>o V THE LAND ALMIGHTY DOLLAR THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR BY H. PANMURE GORDON ^ THE ILLUSTRATIONS BY IRVING MONTAGU NEW EDITION LONDON FREDERICK WARNE & CO. AND NEW YORK PriHltd by BALI.ANTYNE, HANSON 4: CO. Ltndt* and Edinburgh PREFACE THESE flying leaves were originally intended for private circulation among my friends, but, yielding to earnest entreaties, I have dared to run the gauntlet of public criticism. Pardon my temerity, judge me mercifully, " to err is human, to forgive divine" PAN MURE GORDON. LOUDWATER, RlCKHANSWORTH, June 1892. CONTENTS PAGE LONDON TO NEW YORK 3 NEW YORK HOTELS, HOUSES, AND CARRIAGES .... 17 NEW YORK CLUBS 31 NEW YORK SIGHTS 37 TUXEDO 45 A VIEW OF "THE FOUR HUNDRED" 51 THE LADIES 67 NEW YORK RESTAURANTS 89 CUI BONO? 101 INSURANCE, JEWS, AND JUSTICE 107 REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS 119 NEW YORK PAPERS 127 THE NEGRO PROBLEM IN THE UNITED STATES . . . .135 MR. EDISON 143 NEW YORK TO CHICAGO 153 CHICAGO 163 CHICAGO (continued) ......... 173 PULLMAN COMPANY AND TOWN 187 THE WORLD'S FAIR 193 THE AMERICAN TROTTER 203 AU REVOIR ! 213 TW11AR LONDON TO NEW YORK IE secret pour etre ennuyeux c'est de tout dire" therefore, if possible, quintessence only mere leading thoughts, nothing that the reader might probably think for himself. " Le bonheur n'est pas chose aisee. II est tres difficile de le trouver chez nous, et impossible de le trouver ailleurs!" A true Briton's sentiment, although expressed by a Frenchman. Business and a much-needed rest prompted me to cross the Atlantic, and to visit two well-nigh incom- parable cities. In view of the Great Exhibition, en- titled " The World's Fair," to be held at Chicago in 1893, it occurred to me that my route thither might interest some readers, coupled with the general im- pressions of a first visit to the New World. Aspir- 4 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR ing to no literary merit, in depicting what far abler pens than mine have described, my object is to amuse, and, perhaps, in a cheery though feeble manner, to instruct. Fate has so willed that, during the fifty summers which have passed o'er my rugged brow, I have been a great traveller ; having scanned the world from China to Peru, and being fairly observant plcin d'tncrgie, thank God ! always possessed of a " mens sana in corpore sano," added to tremendous natural spirits, I have always looked on the bright side of things; perhaps from being an ardent disciple of Schopenhauer and other less gifted philosophers, there have been four words that have, in times innumerable, solaced me : " It might be worse." These, softly murmured, have often caused grey clouds, temporarily o'ershadowing a hitherto sunlit life, to disperse. Pardon all this egotism, but it gives the key-note to, and the true value of, my impressions of a com- pletely new country. One of the first considerations in travel, particularly when about to consign one's self to the bosom of the mighty deep, is comfort ; therefore, aided by wise counsel, I selected a vessel with special sea-going qualities the s.s. Majestic, one of the most recent THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 5 triumphs in naval architecture of the White Star Line. Steadiness at sea, good manners when buffeted by the Atlantic waves and such waves ! is a prime consideration. Other argumentative travellers, pos- sessed of sea legs and land stomachs, will weary you with discussions to the effect that the cuisine, on such-and-such lines, "ranks pre-eminent." My advice is, don't discuss the subject ; but personally I would add the remark, " My valued friend, when on Neptune's bosom, no solid food ever crosses my lips ; all the nourishment taken is in a bibulous form!" The s.s. Majestic is some 10,000 tons, and com- manded by one of the ablest and most courteous Atlantic sea-captains of the day trusting he will pardon my mentioning his name Captain Parsell ; but thousands will bear record to the marvellous skill and thoughtfulness he bestows on the lives he so ably protects, and the comfort he administers. In our passage, the total souls on board were eighteen hundred and fifteen, a total that will convey to your mind the fearful and anxious responsibility resting on the ship's captain. Old travellers will appreciate how much lies in his power on board ship. Our journey was a fairly pleasant one, though I sighed somewhat at the outset, noting that we had 6 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR fourteen parsons on board, all doughty champions of infant and adult baptism ; therefore, did we have our full share of turbulent weather in the unpleasant ex- periences of a real Equinoctial gale. But our ship behaved splendidly, her internal structure and ap- pointments being well-nigh faultless the roomy cabin, the ventilation, the bathing accommodation, all simply perfect ; then the attention shown by the stewards was of the highest order ; words fail one, indeed, to describe the perfection of all these arrange- ments. For those that would partake of solid viands, a most generous and well-chosen dietary was given with a liberality unprecedented in my travelling reminiscences, quite beating all records. A word of advice. If a lady accompanies you, take two cabins you will bless me afterwards especially those termed "state-rooms," wherein sea- sickness is robbed of many of its terrors. Throughout the pages of these " flying leaves," I beg deferentially to lay before you travelling ideas, to prevent, if possible, the crumpling of a rose-leaf. You should take with you in your travels such things as cigars (American cigars are too new) ; good old Cognac ; wax candles and candlesticks, which have disappeared from America like the buffalo ; spray perfume bottles, to freshen up the cabin atmosphere ; THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR ^ large leather bags, which are more suitable for trans- port than trunks ; further, a small library of books : Schopenhauer's " Philosophy " ; " Civilisation, its Cause and Cure," by Carpenter ; " Promotion of General Happiness," by Macmillan ; u The Working- class Movement in America," by Dr. Aveling ; " Luxury," by