As A Chinaman Saw Us Part 3

CHAPTER VIII

PECULIARITIES AND MANNERISMS

One finds it difficult to learn the language fluently because of a peculiar second language called "slang," which is in use even among the fashionable cla.s.ses. I despair of conveying any clear idea of it, as we have no exact equivalent. As near as I can judge, it is first composed by professional actors on the stage. Some funny remark being constantly repeated, as a part of a taking song, becomes slang, conveying a certain meaning, and is at once adopted by the people, especially by a cla.s.s who pose as leaders in all towns, but who are not exactly the best, but charming imitations of the best, we may say. To ill.u.s.trate this "jargon," I took a drive with a young lady at Manchester--a seaside resort. Her father was a man of good family, an official, and she was an attendant at a fashionable school. The following occurred in the conversation. Her slang is italicized:

Heathen Chinee: "It is very dull this week, Miss ----."

Young lady, sententiously: "_b.u.m._"

Heathen Chinee: "I hope it will be less b.u.m soon."

Young lady: "_It's all off with me all right_, if it don't change soon, _and don't you forget it_!"

Heathen Chinee: "I wish I could do something."

Young lady: "Well, you'll have to _get a move on you_, as I go back to school to-morrow; then there'll be _something doing_."

Heathen Chinee: "Have you seen ---- lately?"

Young lady: "Yes, and isn't he _a peach_? Ah, he's a _peacharina_, and _don't you forget it_!"

Young lady (pa.s.sing a friend): "_Ah, there_! why _so toppy_? _Nay, nay, Pauline_," this in reply to remarks from a friend; then turning to me, "Isn't she a _jim dandy_? _Say_, have you any girls in China that can _top_ her?"

These are only a few of the slang expressions which occur to me. They are countless and endless. Such a girl in meeting a friend, instead of saying good-morning, says, "_Ah, there_," which is the slang for this salutation. If she wished to express a difference of opinion with you she would say, "_Oh, come off._" This girl would probably outgrow this if she moved in the very best circle, but the shop-girl of a common type lives in a whirl of slang; it becomes second nature, while the young men of all cla.s.ses seem to use nothing else, and we often see the jargon of the lowest cla.s.s used by some of the best people. There has been compiled a dictionary of slang; books are written on it, and an adept, say a "rough" or "hoodlum," it is said can carry on a conversation with nothing else. Thus, "Hi, cully, what's on?" to which comes in answer, "Hunki dori." All this means that a man has said, "How do you do, how are you, and what are you doing?" and thus learned in reply that everything is all right. A number of gentlemen were posing for a lady before a camera. "Have you finished?" asked one. "Yes, _it's all off_,"

was the reply, "and _a peach_, I think." It is unnecessary to say that among really refined people this slang is never heard, and would be considered a gross solecism, which gives me an opportunity to repeat that the really cultivated Americans, and they are many, are among the most delightful and charming of people.

They have strange habits, these Americans. The men chew tobacco, especially in the South, and in Virginia I have seen men spitting five or six feet, evidently taking pride in their skill in striking a "cuspidore." In every hotel, office, or public place are cuspidores--which become targets for these chewers. This is a national habit, extraordinary in so enlightened a people. So ridiculous has it made the Americans, so much has been written about it by such visitors as Charles d.i.c.kens, that the State governments have determined to take up the "spitting" question, and now there is a fine of from $10 to $100 for any one spitting in a car or on a hotel floor. Nearly all the "up-to-date" towns have pa.s.sed anti-spitting laws. Up to this time, or even during my college days in America, this habit made walking on the sidewalk a most disagreeable function, and the interior of cars was a horror. Is not this remarkable in a people who claim so much? In the South certain white men and women chew snuff--a gross habit.

