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

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 Dickens, that the State governments have determined to take up the "spitting" question, and now there is a fine of from to 0 for any one spitting in a car or on a hotel floor. Nearly all the "up-to-date" towns have passed 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 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-balls" or cocktails 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 assumption; 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.

The Americans are not a wine-drinking people. Whisky, and of a very excellent quality, is the national drink, while vast quantities 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 illustrate the cleverness of a drinker. He walked into a bar and ordered a "tin-roof cocktail." The barkeeper was nonplussed, and asked what a tin-roof cocktail 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 cocktails, high-balls, ponies, straights, fizzes, and many other drinks. Books are written on the subject. I have seen a book devoted entirely to cocktails. 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.

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, pass the wine!"

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.

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 illustrate 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 prone 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 asses 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 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.

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 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 associate 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 pass 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.

Balls 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 circumstances, 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.

Sometimes the "engaged" couple do not marry. The man perhaps in his long courtship discovers traits that weary him, and he breaks off the match. If he is wealthy the average American girl may sue him for damages, for laceration of the affections. One woman in the State of New York sued for the value of over two thousand kisses her "steady company" had taken during a number of years' courtship, and was awarded three thousand dollars. The journal from which I took this made an estimate that the kisses had cost the man one dollar and a half each! Sometimes the girl breaks the engagement, and if presents have been given she returns them, the man rarely suing; but I have seen record of a case where the girl refused to return the presents, and the man sued for them; but no jury could be found to decide in his favor. A distinguished physician has written a book on falling in love. It is recognized as a contagious disease; men and women often die of it, and commit the most extraordinary acts when under its influence. I have observed it, and, all things considered, it has no advantages over the Chinese method of attaining the marriage state. The wisdom of some older person is certainly better than what the American would call the "snap judgment" of two young people carried away by passion. One might find the chief cause of divorce in America to lie in this strange custom.

I once stopped over in Utah and visited the great Mormon Temple, and I must say that the Mormon women are far below the average in intelligence, that is, if personal appearances count. I understand they are recruited from the lowest and most ignorant classes in Europe, where there are thousands of women who would rather have a fifth of a husband than work in the field. In the language of American slang, I imagine the Americans are "up against it," as the country avowedly offers an asylum for all seeking religious liberty, and the Mormons claim polygamy as a divine revelation and a part of their doctrine.

FOOTNOTE:

Probably Senator Bruce.

THE AMERICAN IN LITERATURE

I continually gain the impression that the Americans "size us up," as they say, and "lump" us with the "coolie." We are "heathen Chinee," and it is incomprehensible that we should know anything. I am talking now of the half-educated people as I have met them. Here and there I meet men and women of the highest culture and knowledge, and this class has no peer in the world. 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. I understand there is more of it in Boston and Philadelphia than anywhere; but you find it in all towns and cities. This I grant is the real American, who, in time--several thousand years perhaps--as in our own case, will demonstrate the wonderful possibilities of the human race in the West.

I would like to tell you something about the books of the literary men and women I have met, but you will be more interested in the things I have seen and the mannerisms of the people. I was told by a distinguished writer that America had failed to produce any really great authors--I mean to compare with other nations--and I agreed with him, although appreciating what she has done. There is no one to compare with the great minds of England--Scott, Dickens, Thackeray. There is no American poet to compare with Tennyson, Milton, and a dozen others in England, France, Italy, and Germany; indeed, America is far behind in this respect, yet in the making of books there is nothing to compare with it. Every American, apparently, aspires to become an author, and I really think it would be difficult to find a citizen of the republic who had not been a contributor to some publication at some time, or had not written a book. The output of books is extraordinary, and covers every field; but the class is not in all cases such as one might expect. The people are omnivorous readers, and "stories," "novels," are ground out by the ton; but I doubt if a book has been produced since the time of Hawthorne that will really live as a great classic.

The American authors are mainly collected in New York, where the great publishing houses are located, and are a fine representative class of men and women, of whom I have met a number, such as Howells, the author and editor, and Mark Twain, the latter the most brilliant litterateur in the United States. This will be discovered when he dies and is safe beyond receiving all possible benefits from such recognition. Many men in America make reputations as humorists, and find it impossible to divest their more serious writings from this "taint," if so it may be called. They are not taken seriously when they seriously desire it; a fact I fully appreciate, as I am taken as a joke, my "pigtail," my "shoes," my "clothes," my way of speaking, all being objects of joking.

