“ No one would think of walking steadily for six days, yet once this became sport; dozens of men undertook it, and long walks became a fad. If a man committed a crime and should be sentenced to play the modern American game of football every day for thirty days as a punishment, there are some who might prefer a death sentence and so avoid a lingering end; but under the title of "sport" all young men play it, and a number are maimed and killed yearly.
Sport is in the blood of the common people. Children begin with tops, marbles, and kites, yet never appreciate our skill with either. ”

“ Every one knows, and the American best of all, that all men are not equal, never were and never can be. Yet this false doctrine is their standard, and they swear by it, though some will explain that what is meant is political freedom. Freedom accounts for the gross impertinence of the ignorant and lower classes, the laughable assumptions of servants, and the illogical pretenses of the nouveau riche, which make America impossible to some people. ”

“ I think I am not overstating the truth when I say that every city in the United States has been looted by the politicians of various parties. It is of public record that Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, and New York citizens have repeatedly risen and shown that the city was being robbed in the most bare-handed manner. Bribery and corruption have been found to exist to-day in the entire system, and if the credit of the republic stands on its political morale this vast union of States is a colossal failure, as it is being pillaged by politicians. ”

“ America has a body of physicians and surgeons who are a credit to the world, modest, conscientious, and with a high sense of honor, but they are as a dragon's tooth in a multitude to the so-called "quacks," who take the money of the masses and prey upon them, protected in many cases by the law. No one profession so demonstrates the abject credulity of the great mass of Americans as that of medicine.
One other incident may further illustrate the jokes these so-called doctors play upon the common people. ”

“ In conversation Vice-President Roosevelt is hearty and open, a poor diplomat, but a talker who comes to the point. He says what he thinks, and asks no favor. He acts as though he wished to clap you on the shoulder and be familiar. It will be difficult for you to understand that such a man is second in rank in this great nation. There are no imposing surroundings, no glamor of attendance, only Roosevelt, strong as a water-ox in a rice-field, smiling, all on the surface, ready to fight for his friend or his country. ”

“ The overeducation of the poor is a heartless thing. The women vie with the men, and as a result women graduates, taking positions at half the price that men demand, crowd them out of the fields of skilled labor, whereas the man, not crowded out, should, normally, marry the girl. In power, strength, and progress the American nation stands first in the world, and all this may be due to splendid educational facilities. But this is not everything. There result strife, unhappiness, envy, and a craze for riches. I do not think the Americans as a race are as happy as the Chinese. ”

“ The American pretends to be democratic; scoffs at England and other European lands, but at heart he is an aristocrat. His tastes are only limited by his means, and not always then. Any American, especially a politician, will tell you that there is but one class—the people, and that all are born equal. In point of fact, there are as many classes as there are grades of pronounced individuality, and all are very unequal, as every one knows. ”

“ I am no iconoclast, but listen to the story of the American woman who, with one hand, deforms her waist in the most barbarous fashion, while waving the other in horror at her Chinese sister with the bound feet. American women change their fashions twice a year or more. Fashions are in the hands of the middle classes, and the highest lady in the land is completely at their mercy; to disobey the mandates of fashion is to become ridiculous. The fashion is set in Paris and various cities by men and women who have skilled artists to draw patterns and paint pictures showing the new mode. ”

“ It is singular that some multi-millionaire does not grasp this opportunity to donate one hundred millions to a great national school or university, to be placed at Washington, where the buildings would all be lessons in architecture of marble after the plans of a world's fair. Instead they leave a few thousands here and a few there. Carnegie, the leading millionaire, gives libraries to cities all over the States, each of which bears the name of the giver. The object is too obvious, and is cheap in conception. In San Francisco some years ago a citizen tried the same experiment. ”