Professor Laveleye ; Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy " ; Bacon's " Eestful Works " ; and Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress " ; indeed, any other books to inculcate resignation that_ may occur to you. Knowledge is power, when blended with foresight and Napoleonic organisation ; and how it enables one to glide unruffled through the stormy breakers of life ! Money alone is of no use, if the Almighty has not blessed you with an intelligent mind. A pleasant ocean trip, however, is enhanced by the social quality of the passengers on board, who are thrown a good deal together. I was very lucky, first in the renewal of an acquaintance of some thirty years' standing with Mr. William Butler Duncan, of New York, a fine type of an American gentleman a most charming companion, excep- tionally bright and well informed, especially on American politics and the habits and customs of his native land. He was accompanied by his wife, 8 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR unt trts grandc dame, one of the leaders of New York society. Another lucky meeting was with Mr. Kendal and his graceful wife, who were on a professional tour. I had the pleasure of their cheery society at the same dinner-table. It dis- pelled much of the ennui unavoidable on an ocean trip. Several other American celebrities were on board, social and commercial, all most anxious with their useful hints to smooth and make pleasant a traveller's path. Among others was Mr. Marshall Field, the dry goods monarch of Chicago ; a quiet, kindly man, very bright, and one of the most pro- minent citizens of America. Possessed of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, at the same time most philanthropic, he is, as repute has it, not unmindful of suffering humanity, which the world learns of through his princely gifts to hospitals and his founding of colleges for the poor of his native city. There is but little to recount of either interest or variety on the decks of an Atlantic steamer. One of the latest fiendish novelties is the Kodak, much adopted by fair Americans and others, who click away at any object of interest, or, I might add, victim, presenting an easy target. There is a strange feeling pervading one after THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 9 being out of communication with the world for five or six days. No papers, no letters, no telegrams ; possibly you say that is one of the chief charms of travel over long distances ; but only imagine, in the absence of our morning papers, how bereft we are of ideas ! " A sail ! a sail ! " Tout vient a qui sait attendre, and after some six days' run the pilot boat met us with the number 13 on its sail, usually esteemed unlucky, but, on the present occasion, none the less hailed with delight. The entrance to New York Harbour is very im- pressive and beautiful, although not striking one as especially representative of a foreign continent ; by that I mean that it is not like other foreign harbours, where garbs and strangely rigged vessels attract the gaze. As you near New York the idea comes home to you, awe-struck and reverential here is a great nation, with its feverish activity, its titanic industries, its unceasing movement, and its striking, original, and practical arrangements for utilising to the highest degree Nature's gifts. The Custom House arrangements at New York impress the somewhat weary traveller as very de- fective and wanting in skilled management. Passen- gers' friends come to meet them, also inquisitive io THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR gazers, loafers, a homogeneous crowd, all pushing one another, adding to the dire confusion and to the taking up of a good deal of unnecessary time. The waiting-room for the reception and comfort of passengers needs great reform, and could be arranged with little cost. First impressions are everything, but now they are decidedly anything but pleasant. Instead of being intended for sheltering human freight, the building you enter on leaving the steamer might be a slovenly, ill-kept cattle-shed. The Custom House authorities should at once remedy this glaringly inappropriate accommodation. Let there be distinct and separate accommodation for the weary traveller. Why permit him to be hustled by cheap purveyors of fruit, by hotel touts, by telegraph boys, cabmen, and other thrice accursed rabble ? Over and over again, when a well-wishing sympathetic traveller in a friendly tone points out the defects in a kindly way, he is told, " This is America; what you say is perfectly true and just; but such and such regulations we can't enforce, certainly those requiring privacy. This is a free country ; the people would not stand it." Again, when, as now, the streets of New York resemble Paris in a state of revolution, the blocks of stone piled up six feet, the gas-pipes exposed and exuding THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR n an overpowering flavour of carburetted hydrogen, the great trenches in the avenues only to be crossed by temporary and crazy wooden bridges, you are told, " We are laying the cable roads," and it is further explained, "The aldermen of the district requiring that their minions shall be employed on the aforesaid cable roads, we have to bide our time and not complain." In fact, two very intelligent Americans, into whose receptive ears I emptied some of my sorrowful comments, said, " My dear fellow, you don't understand this ; we are governed by the Irish." Indeed, everybody understands this over here except myself; even John Chinaman under- stands it, for one of them lately said in his R-avoid- ing English : " I mean to live in Hand, 'cause Hand only countly not gove'ned by the Ilish ! " This finishes, of course, all argument ; but when one thinks how eminently practical and inventive such a great country as America is, is it not sad that she cannot emancipate herself from certain pre- judices, and not only master, but with a firm hand insist, upon the perfection of certain (small, I grant you) details, which, as a whole, tend so much to the general welfare ? But one must generously criticise a comparatively young country, and not forget