In the North they also have a strange custom, called chewing gum. This gum is the exudation from certain trees, and is manufactured into plates and sold in an attractive form, merely to chew like tobacco, and young and old may be seen chewing with great velocity. The children forget themselves and chew with great force, their jaws working like those of a cow chewing her cud, only more rapidly; and to see a party of three or four chewing frantically is one of the "sights" in America, which astonishes the Heathen Chinee and convinces him that, in the slang of the country, "_there are others_" who are peculiar. There are many manufactories of this stuff, which is harmless, though such constant chewing can but affect the size of the muscles of the jaw if the theory of evolution is to be believed; at least there will be no atrophy of these parts.

In New England, the northeastern portion of the country, this habit appeared to be more prevalent, and I asked several scientific persons if they had made any attempt to trace the history of the habit or to find anything to attribute it to. One learned man told me that he had made a special study of the habit, and believed that it was merely the modern expression in human beings of the cud chewing of ruminating mammals, as cows, goats, etc. In a word, the gum-chewing Americans are trying to chew their cud as did their ancestors. Any habit like this is seized upon by manufacturers for their personal profit, and every expedient is employed to induce people to chew. The gum is mixed with perfumes, and sold as a breath purifier; others mix it with pepsin, to aid the digestion; some with something else, which is sold on ships and excursion-boats as a cure or preventive for seasickness, all of which finds a large sale among the credulous Americans, who by a clever leader can be made to take up any fad or habit.

The Americans have a peculiar habit of "treating"; that is, one of a party will "treat" or buy a certain article and distribute it gratuitously to one or ten people. A young lady may treat her friends to gum, ice-cream, soda-water, or to a theater party. A matron may treat her friends to "high-b.a.l.l.s" or c.o.c.ktails at the club. The man confines his "treats" to drinks and cigars. Thus five or six Americans may meet in a club or barroom for the sale of liquors. One says, "Come up and have something;" or "What will you have, gentlemen; this is on me;" or in some places the treater says, "Let's liquor," and all step up, the drinks are dispensed, and the treater pays. You might suppose that he was deserving of some encomium, but not at all; he expects that the others will take their turn in treating, or at least this is the a.s.sumption; and if the party is engaged in social conversation each in turn will "treat," the others taking what they wish to drink or smoke.

There is a code of etiquette regarding the treat. Thus, unless you are invited, it would be bad form among gentlemen to order wine when invited to drink unless the "treater" asks you to have wine; he means a drink of whisky, brandy, or a mixed drink, or you may take soda or a cigar, or you may refuse. It is a gross solecism to accept a cigar and put it in your pocket; you should not take it unless you smoke it on the spot.

Drinking to excess is frowned upon by all cla.s.ses, and a drunkard is avoided and despised; but the amount an American will drink in a day is astonishing. A really delightful man told me that he did not drink much, and this was his daily experience: before breakfast a champagne c.o.c.ktail; two or three drinks during the forenoon; a pint of white or red wine at lunch; two or three c.o.c.ktails in the afternoon; a c.o.c.ktail at dinner, with two gla.s.ses of wine; and in the evening at the club several drinks before bedtime! This man was never drunk, and never _appeared_ to be under the influence of liquor, yet he was in reality never actually sober; and he is a type of a large number in the great cities who const.i.tute what is termed the "man about town."

The Americans are not a wine-drinking people. Whisky, and of a very excellent quality, is the national drink, while vast quant.i.ties of beer are consumed, though they make the finest red and white wines. All the grog-shops are licensed by the Government and State--that is, made to pay a tax; but in the country there is a political party, the Prohibitionists, who would drive out all wine and liquor. These, working with the conservative people, often succeed in preventing saloons from opening in certain towns; but in large cities there are from one to two saloons to the block in the districts where they are allowed.