“ There are spasmodic instances of such indulgences, but in no sense can they be included, as in England and Spain, among the national sports, which leads me to the conclusion that, aside from the many peculiarities, as taking up and dropping sports, America, all in all, is the greatest sporting nation of the world. It leads in fist-fighting, rifle-shooting, in skilful angling, in yachting, in rowing, in running, in six-day walking, in auto-racing, in trotting and running horses, and in trap-shooting, and if its champions in all fields could be lined up it would make a surprising showing. ”

“ When I listen to these men, and see tens of thousands of Christian men and women living pure lives, building up vast cities, great monuments for the future, I feel that I can not judge the Americans. They perhaps expect too much from their freedom and their republican ideas. I shall never be a republican. I believe that we all have all the freedom we deserve. ”

“ I believe that I am not doing the American of the middle class wrong and the ultra-fashionable class an injustice in saying that it is as a class immoral.
Americans make great parade of their churches. Spires rise like the pikes of an army in every town, yet the morality of the men is low. There are in this land 600,000 prostitutes—ruined women. ”

“ It will be difficult for the average American to conceive it possible that a cultivated Chinaman, of all persons, should have been honestly amused at our civilization; that he should have considered what Mrs. Trollope called "our great experiment" in republics a failure, and our institutions, fashions, literary methods, customs and manners, sports and pastimes as legitimate fields for wit and unrepressed jollity. Yet in the unbosoming of this cultivated "heathen" we see our fads and foibles held up as strange gods, and must confess some of them to be grotesque when seen in this yellow light. ”

“ The houses of the best people I have told you about are as far removed from the commonplace as the equator from the poles. They are rich in conception, sumptuous in detail, artistic in every way, and filled with the art gems of the world. But these people have descended from refined people for several generations. They are the true Americans, but make up a small number compared to the inartistic whole. ”

“ He has been trained to treat his men well, and they respect him. But while the officer is the people's servant and his salary in some part is paid by the humblest grocer's clerk, laborer, or artisan, the officer has a social position which, in the eyes of himself and the Government, makes him the social equal of kings and emperors; and here we see a strange fact in American life. ”

“ In no land has the survival of the fittest found a more remarkable illustration. But the Indians are having their revenge. The Americans long ago brought over Africans as slaves; then, as the result of a war of words and war of fact, suddenly released them all, and, at one fell move, in obedience to the hysterical cries of their people, gave these ignorant semisavages and slaves the same political rights as themselves. ”

“ At the present time the old game of croquet is being revived under another name, and tennis is the vogue among many. Among the fashionable and wealthy men polo is the vogue, but among a few everything goes by fads for a few years. Every one will rush to see or play some game; but this interest soon dies out, and something new starts up. Such games as baseball and football, tennis and polo are, in a sense, in a class by themselves, but among the pastimes of the people a wide vogue belongs to fishing, and shooting wild fowl and large game. ”

“ CHAPTER VI THE AMERICAN PRESS
One feature of American life is so peculiar that I fear I can not present it to you clearly, as there is nothing like it under the sun. I refer to the newspapers. If such an institution should appear in any Oriental country, or even in Russia, many heads would fall to the ground for treason or gross disrespect to the power of the throne. The American must not only have the news of his neighbor, but the news of the world every hour in the day, and the newspapers furnish it. ”

“ Such a combat is by no means as dangerous as football, where the obvious intention seems to be to break ribs and crush the opponent.
Rowing is much indulged in, and yachting is a great national maritime sport, in which the Americans lead and challenge the world. In no sport is the wealth of the nation so well shown. Every seaside town has its yacht or boat club, and in this the interest is perpetual. Even in winter the yacht is rigged into an "ice-boat." I have often wondered that fashionable people do not take up the romantic sport of falconry, as they have the birds and every facility. ”

“ Many Washington men have become famous as dancers, and quite outshadow war heroes. All the officers of the army and navy are taught these dances at the Military and Naval Academies, it being a national policy to be agreeable to ladies; at least this must be so, as the men never dance together. To see several hundred people whirling about, as I have seen them at the inaugural of the President, is one of the most remarkable scenes to be observed in America. The man in Washington who can not dance is a "wallflower"—that is, he never leaves the wall. ”

