that the American shows his most sportsmanlike qualities. At roulette, -or trente et quarente, it is almost impossible for him to cheat, and -consequently he wins or loses more or less calmly and with perfect -honour. But at poker—tut—tut! - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -HOGS - - -The national peril of the United States is hogs. Of the peculiar and -subtle influences which have driven most Americans into the pig business -I find it impossible to formulate any reasonable account. Of course, -there is the fact that the pig business has large monies in it, and that -America is a country in which it would seem you have only to tickle a -little pig with a hoe to turn him into a fine fat porker. - -There can be no doubt whatever that a very large percentage of Americans -think, talk, and raise pig throughout the whole of their natural lives. -This industry appears to be of such a fascinating character that when -once you have got into it you cannot possibly get out of it. Even if -you wax unrighteously rich and get elected to Congress and move your -family to New York, you still stick to pork and lard as if they were your -brother. I understand that many of the ball-rooms in the big brown stone -mansions in Fifth Avenue are waxed with lard. - -I do not know whether there were any pigs in America before the Pilgrim -Fathers landed. But it is certain that there are millions of them there -now, and that they eat apples and grow wondrous frisky and have a good -time of it—till killing day comes around. And it is precisely here that -the frightful Americanism of the hog begins. For the wicked pig, like the -wicked man, has a knack of finding his way to Chicago—which, as all the -world now knows, is the most bloodthirsty, sultry, and unregenerate city -on the face of the earth. In this place they kill pigs by the thousand -daily. Hoggish shrieks rend all the air, the stores and warehouses groan -with the pig’s dismembered parts, and the odour of his frizzling adipose -tissue is in every nostril. - -It seems to me more than likely that the pig owes the beginnings of his -present supremacy in the United States to the Irish, who are pretty thick -upon the ground there. An Irishman without a pig in one form or another -would in all likelihood take cold, or die of heart-ache. In his own -distressful Island, the Irishman and his pig live on terms of freedom -and fraternity that put the American Constitution to the distinct blush. -Not only does the pig pay the greater proportion of rent that gets paid -in Ireland, but he is the friend and playmate of the family, and is -invariably accorded a cosy corner for himself on the domestic hearth. - -It seems only natural, therefore, that in emigrating to the States, the -Irishman who could manage it would insist on taking with him one or more -pigs, probably as much for company’s sake as for any other reason. And -behold the result! What was a simple and very human foible on the part of -the Irishman, has become, with the American, a raging and soul-consuming -obsession. Pork, pork, pork, pork, pork! That is the cry that rises daily -and hourly to heaven from the greater part of the United-States-half -of North America. Everybody is concerned in it; everybody has money -in it; everybody wants to get more money out of it. The pig is rushed -through his feeds, weighed every morning till he has assumed the right -specific gravity, hurried off by car to his doom, killed and slain on the -no-waiting-here principle, and turned into hams, sides, lard, brawn, and -sausages for the delectation of a hungry world before he has a chance to -say George Washington. - -America as a country, and the Americans as a people, depend upon hogs for -their prosperity to an extent that is appalling. Upon the dead weight -of him in the warehouses, and upon his firmness, or want of it, in the -markets, hangs the stability of all sorts of stocks, shares, bonds, -debentures, and general securities. If pig is “up,” America is a land of -contented households and smiling faces. If pig is “down,” she is plunged -forthwith into the deepest woe and the meanest irritability. - -All of which affords one further striking evidence that the Americans are -really a wonderful people, and that they deserve the generous tributes of -praise that they so consistently and lavishly draw upon themselves. - -A nation whose principal diet is pea-nuts, and whose principal profit is -derived from the sale of pigs, is obviously pretty low down in the scale -of civilisation. A hog tender cannot by any chance be the finest kind of -man, neither can a pork butcher or a wholesale ham merchant. And every -American who is not a member of a trust, or a pastor of a church, or a -boss billposter, or a missionary, or a comic singer, is either a hog -tender, a pork butcher, or a wholesale ham merchant. At any rate, so one -gathers from the authorised reports. - -And just as nut-chewing is responsible for certain grave weaknesses in -the American character, so is pig-dealing. The pig and the potato have -made the Irishman the idlest man in the world. The pig takes no rearing, -and the potato is such a lively and prolific tuber that it will grow -almost without planting. The Irishman has reaped the full disadvantages -incident to these merits in the pig and the potato. And one feels sure -that the American is suffering equally from the effects of the pig. I -have no wish to reopen the box of horrors which was introduced to our -notice some time back by the author of “The Jungle.” That gentleman -did his work thoroughly, and the atmosphere is even yet redolent in -consequence. It does not concern me that Chicago meats, tinned or cured, -are not always entirely fitted for human consumption, or that the Chicago -method of treating such meats are uncleanly, or that the Chicago idea of -industrial efficiency is a perverted one. What does concern me is that -Chicago is an American city, built by Americans, run by Americans, and -made lurid by Americans—on pig. - -To suggest to the American reformer that he should take steps for the -immediate extermination of the pigs in America, steps, in fact, such -as have been taken with a view to the extinction of