Taking everything into consideration, I think the Americans a temperate people. They organize in a thousand directions to fight drinking and other vices, and millions of dollars are expended yearly in this direction. A peculiar quality about the American humor is that they joke about the most serious things. In fact, drink and drinking afford thousands of stories, the point of which is often very obscure to an alien. Here is one, told to ill.u.s.trate the cleverness of a drinker. He walked into a bar and ordered a "tin-roof c.o.c.ktail." The barkeeper was nonplussed, and asked what a tin-roof c.o.c.ktail was. "Why, it's on the house." I leave you to figure it out, but the barkeeper paid the bill.

The ingenuity of the Americans is shown in their mixed drinks. They have c.o.c.ktails, high-b.a.l.l.s, ponies, straights, fizzes, and many other drinks.

Books are written on the subject. I have seen a book devoted entirely to c.o.c.ktails. Certain papers offer prizes for the invention of new drinks.

I have told you that, all in all, America is a temperate country, especially when its composite character is considered; yet if the nation has a curse, a great moral drawback, it is the habit of drinking at the public bar.

CHAPTER IX

LIFE IN WASHINGTON

One of the best-known American authors has immortalized the Chinaman in some of his verses. It was some time before I understood the smile which went around when some one in my presence suggested a game of poker. I need not repeat the poem, but the essence of it is that the "Heathen Chinee is peculiar." Doubtless Mr. Harte is right, but the Chinaman and his ways are not more peculiar to the American than American customs and contradictions are to the Chinaman. If there is any race on the earth that is peculiar, it is the "Heathen Yankee," the good-hearted, ingenuous product of all the nations of the earth--black, red, white, brown, all but "yellow." Imagine yourself going out to what they call a "stag" dinner, and having an officer of the ranking of lieutenant shout, "Hi, John, pa.s.s the wine!"

Washington can not be said to be a typical American city. It is the center of _official_ life, and abounds in statesmen of all grades. I have attended one of the President's receptions, to which the diplomats went in a body; then followed the army and navy, General Miles, a good-looking, soldier-like man, leading the former, and Admiral Dewey the latter, a fine body of men, all in full uniform, unpretentious, and quiet compared to similar men in other nations. I pa.s.sed in line, and found the President, standing with several persons, the center of a group. The announcement and presentation were made by an officer in full uniform, and beyond this there was no formality, indeed, an abundance of republican simplicity; only the uniforms saved it from the commonplace.

The President is a man of medium size, thick-set, and inclined to be fleshy, with an interesting, smooth face, eye clear and glance alert. He grasped me quickly by the hand, but shook it gingerly, giving the impression that he was endeavoring to antic.i.p.ate me, called me by name, and made a pleasant allusion to ---- of ----. He has a high forehead and what you would term an intelligent face, but not one you would pick out as that of a great man; and from a study of his work I should say that he is of a cla.s.s of advanced politicians, clever in political intrigue, quick to grasp the best situation for himself or party; a man of high moral character, but not a great statesman, only a man with high ideals and sentiments and the faculty of impressing the ma.s.ses that he is great. The really intelligent cla.s.s regard him as a useful man, and safe. It is a curious fact that the chief appreciation of President McKinley, I was informed, came from the ma.s.ses, who say, "He is so kind to his wife" (a great invalid); or "He is a model husband." Why there should be anything remarkable in a man's being kind, attentive, and loyal to an invalid spouse I could not see. Her influence with him is said to be remarkable. One day she asked the President to promote a certain officer, the son of one of the greatest of American generals, to a very high rank. He did so, despite the fact that, as an officer said, the army roared with laughter and rage.

The influence of women is an important factor in Washington life. I was presented to an officer who obtained his commission in the following manner: Two very attractive ladies in Washington were discussing their relative influence with the powers that be, when one remarked, "To show you what I can do, name a man and I will obtain a commission in the army for him." The other lady named a private soldier, whose stupidity was a matter of record, and a few days later he became an officer; but the story leaked out.

