Heathen Chinee: "I hope it will be less bum 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 (passing 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 classes seem to use nothing else, and we often see the jargon of the lowest class 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 Dickens, 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 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.