The literary men have several clubs in New York, where they can be found, and many have marked peculiarities, which are interesting to a foreigner. Several artists affect a peculiar style of dress to advertise their wares. One, it is said, lived in a tree at Washington. It is not so much with the authors as with the methods of making books that I think you will be interested. I met a rising young author at a dinner in Washington who confided to me that the "book business" was really ruined in America by reason of the mad craze of nearly all Americans to become writers. He said that he as an editor had been offered money to publish a novel by a society woman who desired to pose as an authoress. This author said that there were in America a dozen or more of the finest and most honorable publishing houses in the world, but there were many more in the various cities which virtually preyed upon this "literary disease" of the people. No country in the world, said my acquaintance, produces so many books every year as America; so many, in fact, that the shops groan with them and the forests of America threaten to give out, and the supply virtually clogs and ruins the market. So crazy are the people to be authors and see themselves in print that they will go to any length to accomplish authorship.

I send you a copy of this paper, which is very clever and very successful, and a good illustration of the American magazine that, while claiming to be literature, is a mechanical production, "machine made" in every sense. One can imagine the introspective editor entering all the foibles and weaknesses of women in a book and in cold blood forming a department to appeal to each. I was informed that the editors of such publications were "not in business for their health," but for money; and their energies are all expended on projects to hold present readers and obtain others. The more readers the more they can charge the "advertiser" in the back or side pages, who here illustrate their deadly corsets, their new dye for the hair, their beauty doctors, freckle eradicators, powders for the toilet, bustles, and the thousand and one things which shrewd dealers are anxious to have women take up.

The children also have their journals or "magazines." One in New York deals with fairies and genii, on the ground that it is good for the imagination. Another, published in Boston, denounces the fairy-story idea, and gives the children stories by great generals, princes of the blood, captains of industry, admirals, etc.; briefly, the name of the writer, not the literary quality of the tale, is the important feature. There are papers for babes, boys, girls, the sick and the well.

The most conspicuous literary names before the people are Howells, Twain, and Harte, though one hears of scores of novelists, who, I believe, will be forgotten in a decade or so. As I have said previously, I am always joked with about the "Heathen Chinee." I have really learned to play "poker," but I seldom if ever sit down to a game that some one does not joke with me about "Ah Sin." Such is the American idea of the proprieties and their sense of humor; yet I finally have come to be so good an American that I can laugh also, for I am confident the jokers mean it all in the best of feeling.

There are in America a class of litterateurs who are rarely heard of by the masses, but to my mind they are among the greatest and most advanced Americans. They are the astronomers, geologists, zoologists, ornithologists, and others, authors of papers and articles in the Government Reports of priceless value. These writers appear to me, an outsider, to be the real safety-valves, the real backbone of the literary productions of the day. 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.

FOOTNOTES:

As a frontispiece to this volume, the cover design used on one of these old Chinese books is shown.

Spring and Autumn Annals.

Great Learning.

Confucian Analects.

Doctrine of the Mean.

Works of Mencius.

THE POLITICAL BOSS

This man had a fund of humor, which was displayed in his clapping me on the back and calling me "John," introducing me to a dozen or so of as hard-looking men in the garb of gentlemen as I have ever seen. I heard them described later as "ward beetles," and they looked it, whatever it meant. The "Boss" appeared much interested in me; said he had heard I was no "slouch," and knew I must have a "pull" or I would not be where I am. He wished to know how we run elections on "the Ho-Hang-Ho." When I told him that a candidate for a governmental office never obtained it until he passed one of three very difficult literary examinations in our nine classics, and that there were thousands competing for the office, he was "paralyzed"--that is, he said he was, and volunteered the information that "he would not be 'in it' in China." I thought so myself, but did not say so.