President McKinley is a popular President with the ma.s.ses, but the aristocrats regard him with indifference. It is a singular fact, but the Vice-President, Mr. Roosevelt, attracts more attention than the President. He is a type that is appreciated in America, what they term in the West a "hustler"; active, wide-awake, intense, "strenuous," all these terms are applied to him. Said an officer in the field service to me, "Roosevelt is playing on a ninety-nine-year run of luck; he always lands on his feet at the right time and place." "What they call a man of destiny," I suggested. "Yes," he replied; "he is the Yankee Oliver Cromwell. He can't help 'getting there,' and he has a st.u.r.dy, evident honesty of purpose that carries him through. A team of six horses won't keep him out of the White House." This is the general opinion regarding the Vice-President, that while he is not a remarkable statesman, he already overshadows the President in the eyes of the public. I think the secret is that he is young and a hero, and what the Americans call an all-around man; not brilliant in any particular line, but a man of energy, like our ----.

He looks it. A smooth face, square, determined jaw, with a look about the eye suggestive that he would ride you down if you stood in the way.

I judge him to be a man of honor, high purpose, as my friend said, of the Cromwell type, inclined to preach, and who also has what the Americans call the "get-there" quality. 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. Author, cowboy, stockman, soldier, essayist, historian, sportsman, clever with the boxing-gloves or saber, hurdle-jumper, crack revolver and rifle shot, naturalist and aristocrat, such is the all-around Vice-President of the United States--a man who will make a strong impression upon the history of the century if he is not shot by Socialists.

I have it from those who know, that President McKinley would be killed in less than a week if the guards about the White House were removed. He never makes a move without guards or detectives, and the secret-service men surround him as carefully as possible. It would be an easy matter to kill him. Like all officials, he is accessible to almost any one with an apparently legitimate object. Two Presidents have been murdered; all are threatened continually by half-insane people called "cranks," and by the professional Socialists, mainly foreigners. Both the President and Vice-President are well-dressed men. President McKinley, when I was granted an audience, wore a long-tailed black "frock coat" and vest, light trousers, and patent leather or varnished shoes, and standing collar. The Vice-President was similarly dressed, but with a "turn-down"

collar. The two men are said to make a "strong team," and it is a foregone conclusion that the Vice-President will succeed President McKinley. This is already talked of by the society people at Newport.

"It is a long time," said a lady at Newport, "since we have had a President who represented an old and distinguished family. The McKinleys were from the ordinary ranks of life, but eminently respectable, while Roosevelt is an old and honored name in New York, identified with the history of the State; in a word, typical of the American aristocracy, bearing arms by right of heritage."

I have frequently met Admiral Dewey, already so well known in China. He is a small man, with bright eyes, who already shows the effects of years. Nothing could ill.u.s.trate the volatile, uncertain character of the American than the downfall of the admiral as a popular idol. Here a "peculiarity" of the American is seen. Carried away by political and public adulation, the old sailor's new wife, the sister of a prominent politician, became seized with a desire to make him President. Then the hero lovers raised a large sum and purchased a house for the admiral; but the politicians ignored him as a candidate, which was a humiliation, and the donors of the house demanded their money returned when the admiral placed the gift in the name of his wife; and so for a while the entire people turned against the gallant sailor, who was criticized, jeered at, and ridiculed. All he had accomplished in one of the most remarkable victories in the history of modern warfare was forgotten in a moment, to the lasting disgrace of his critics.

One of the interesting places in Washington is the Capitol, perhaps the most splendid building in any land. Here we see the men whom the Americans select to make laws for them. The looker-on is impressed with the singular fact that most of the senators are very wealthy men; and it is said that they seek the position for the honor and power it confers.

I was told that so many are millionaires that it gave rise to the suspicion that they bought their way in, and this has been boldly claimed as to many of them. This may be the treasonable suggestion of some enemy; but that money plays a part in some elections there is little doubt. I believe this is so in England, where elections have often been carried by money.

