As an illustration, each State considers hunting and fishing a valuable asset to attract those who will come and spend money. I was told by a Government official that the State of Maine reckoned its game at five million dollars per annum, which means that the sport is so good that sportsmen spend that amount there every year; but I fancy the amount is overestimated. The Government has perfect fish hatcheries, constantly supplying young fish to streams, while the business in anglers' supplies is immense. There are thousands of duck-shooting clubs in the United States. Men, or a body of men, rent or buy marshes, and keep the poor man out. Rich men acquire hundreds of acres, and make preserves. Possibly the sport of hunting wild fowl is the most characteristic of American sports. This also has its etiquette, its costumes, its club-houses, and its poker and high-balls. I know of one such club in which almost all the members are millionaires. A humorous paper stated that they used "gold shot."
As a nation the Americans are fond of athletics, which are taught in the schools. There are splendid gymnasiums, and boys and girls are trained in athletic exercises. Athletics are all in vogue. It is fashionable to be a good "fencer." All the young dance. I believe the Americans stand high as a nation in all-around athletics; at least they are far ahead of China in this respect.
I have reserved for mention last the most popular fashion of the people in sport, which is prize-fighting. Here again you see a strange contradiction. The people are preeminently religious, and prize-fighting and football are the sports of brutes; yet the two are most popular. No public event attracts more attention in America than a gladiatorial fight to the finish between the champion and some aspirant. For months the papers are filled with it, and on the day of the event the streets are thronged with people crowding about the billboards to receive the news. No national event, save the killing of a President, attracted more universal attention than the beating of Sullivan by Corbett and the beating of Corbett by Fitzsimmons, and "Fitz" in turn by Jeffries. I might add that I joined with the Americans in this, as the modern prize-fighter is a fine animal. If all boys were taught to believe that their fists are their natural weapons, there would be fewer murders and sudden deaths in America. I have seen several of these prize-fights and many private bouts, all with gloves. They are governed by rules. Such a combat is by no means as dangerous as football, where the obvious intention seems to be to break ribs and crush the opponent.
Rowing is much indulged in, and yachting is a great national maritime sport, in which the Americans lead and challenge the world. In no sport is the wealth of the nation so well shown. Every seaside town has its yacht or boat club, and in this the interest is perpetual. Even in winter the yacht is rigged into an "ice-boat." I have often wondered that fashionable people do not take up the romantic sport of falconry, as they have the birds and every facility. I suggested this to a lady, who replied, "Ah, that is too barbaric for us." "More barbaric than cock-fighting?" I asked, knowing that her brother owned the finest game-cocks in the District of Columbia. Among the Americans there is a distinct love for fair play, and such sports as "bull-baiting," "bull-fights," "dog-fights," and "cock-fights" have never attained any degree of popularity. There are spasmodic instances of such indulgences, but in no sense can they be included, as in England and Spain, among the national sports, which leads me to the conclusion that, aside from the many peculiarities, as taking up and dropping sports, America, all in all, is the greatest sporting nation of the world. It leads in fist-fighting, rifle-shooting, in skilful angling, in yachting, in rowing, in running, in six-day walking, in auto-racing, in trotting and running horses, and in trap-shooting, and if its champions in all fields could be lined up it would make a surprising showing. I am free to confess and quite agree with a vivacious young woman who at the country club told me that it was very nice of me to uphold my country, but that we were "not in it" with American sports.
The Presidents are often sportsmen. President Cleveland and President Harrison both have been famous, the former as a fisherman, the latter as well as the former as a duck-shooter. President McKinley has no taste for sport, but the Vice-President is a promoter of sport of each and every kind. He is at home in polo or hurdle racing, with the rifle or revolver. This calls to mind the national weapon—the revolver. Nine-tenths of all the shooting is done with this weapon, that is carried in a special pocket on the hips, and I venture to say that a pair of "trousers" was never made without the pistol pocket. Even the clergymen have one. I asked an Episcopal clergyman why he had a pistol pocket. He replied that he carried his prayer-book there. The Southern people use a long curved knife, called a bowie, after its inventor. Many people have been cut by this weapon. The negro, for some strange reason, carries a razor, and in a fight "whips out" this awful weapon and slashes his enemy. I have asked many negroes to explain this habit or selection. One replied that it was "none of my d—— business." Nearly all the others said they did not know why they carried it.
CHAPTER XVII
THE CHINAMAN IN AMERICA
The average Irishman whom one meets in America, and he is legion, is a very different person from the polished gentleman I have met in Belfast, Dublin, and other cities in Ireland; but I never heard that the American Irishman, the product of an ignorant peasantry crowded out of Ireland, had been accepted as a type of the race. Peculiar discrimination is made in America against the Chinese. Our lower classes, "coolies" from the Cantonese districts, have flocked to America. Americans "lump" all Chinese under this head, and can not conceive that in China there are cultivated men, just as there are cultivated men in Ireland, the antipodes of the grotesque Irish types seen in America.