In houses, in clubs, in offices, one cannot help admiring the ingenious forethought, the wonderful care, with which the smallest wants and the slightest commodities of life have been studied: it seems as if there were nothing left to desire.
It is impossible, however, in speaking of American interiors, to pass over in silence a certain eyesore, which meets your sight at every turn.
The most indispensable, most conspicuous, piece of furniture in America is the spittoon. All rooms are provided with this object of prime necessity; you find one beside your seat in the trains, under your table in the restaurants: impossible to escape the sight of the ugly utensil. In the hotel corridors, there is a spittoon standing sentinel outside every door. In public edifices, the floors are dotted with them, and they form the line all up the stairs.
The Americans, used to these targets from the tenderest age, are marvellously adroit at the use of them: they never miss their aim. I saw some really striking feats of marksmanship; but perhaps the best of all at the Capitol, in Washington.
The Supreme Court of Judicature was sitting. As I entered, an advocate was launching thunders of eloquence. All at once he stopped, looked at a spittoon which stood two yards off, aimed at it, and, krrron, craaahk, ptu!—right in the bull's-eye! Then on he went with his harangue. I looked to see the seven judges and the public applaud and cry "Bravo!" Not a murmur; the incident passed completely unnoticed. Probably there was not a man in the hall who could not say to himself: "There's nothing in that; I could do as much."
CHAPTER IX.
Society Jottings.—Blue Blood in the United States.—Fashionable Society.—Plutocracy.—Parvenus and Arrivés.—Literary and Artistic Society.—Provincialism.—All the Americans have two Family Names.—Colonels and Judges.—American Hospitality.—Terrapin and Raw Duck.
word about American aristocracy, to begin with.