The American Senate is a dignified body, and I doubt if it have a peer in the world. The men are elected by the State legislatures, not by the people at large, a method which makes it easy for an unprincipled millionaire or his political manager to buy votes sufficient to seat his patron. The fact that senators are mainly rich does not imply unfitness, but quite the contrary. Only a genius can become a multi-millionaire in America, and hence the senators are in the main bright men. When observing these men and enabled to look into their records, I was impressed by the fact that, despite the advantages of education, this wonderful country has produced few really great men, and there is not at this time a great man on the horizon.

America has no Gladstone, no Salisbury, no Bright. Lincoln, Blaine and Sumner are names which impress me as approximating greatness; they made an impression on American history that will be enduring. Then there are Frye, Reed, Garfield, McKinley, Cleveland, who were little great men, and following them a distinguished company, as Hanna, Conkling, Hay, Hayes, and others, who were superior men of affairs. A distinctly great national figure has not appeared in America since Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Rufus Choate--all men too great to become President. It appears to be the fate of the republic not to place its greatest men in the White House, and by this I mean great statesmen. General Grant was a great man, a heroic figure, but not a statesman. Lincoln is considered a great man. He is called the "Liberator"; but I can conceive that none but a very crude mind, inspired by a false sentiment, could have made a horde of slaves, the most ignorant people on the globe, the political equals of the American people. A great man in such a crisis would have resisted popular clamor and have refused them suffrage until they had been prepared to receive it by at least some education. Americans are p.r.o.ne to call their great politicians statesmen. Blaine, Reed, Conkling, Harrison were types of statesmen; Hanna, Quay, and others are politicians.

The Lower House was a disappointment to me. There are too many ordinary men there. They do not look great, and at the present time there is not a really great man in the Lower House. There are too many cheap lawyers and third-rate politicians there. Good business men are required, but such men can not afford to take the position. I heard a great captain of industry, who had been before Congress with a committee, say that he never saw "so many a.s.ses together in all his life"; but this was an extreme view. The House may not compare intellectually with the House of Commons, but it contains many bright men. A fool could hardly get in, though the labor unions have placed some vicious representatives there.

The lack of manners distressed a lady acquaintance of mine, who, in a burst of indignation at seeing a congressman sitting with his feet on his desk, said that there was not a man in Congress who had any social position in Washington or at home, which, let us trust, is not true.

As I came from the White House some days ago I met a delegation of native Indians going in, a sad sight. In Indian affairs occurs a page of national history which the Americans are not proud of. In less than four hundred years they have almost literally been wiped from the face of the earth; the whites have waged a war of extermination, and the pitiful remnant now left is fast disappearing. In no land has the survival of the fittest found a more remarkable ill.u.s.tration. 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.

Imagine the condition of things! The most ignorant and debased of races suddenly receives rights and privileges and is made the equal of American citizens. So strange a move was never seen or heard of elsewhere, and the result has been relations more than strained and always increasing between the whites and the blacks in the South. As voters the negroes secure many positions in the South above their old masters. I have seen a negro[2] sitting in the Vice-President's chair in the United States Senate; while white Southern senators were pacing the outer corridors in rage and disgust. There are generally one or more black men in Congress, and they are given a few offices as a sop. With one hand the Americans place millions of them on a plane with themselves as free and independent citizens, and with the other refuse them the privileges of such citizenship. They may enter the army as privates, but any attempt to make them officers is a failure--white officers will not a.s.sociate with them. It is impossible for a negro to graduate from the Naval Academy, though he has the right to do so. I was told that white sailors would shoot him if placed over them. Several negroes have been appointed as students, but none as yet have been able to pa.s.s the examination. Here we see the strange and contradictory nature of the Americans. The white master of the South had the black woman nurse his children. Thousands of mulattoes in the country show that the whites took advantage of the women in other ways, marriage between blacks and whites being prohibited. When it comes to according the blacks recognition as social equals, the people North and South resent even the thought. The negro woman may provide the sustenance of life for the white baby, but I venture to say that any Southern man, or Northern one for that matter, would rather see his daughter die than be married to a negro. So strong is this feeling that I believe in the extreme South if a negro persisted in his addresses to a white woman he would be shot, and no jury or judge could be found to convict the white man.

