I did not hear the intellectual conversation at dinner I had expected. Art, science, literature, were rarely touched upon, although I invariably met artists, litterateurs, and scientific men at these dinners. They all talked small talk or "told stories." I was informed that if I wished to hear the weighty questions of the day discussed I must go to the women's clubs, or to Madam ——'s Current Topics Society. The latter is an extraordinary affair, where society women who have no time to read the news of the day listen to short lectures on the news of the preceding week, discussed pro and con, giving these women in a nutshell material for intelligent conversation when they meet senators and other men at the various receptions before which they wish to make an agreeable impression.
The American has many clubs, but is not entirely at home in them. He uses them as places in which to play poker or whist, to dine his men friends, and in a great measure because it is the "proper thing." At many a room is set apart for the national game of poker—a fascinating game to the player who wins. Poker was never mentioned in my presence that some did not make a joke on a supposed Chinaman named Ah Sin; but the obscurity of the joke and my lack of knowledge regarding American literature caused the point to elude me at first, which was true of many jokes. The Americans are preeminently practical jokers, and the ends to which they go is beyond belief. I heard of jokes which, if perpetrated in China, would have resulted in the loss of some one's head. To illustrate this, in the Spanish-American War the camps at Tampa were besieged with newspaper reporters, and one from a large journal was constantly trying to secure secret news by entertaining certain officers with wine and cigars; so they determined to get rid of his importunities, and what is known as a "job" in America was "put up" on him. He was told that Colonel —— had a detailed map of the forthcoming battle, and if he could get the officer intoxicated he doubtless could secure the map. This looked very easy to the correspondent, so the story goes, and he dropped into the colonel's tent one night with a basket of wine, and began to celebrate its arrival from some friends. Soon the colonel pretended to become communicative, and the map was brought out and finally loaned to the correspondent under the promise that it would not be used. This was sufficient. The correspondent hied him to his tent, wrote an article and sent the map to his paper in one of the large cities, where it was duly published. It proved to be what dressmakers call a "Butterick pattern," a maze of lines for cutting out dresses for women. The lines looked like roads, and the practical jokers had merely added towns and forts and bridges here and there.
The Americans are excellent parents, though small families are general. The domestic life is charming. The family is denied nothing needed, the only limit being the purse of the head of the family, so called, the real head in many cases being the wife, who does not fail to assert herself if the proper occasion opens. Well-to-do families have every luxury, and no nation is apparently so well off, so completely supplied with the necessities of life as the American. One is impressed by their business sagacity, their cleverness in finance, their complete grasp of all questions, yet no people are easier gulled or more readily victimized. An instance will suffice. In making my investigations regarding methods of managing railroads, I not only obtained information from the road officials, but questioned the employees whenever it happened that I was traveling. One day, observing that it was the custom to "tip" the porters (give money), I asked the conductor what the men were paid. "Little or nothing," was the reply; "they get from seventy-five to one hundred dollars a month out of the passengers on a long run." "But the passengers paid the road for the service?" "Yes, and they pay the salary of the porter also," said the man. With that in view the men are poorly paid, and the railroad knows that the people will make up their salaries, as they do. If you refused you would have no service.
This rule holds everywhere, in hotels and restaurants. Servants receive little pay where the patronage is rich, with the understanding that they will make it up out of the customers. Thus if you go to a hotel you fee the bell-boy for bringing you a glass of water. If you order one of the seductive cocktails you fee the man who brings it; you fee the chambermaid who attends to your room. Infinite are the resources of these servants who do not receive a fee. You fee the elevator or lift boy, or he will take the opportunity to jerk you up as though shot out of a gun. You fee the porter for taking up your trunk, and give a special fee for unstrapping it. You fee the head waiter, and when you fee the table waiter he whispers in your ear that a slight fee will be acceptable to the cook, who will see that the Count or the Judge will be cared for as becomes his station. When you leave, the sidewalk porter expects a fee; if he does not receive it the door of the carriage may possibly be slammed on the tail of your coat. Then you pay the cabman two dollars to carry you to the station, and fee him. Arriving at the station, he hands you over to a red-hatted porter, who carries your baggage for a fee. He puts you in charge of the railroad porter, who is feed at the rate of about fifty cents per diem.
The American submits to this robbery without a murmur; yet he is sagacious, prudent. I can only explain his gullibility on the ground of his innate snobbery; he thinks it is the "thing to do," and does it, and for this reason it is carried to the most merciless lengths. To illustrate. In the season of 1902, when I was at Newport, Mr. ——, a conspicuous member of the New York smart set, known as the "Four Hundred," lost his hat in some way and rode to his home without one. The ubiquitous reporter saw him, and photographed him, bareheaded, and his paper, the New York ——, gave a column the following day to a description of the new fad of going without a hat. Thus the fashion started, and the amazing spectacle was seen the summer following of men and women of fashion riding and walking for miles without hats. This is beyond belief, yet it attracted no attention from the common people, who perhaps got the cast-off hats. Despite this, the Americans are hard-fisted, shrewd, and as a nation a match for any in the field of cunning.
I can explain it in no way than by assuming that it is due to overanxiety to do the correct thing. Their own actors satirize them, one especially taking them off in a jingle which read, "It's English, quite English, you know." It is said of the men of the "Four Hundred" that they turn up their trousers when it rains in London, special reports of the weather being sent to the clubs for the purpose; but I cannot vouch for this. I have seen the trousers turned up in all weathers, and found no one who could explain why he did so. What can you make of so contradictory a people?