"For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, the Heathen Chinee is peculiar," but I doubt if he is more so than the political system of the United States, where every man is supposed to be free, but where a few men in each town own everything and everybody politically. The American thinks he is free, but he has in reality no more freedom than the Englishman; in fact, I am inclined to think that the latter is the freest of them all, and I doubt if too much freedom is good for man. Politics in America is a profession, a trade, a science, a perfect system by which one or two men run or control millions. Politics means the attainment of political power and influence, which mean office. Some men are in politics for the love of power, some for spoils , and some for the high offices. In America there are two large parties, the Republican and the Democratic. Then there are the Labor, Prohibition , and various other parties, which, in the language of politics, "cut no ice." The real issues of a party are often lost sight of. The Republicans may be said to favor a high tariff; the Democrats a low tariff or free trade; and when there is not sufficient to amuse the people in these, then other reasons for being a Democrat or a Republican are raised, and a platform is issued. Lately the Democrats have espoused "free silver," and the Republicans have "buried" them. The Democrats are now trying to invent some new "platform"; but the Republicans appear to have included about all the desirable things in their platform, and hence they win.

In a small town one or two men are known as "bosses." They control the situation at the primaries; they manage to get elected and keep before the people. Generally they are natural leaders, and fill some office. When the senator comes to town they "escort" him about and advise him as to the votes he may expect. Sometimes the ward man is the postmaster, sometimes a national congressman, again a State senator; but he is always in evidence, and before the people, a good speaker and talker and the "boss." Every town has its Republican and Democratic "boss," always striving to increase the vote, always striving for something. The larger the city, the larger the "boss," until we come to a city like New York, where we find, or did find, Boss Tweed, who absolutely controlled the political situation for years.

This means that he was in politics, and manipulated all the offices in order to steal for himself and his friends; this is of public record. He was overthrown or exposed by the citizens, but was followed by others, who manipulated the affairs of the city for money. Offices were sold; any one who had a position either bought it or paid a percentage for it. Gambling-dens and other "resorts" paid large sums to "sub-bosses," who become rich, and if the full history of some of the "bosses" of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, or any great American city could be exposed, it would show a state of affairs that would display the American politician in a dark light. Repeatedly the machinations of the politicians have been exposed, yet they doubtless go on in some form. And this is true to some extent of the Government. The honor of no President has been impugned; they are men of integrity, but the enormous appointing power which they have is a mere form; they do not and could not appoint many men. The little "boss" in some town desires a position. He has been a spy for the congressman or senator for years, and now aspires to office. He obtains the influence of the senator and the congressman, and is supported by a petition of his friends, and the President names him for the office, taking the senator for his sponsor. If the man becomes a grafter or thief, the President is attacked by the opposition.

In a large city like New York each ward will have its "boss," who will report to a supreme "boss," and by this system, often pernicious, the latter acquires absolute control of the situation. He names the candidates for office, or most of them, and is all powerful. I have met a number of "bosses," and all, it happened, were Irish; indeed, the Irish dominate American politics. One, a leader of Tammany in New York, was a most preposterous person, well dressed, but not a gentleman from any standpoint; ignorant so far as education goes, yet supremely sharp in politics. Such a man could not have led a fire brigade in China, yet he was the leader of thousands, and controlled Democratic New York for years. He never held office, I was told, yet grew very rich.

The Republican "boss" was a tall, thin, United States senator. I was also introduced to him--a Mephistophelian sort of an individual--to me utterly without any attraction; but I was informed that he carried the vote of the Republican party in his pocket. How? that is the mystery. If you desired office you went to him; without his influence one was impotent. Thousands of office-holders felt his power, hated him, perhaps, but did not dare to say it.

On the other hand, there are senators who not only never paid for a vote but never expressed a wish to be elected. The foreign vote--Italians and others--are swayed by cash considerations; the negroes are bought and sold politically. The "bosses" handle the money, and the senators consider it as "expenses," and doubtless do not know that some of it has been used to influence legislators. The Americans have a remarkable network of laws to prevent fraudulent voting. Each candidate in some States is required to swear to an expense account, yet the wary politician, with his "ways that are dark," evades the law. The entire system, the control of the political fortunes of 80,000,000 Americans, is in the hands of a small army of political "bosses," some of whom, had they figured as grafters in "effete" China, would have been beheaded without mercy.

FOOTNOTES:

Slang for citizens.

Slang for information, facts.

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