the rabbit in -Australia, would be to fill him with horror and amazement. He is all for -the amelioration and improvement and cleaning up of Chicago; he does not -see that it is the pig and the great American people who are the root -trouble. Prohibit the breeding and rearing of pigs throughout the United -States, and you will have gone much further towards the cleaning up of -Chicago, and, for that matter, the cleaning up of America, than you are -ever likely to get by dealing simply with Chicago itself. So long as -there are pigs, so long will Chicago reek. Abolish pigs, and you have -abolished the worst features of the world’s foulest city. - -The reformer will find that my suggestion is an impracticable one. He may -even go the length of calling it frivolous and ridiculous. But we shall -see what we shall see. America will one day either have to forsake pig or -come to very bitter grief. She is already in considerable straits as to -the marketing of her porcine staples. She has shoved them down the necks -of her own people till they can no more. She is pushing them down English -throats with all the force that in her lies, and the limit is within a -very little way of being reached. Do as one will, one cannot consume -more than a certain amount of American pig in the course of the day’s -deglutition. Europe is taking far more than is good for her even now, -and yet the American demand is for bigger sales and extended markets, to -prevent the stuff from rotting at home. The position is unfortunate in -quite a number of senses; but it is precisely what any prescient American -ought to have expected. America is overdoing it in the matter of pig, -just as she is overdoing it in most other matters. When you have got the -measure of people’s hunger and purchasing capacity you cannot appreciably -increase them by any amount of advertising or bluff. - -The Americans boast that they can sell everything appertaining to a pig -save and except the squeal. I don’t wish to frighten them, but it would -not surprise me in the least if within the space of a few years the large -accumulation of squeals which they must, by this time, have on hand were -to arise up as it were, and din their ears in a manner which they will -not relish. - -I may remark finally that in spite of everything that Chicago may say -and publish in their praise, there can be no question that American pig -products are of a most inferior and unappetising quality as compared -with the real article. American hog meat exhibits a coarseness of -grain and a crudeness of flavour which will incline any person of -gustatory discrimination to the abstention of the Hebrew. Eggs and bacon -constitute the English national breakfast dish; ham and eggs are the -sure rock and support of our country inns and cheap restaurants. Both -these dishes have, however, fallen into sad disrepute during late years, -and I have no hesitation in attributing this grave and heartrending -circumstance to the fact that the bacon and ham nowadays served are -almost exclusively American. - -The gentlemen from the other side must excuse me if I appear as he would -phrase it, “to tread somewhat too severely on his face”; but I really -mean him no evil. Rather do I wish him all manner of good. - -Besides which it is one’s duty to be patriotic; and charity—even in the -article of pig—should begin at home. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -VERDICT - - -Before I leave the jury of potent, grave and reverend Britishers to their -own reflections on the subject before them, it may be well to indulge in -a little summing-up. - -I have shown that the fiery, untameable American is a creature of more -than doubtful antecedents, and that he conceals beneath a veneer of -smartness and originality several qualities of mind and heart that are -not greatly to his credit. I have shown that his destiny would seem to -lie in the direction of a reversion to a condition of pseudo-barbarism -which will in many respects identify him with the aboriginal possessors -of his country. Already the face, features and body of him are becoming -plainly Red-Indianised. Already his talk contains hints and suggestions -of “war-paint,” the “war-path,” the “tomahawk” and the getting of -“scalps.” If I mistake not the rest is bound soon to follow. - -I have shown also that the American woman, in so far as she is exhibited -to us in London, and on the Continent of Europe, is a somewhat frivolous -female, and not always comely; smart, possibly, and lively, possibly, -but on the whole disposed to be too smart and too lively. I have given -you a peep at the American millionaire, and found him wanting in -everything but money, and not invariably too well provided with that. I -have pointed out that American advertising, whether for the sake of gain -or of notoriety, is a shameless, blatant and undesirable affair. For the -first time in history I have set it on record that the Americans eat too -many pea-nuts. I have run the rule over their painful attempts at the -dramatic art, and proved that in this important connection they have been -responsible for many banalities and futilities, and that their average of -performance is far below that of the rest of the theatre-using world. I -have demonstrated, also, that their real metier is the giddy tenth-rate -circus, ablast with drums and the roaring of wild beasts, the snuffling -of freaks, and the shrieking mirth of the vulgar. I have paid a passing -tribute to the integrity and blamelessness of their sportsmen. And I have -warned them solemnly about pork. What more can be expected of me? - -It is more than likely that I shall be told that I have chosen for the -subject of my remarks a rather stodgy type of American, which is rapidly -giving place to a saner, wholesomer, and pleasanter type, resulting from -the spread of culture and a modification of manners on the best European -plans. To this I reply that I have spoken of the American exactly as he -seems to me to be, and judged him on the numerous samples which have -hitherto come my way. That there must be some residuum of sound and -serious people in the United States seems probable, but I have never been -to the United States. - -Can