In the North the negro has certain rights. He can ride in the street-cars, go to the theater, enter restaurants, but I doubt if large hotels would entertain him. In the South every train has its separate cars for negroes; every station its waiting-room for them; even on the street-cars they are divided off by a wire rail or screen, and sit beneath a sign, which advertises this free, independent, but black American voter as being not fit to sit by the side of his political brother. This causes a bitter feeling, and the time is coming when the blacks will revolt. Already criminal attacks upon white women are not uncommon, and a virtual reign of terror exists in some portions of the South, where it is said that white women are never left unprotected; and the negro, if he attacks a white woman, is almost invariably burned alive, with the horrible ghastly features that attend an Indian scalping. The crowd carry off bits of skin, hair, finger-nails, and rope as trophies. In fact, these "burnings" are the most extraordinary features in this "enlightened" country. The papers denounce them and compare the people to ghouls; yet these same people accuse the Chinese of being cruel, barbarous, insensible to cruelty, and "pagans." It is true we have pirates and criminals, but the horrible features of the lynchings in America during the last ten years I believe have no counterpart in the history of China in the last five hundred.

In Washington the servants are blacks; irresponsible, childlike, aping the vanities of the white people. They are "n.i.g.g.e.rs"; the mulattoes, the illegitimate offspring of whites, form another and totally distinct cla.s.s of colored society, and are the aristocracy. Rarely will a mulatto girl marry a black man, and _vice versa_. They have their clubs and their functions, their professional men, including lawyers and doctors, as have the white people. They present a strange and singular feature.

Despised by their fathers, half-sisters, and brothers, denied any social recognition, hating their black ancestry, they are socially "between the devil and the deep sea." The negro question const.i.tutes the gravest one now before the American people. He is increasing rapidly, but in the years since the civil war no pure-blooded negro has given evidence of brilliant attainments. Frederick Douglas, Senator Bruce, and Booker T.

Washington rank with many white Americans in authorship, diplomacy, and scholarship; but Douglas and Bruce were mulattoes, and Booker Washington's father was an unknown white man. These men are held in high esteem, but the social line has been drawn against them, though Douglas married a white woman.

b.a.l.l.s are a feature of life in Washington. The women appear in full dress, which means that the arms and neck are exposed, and the men wear evening dress. The dances are mostly "round." The man takes a lady to the ball, and when he dances seizes her in an embrace which would be considered highly improper under ordinary circ.u.mstances, but the etiquette of the dance makes it permissible. He places his right arm around her waist, takes her left hand in his, holds her close to him, and both begin to move around to the special music designed for this peculiar motion, which may be a "waltz," or a "two-step," or a "gallop,"

or a "schottische," all being different and having different music or time, or there may be various kinds of music for each. At times the music is varied, being a gliding, scooping, swooping slide, indescribable. When the dancers feel the approach of giddiness they reverse the whirl or move backward.

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.

There is a professional champion who has danced eight out of twenty-four hours without stopping. A yearly convention of dancing-school professors is held. These men, with much dignity, meet in various cities and discuss various dances, how to grasp the partner, and other important questions. Some time ago the question was whether the "gent" should hold a handkerchief in the hand he pressed upon the back of the lady, a professor having testified before the convention that he had seen the imprint of a man's hand on the white dress of a lady. The ac.u.men displayed at these conventions is profound and impressive. Here you observe a singular fact. The good dancer may be an officer of high social standing, but the dancing-teacher, even though he be famous as such, is _persona non grata_, so far as society is concerned. A professional dancer, fighter, wrestler, cook, musician, and a hundred more are not acceptable in society except in the strict line of their profession; but a professional civil or naval engineer, an organist, an artist, a decorator (household), and an architect are received by the elect in Washington.