“ With them science is but a synonym of truth; they fling all superstition and ignorance to the winds, and should be better known. Such names as Edison, Cope, Marsh, Hall, Young, Field, Baird, Agassiz, and fifty more might be mentioned, all authors whose books will give them undying fame, men who have devoted a lifetime to research and the accumulation of knowledge; yet the author of the last novel, "My Mule from New Jersey," will, for the day, have more vogue among the people than any of these. But such is fame, at least in America, where erudition is not appreciated as it is in "pagan" China. ”

“ Here we see where the power of one man or editor comes in, and worse yet, a nation which acquires this "newspaper habit," this having some one to think for it by machinery, as it were, will lose its mental power, its facility in analysis. I made bold to suggest this to a prominent man, but he merely laughed. As a whole, the American newspapers are valuable; they are the real educators of the people, and have a vast influence. ”

“ If I were to live in America I should wish to consort with her real scholars, culled from the best society of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, and other cities. In a word, the aristocracy of America is her educated class, the education that comes from association year after year with other cultivated people. ”

“ Instead of having one splendid church and devoting themselves to the real ethics of Christianity, these Christians have divided irrevocably, and so lost strength and force. They are in a sense turned against themselves, and their religious colleges are graduating men to perpetuate the differences. No more splendid religion than that expounded by Christ could be imagined if they would join hands and, like the Confucians, devote their attention not to rites and theological differences but to the daily conduct of men. ”

“ It was a distinct policy of the anti-home-rule party in Ireland to encourage the poor Irish to go to America; and now when there are more Irish in America than in Ireland the fate of Ireland is assured. Yet the American air takes the fight out of the Irishman, the rose from his cheek, and makes a natural-born politician out of him. America still continued to receive immigrants, and not satisfied with the natural flow of the human current, began to import African slaves to a country founded for the benefit of those who desired an asylum where they could enjoy religious and political freedom. ”

“ There are splendid museums of art, especially in Boston and New York. The art interests are particularly active, but not the people; there are a few art lovers only, the people in the mass being hopeless. Cheap prints, chromos, and other deadly things are ground out by the million and sold, to clog still deeper the art sense of an inartistic people. They laugh at our conventional Chinese art, but the extreme of conventionality is certainly better than some of the daubs I have seen in American homes. Americans have peculiar fancies in art. ”

“ Then came the etiquette of the auto—a German navy cap, rubber coat, and Chinese goggles. This peculiar uniform is of course only to be worn when racing, but you see the American going out for a slow ride solemnly attired in rubber coat and goggles. The moment the auto comes within reach of the poor man it will be given up; but it is now the fad and a most expensive one, the best machines costing ten thousand dollars or more, and I have seen races where the speed exceeded a mile a minute.
All sports have their ethics and rules and their correct costuming. ”

“ Perhaps the most extraordinary curists are the color doctors. They have rooms filled with blue and other colors, in whose rays the patient victim or the victim patient sits, "like Patience on a monument." I could not begin to give you an enumeration of the various kinds of electric cures; they are legion. But the most amazing class comprises the patent-medicine men, who are usually not doctors at all, but buy from some one a "cure" and then advertise it, spending in one instance which I investigated one million dollars a year. Every advantageous wall, stone, or cliff in America will be posted. ”

“ The object of the change of style is to create a sale for new goods, give work for laborers, and enable the producer to reach the pocketbook of the rich man; but the "fashions" have become so fixed, so thoroughly a national feature, that they affect rich and poor, and we have the spectacle of every woman studying these guides and conforming to them with a servility beyond belief. I once said to a lady, "The Chinese lady dresses richer than the American, but her styles have been very much the same for thousands of years," but I believe she doubted it. ”