Among the many topics I have discussed with Americans, our alleged superstitions, or our belief in so-called dragons, genii, ghosts, etc., seem to have made the deepest impression. A charming American woman, whom I met at the —— Embassy at dinner, told me with seriousness that our people may be intelligent, but the fact that in San Francisco and Los Angeles they at certain times drag through the streets a dragon five hundred feet long to exorcise the evil spirits, showed that the Chinese were grossly superstitious. If I had told my companion that she was the victim of a thousand superstitions, she would have taken it as an affront, because, according to American usage, it is not proper to dispute with a lady. The Americans are the most superstitious people in the world. They will not sit down to a dinner-table when there are thirteen persons. No hostess would attempt such a thing, the belief being general that some one of the guests would die within a year. I was a guest at a dinner-party when a lady suddenly remarked, "We are thirteen." Several of the guests were evidently much annoyed, and the hostess, a most pleasing woman, apologized, and replied that she had invited fourteen, but one guest had failed her. It was apparent that something must be done, and this was cleverly solved by the hostess sending for her mother, who joined the party, and the dinner proceeded. I do not think all the guests believed in this absurd superstition, but they were all very uncomfortable. I do not believe I met a society woman in Washington or New York who would walk through a cemetery or graveyard at midnight alone. I asked several ladies if they would do this, and all were horrified at the idea, though strongly denying any belief in ghosts or spirits.
In nearly every American city one or more houses may be found haunted by ghosts, which Americans believe have made the places so disagreeable that the houses have been in consequence deserted. So well-defined is the superstition, and so recurrent are the beliefs in ghosts and spirits, that the best-educated people have found it necessary to establish a society, called the Society for Psychical Research, in order to demonstrate that ghosts are not possible. I believe I am not overstepping the bounds when I say that this vainglorious people, who claim to have the finest public-school system in the world, are, considering their advantages, the most superstitious of all the white races. Out of perhaps thirty men, whom I asked, not one was willing to say he could pass through a graveyard at night without fear at heart, an undefined nervous feeling, due to innate superstition. The middle-class woman who stumbles upstairs considers it to mean that she will not marry. To break a mirror, or receive as a present a knife, also means bad luck. Many people wear amulets, safe-guards, and good-luck stones. Several millions of the Catholic sect wear a charm, which they think will save them from sudden death. All Catholics believe that some of their churches own the bones of saints, which have the power to give them health and other good things. Many Americans wear the seed of the horse-chestnut, and many others wear lucky coins. Belief in the luck of the four-leaf clover, instead of that with three leaves, is so strong that people will spend hours in hunting for one. They are designed into pins and certain insignia, and used in a hundred other ways.
But more remarkable than all is the old horseshoe superstition. I have seen beautifully gowned ladies stop their driver, descend from the carriage, and pick up such a shoe and carry it home, telling me that they never failed to pick up one, as it brought good luck; yet this lady laughed at our dragon! In the country, horseshoes are commonly seen over the doors of stables, and even of houses. These same people once hung women for witchcraft, and slaughtered women for persisting in certain religious beliefs. I had the pleasure of meeting a well-known man, who stated that he had the power of the "evil eye." Innumerable people believe the paw of an animal called the rabbit to contain sovereign good luck. They carry it about, and can buy it in shops. Indeed, I could fill a volume, much less a letter, with the absurd superstitions of these people who send women to China to convert the "Heathen Chinee," who may be "peculiar," as Mr. Harte states in his poem; but the Chinaman certainly has not the marvelous variety of superstitions possessed by the American, who does not allow cats about rooms where there are infants, fearing that they will suck the child's breath; who believe that certain snakes milk cows, and that mermen are possible. I stood in a tent last summer at Atlantic City—a large seaside resort—and watched a line of middle-class people passing to see a "Chinese mermaid," of the kind the Japanese manufacture so cleverly. It was to be seen on the water. All, so far as I could judge, accepted it as real. So much for the influence of the American public school, where physiology is taught.
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. In the villages they appear weekly, in the towns daily, in the great cities hourly, boys screaming their names, shouting and yelling like demons. Yesterday beneath the window a boy screamed, "The Empress of China elopes with her coachman!" I bought the paper, in which a column was devoted to it. Fancy this in Pekin. Shades of ——! I can not better describe these papers than to say they have absolute license as to what to print, this freedom being a principle, but it is grossly abused by blackmailers. The papers have no respect for man, woman, or child, the President or the Deity. The most flagrant attacks are made upon private persons. Rarely is an editor shot or imprisoned. The President may be called vile names, his appearance may become the butt of ridicule in opposition papers, and cartoonists, employed at large salaries, draw insulting pictures of him and his Cabinet. One would think that the way to obtain patronage of a person would be to praise him, but this would be considered an orientalism. The real way to secure readers in America is to abuse, insult, and outrage private feelings, the argument being that people will buy the journal to see what is said about them. All the American press is not founded upon this system of virtual blackmail. There are respectable papers, conservative and honorable; but I believe I am not overstating it when I say that every large city has at least one paper where the secrets of a family and its most sacred traditions are treated as lawful game.
The actual heads of papers have often been men of high standing, as Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond, E. L. Godkin, Henry Watterson, the late Charles A. Dana, James Gordon Bennett, and William Cullen Bryant. But in the modern newspaper the man in control is a managing editor, whose tenure of office depends upon his keeping ahead of all others. The press, then, with its telegraphic connection with the world, with its thousands of readers, is a power, and in the hands of a man of small mind becomes a menace to civilization and easily drifts into blackmail. This is displayed in a thousand ways, especially in politics. The editor desires to obtain "influence," the power to secure places for his favorites, and, if he is slighted, he intimates to the men in power, "Appoint my candidate or I will attack you." This is a virtual threat. In this way the editor intimidates the office-holder. I was informed by a good authority of two journals of standing in America which he knew were started as "blackmailing sheets"; and certainly the license of the press is in every way diabolical, a result of the American dogma of free speech. When one arrives in America he is met with dozens of representatives of the press, who ask a thousand and one personal and impertinent questions, which, if one does not answer, one is attacked in some insidious way. One man I know refused to listen to a very importunate newspaper man, and was congratulating himself on his escape, when on the following day an article appeared in the paper giving several libelous pictures of him, the object being to show that he had nothing to say because he was mentally deficient. He appealed to the editor, but was told that his only recourse was to sue. As one walks down the gangplank of a ship he may become the mark for ten or fifteen cameras, which photograph him without permission, and whose owners will "poke fun" at his resistance.
As a news-collecting medium the press of the United States is a magnificent organization. At breakfast you receive the news of the whole world—social, diplomatic, criminal, and religious. Meetings of Congress and stories of private life are alike all served up, fully illustrated with pictures of the people and events. A corner is devoted to children, another to women, another to religious Americans, and a little sermon is preached. Then there are suggestive pictures for the man about town, recipes for the cook, weather reports for the traveler, a story for the romancer, perhaps a poem, and an editorial page, where ideas and theories are promulgated and opinions manufactured on all subjects, ready made for adoption by the reader, who in many instances has his thinking done for him. I made a test of this, and asked a number of men for their opinion on a certain subject, and then guessed the name of their favorite paper, and in most instances was correct. They all claimed that they took the paper because it agreed with their political ideas; but I am confident that the reverse is true, the paper having insidiously trained them to adopt its view. 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. For this reason there should be some restriction imposed on them.