I was visiting the sub-tropical Exhibition at Jacksonville one Sunday, and at a certain stall I chose a few little natural curiosities.
"I cannot sell them to you to-day," said the stall-keeper to me, after well puffing his wares.
"No? Why?"
"Because it is Sunday. I can put them aside for you; but you must buy them to-morrow."
This is the kind of thing one is supposed to admire.
A truly edifying sight is that of the noisy, dirty, blaspheming crowd collected on a Sunday evening outside Madison Square Gardens, New York, on the eve of a "six days' go-as-you-please walking match." From six or seven in the evening there is a betting, swearing match outside the gates. But the walking only begins at one minute past midnight.
Not to take the name of God in vain, the English have invented many euphemisms; some men, imagining, I suppose, that the Deity takes no cognisance of any language but English, venture so far as to say mon Dieu or mein Gott.
At this kind of thing the Americans are as clever as the English. They have invented Great Scott!
Something admirable in all the main religious sects of America is their national character.