anyone point to anything in the world that America is accomplishing -which is purely and simply calculated to serve the highest interests of -the human race? Can you look upon her trusts, her general methods of -finance, her social and industrial system, her bosses, her political -parties, the administration of her law, her press, her religious -mountebanks, her quacks and charlatans of all conditions, and pronounce -them to be good? Is it not the fact that these, in common with pretty -well the whole of the remainder of her institutions, are not only -defective, but a great deal more defective than one’s right to expect in -view of the exceptional natural resources of the country and her great -energy and wealth? - -You are at liberty to answer these questions in any way you please; but -the conviction of myself and a by no means inconsiderable number of other -persons will remain the same. - -It is clear that if the Americans are going to take that exalted position -among the nations to which they are for ever laying claim, they will be -compelled to get rid of a great many excrescences of temperament which -they seem now only too busy developing and emphasising by every means in -their power. - -Is it possible for them, in the nature of things, so to disencumber -themselves? - -Will they ever become a really free country, dethrone the millionaire and -the boss and acknowledge honesty as a political virtue? - -Will they ever put silencers on the yellow press and elect a -congressional committee to examine the gangrenous decay of their wit and -the dropsical growth of their emotions? - -Will they ever make a point of keeping their women at home and give -practical proof of their pride in the peaches by marrying them themselves? - -Will they ever learn the English language which was the best thing -imported in the “Mayflower”? - -Will they ever get rid of the climatic influences that compel them to -speak and sing through their noses? - -Will they ever quote their astounding President at anything but a -discount or realise that he is their greatest national asset? - -Will they ever place a prohibitive tariff on noise and lynch -sensation-mongers as they do niggers? - -Will their playwrights ever learn the difference between a phonograph -record and a play and will their audiences ever learn to appreciate -acting when they see it? - -Will they ever discover that sport is not merely a business of record -breaking and that business and football, I class the two together, are -not the sports of the stone age in which the vanquished was not only -overthrown but subsequently utterly consumed? - -Will they ever give up pea-nuts? - -Will they ever cease from the blind cultivation of pork? - -I trow not. - -And as these chapters are intended a great deal more for the English than -for the Americans, I may say here and now that it is the Englishman’s -plain duty to himself and to the race to refrain as far as in him lies -from the easy sin of imitation. In his admiration and envy for the -magical and almost uncanny successes of his American brother, let him not -be carried away with the stupid notion that it is possible for him to go -forth and do likewise. For one thing, he hasn’t got the climate; and for -another he hasn’t got either the pea-nuts or the pork. - -Let the Englishman, therefore, be content to remain unreservedly and -unsophisticatedly English. When he sees an American adaptation or -invasion—whether commercial, social, religious, or otherwise—coming his -way, let him frown it down, pass by it and flee from it. Such things may -seem simple and innocuous and desirable enough in themselves, they may -tickle the imagination, and they may even appear to be for the distinct -betterment of mankind. But in the aggregate they must of necessity tend -to the Americanisation of this Country—and that is an evil which every -Britisher ought to be prepared to make any sacrifice to avoid. - -If any profit worth having is to come out of the present welter it will -come by the Anglicisation of America, and not by the Americanisation of -England. The Americans themselves recognise the weight and importance -of this fact. Some of them are already wearing eye-glasses. They smile -in their sleeves at our readiness to adopt the least admirable of their -multifarious foolish ways. When an American meets an Englishman who is -trying to run his business or his household or other of his affairs after -American models, and particularly when he meets an Englishman who looks -upon the Americans as his superiors and masters at the game of life, he -is sheerly, if unavowedly, amazed. He knows what America is, he knows in -his heart what America means, and if it lay in his power to choose the -place to which he will go when he dies, that place would not be Chicago, -nor would it be even Paris, but a clean, free, un-Americanised England. - -But with all their usually enormous and often brilliant faults—that -amaze, even if they do not stagger humanity—the Americans are a nation -of Cæsars. In every field of activity they have scored many triumphs. -But they are not satisfied with acquisition and conquest on a colossal -scale, they want to surpass all previous records in ancient or modern -times. They are endowed with an inherent genius for arriving at their -destination, and the destination they have set down for themselves in the -national time-table is one in keeping with their vast and great country, -whose mission it seems to be to make Europe and the world sit-up. -Therefore, within the next decade or two, I should not be surprised to -see a very much larger splash of purple on the map of the earth—and to -see it called the American Empire. - -[Illustration] - -UNWIN BROS., LTD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND WOKING. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Abounding American, by -Thomas William Hodgson Crosland - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ABOUNDING AMERICAN *** - -***** This file should be named 56185-0.txt or 56185-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/6/1/8/56185/ - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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