that the United States have been a nation exercising all 12 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR the attributes of sovereignty for about one hundred years only. England has had a national life of some- thing like one thousand ; it being more than eight hundred years since the Norman Conquest. America proudly boasts of a territory of three millions of square miles, not one-half of which have been deve- loped, and whose resources are only just becoming fairly known. The whole area of Great Britain is less than 80,000 square miles, not so large as the single State of Kansas, and, I think, but little larger than New England. With the discrepancy of these appalling figures, one cannot but feel proud that England is the greatest manufacturing country in the world, and her trade the largest with foreign nations. How far I am right in assuming the tones of a statist or satirist, let others judge. I went to America with prepossessions by no means unfavourable, and, indeed, rather indulged in many illusive ideas with respect to the purity of the Government and the primitive happiness of the people. To me the Western World has long been looked to as a retreat from real or imaginary oppres- sion ; as, in short, the elysian Atlantis, where per- secuted patriots might find their visions realised, and their welcome from kindred spirits to liberty and repose. In all these flattering expectations I found THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 13 myself completely disappointed, and felt inclined to say to America, as Horace says to his mistress, " Intentata nites." Brisset, in the preface to his " Travels," observes that " Freedom in that country is carried to so high a degree as to border upon a state of nature " ; and there certainly is a close approximation to savage life, not only in the liberty enjoyed, but in the violence of party spirit and private animosity which result from it. I must not forget to mention one very striking point as you near America's shores namely, the beautiful blue sky, for days quite cloudless, a tur- quoise frame to the landscape ; then the fragrance of the crisp, invigorating air which you breathe it is nectar ! UR arrival raises a moot point as to the caravansaries of New York i.e., like the dove leav- ing the ark, where to alight. You can compare New York to no city that you have ever entered ; even photographs or word representations, conveyed to you by intelli- gent New Yorkers, cannot thoroughly educate; you must see it and judge for yourself. The geo- graphical position of the abode, be your stay long or short, is of vital importance to first impressions. Select, therefore, as head-quarters Madison Square ; you have there the position of a charming open space, with bright surroundings. I think the Albe- marle Hotel, the Hoffman House, the Brunswick, the St. James', or the Fifth Avenue should be noted in your mind. I selected the Albemarle Hotel, famous as having been the abode of the Jersey Lily during her stay in New York. Nothing could be i8 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR kinder and more attentive than the host, Mr. Walters, a Swiss gentleman. It is essentially an hotel where ladies staying there enjoy a certain degree of privacy in going out and in. The view from the windows, overlooking the Madison Square Garden and the beautiful Giralda Tower, is extremely pleasing and bright ; besides, the hotel enjoys the first rays of the morning sun. But the hotel service, after our European ideas, is perfectly execrable. Everything in the American hotel seems arranged to minimise manual service. Steam heat is a fiendish invention, drying the atmosphere, parch- ing one's skin, producing the thirst of a fallen angel, and offering a high premium to pulmonary diseases if one leaves rooms so heated for the chill outside air ; then, again, the lavatory and bath-room, that are always contiguous to sleeping apartments, must be very unhealthy. That admired Continental system of certain servants being told off to certain floors appears unknown in the smaller hotels. Menial service in so Republican a country is very distasteful, and not one servant in a hundred is American born. You complain to an ardent patriot it brings about a shrug of the shoulders, and the reply, " American, you know." " But, great Scott ! " you exclaim, " though life is a tree full of monkeys, THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 19 we cannot all be at the top ; of what use, therefore, are the lower branches ? " With this warning, then, it will be better to bring your own servants if you can, and let them represent the fine flower of British servile intelligence, taking care to have them, as the Germans say of a certain vintage, "Auslese." But under no consideration bring Continental servants, even if they do not speak English, for, whether they are good or bad, some fiend in human form, by pro- mise of higher wages, will be certain to lure them away. Let me now give you, in random order, various New York peculiarities. Her streets, now torn asunder to bury the railroad cable, no human pen can describe. Politics make all interests yield, and the wonder is, that with such chartered obstructions, any such fairly endurable results have been attained. Let us hope, since America has freed her slaves, she will also divide into broad lines her commercial and her civic life, to keep them out of politics. Let us hope an American Baron Haussmann may arise who will fearlessly eradicate the existing political despotism. In a previous page one ventured on the remark that on entering New York Harbour nothing very specially foreign-like in appearance attracted the gaze, except the well-known statue of (i Liberty " ; 20 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR but on landing, as soon as you see American money, whether paper or metallic, you must recognise the foreign land, since English gold and silver are of no earthly use ; they will not be received even by the beggars. A friendly purser on board therefore acts as your exchange broker. You are given your selection of paper money, that runs from 100-dollar notes value 20 sterling to one-dollar notes; but the dollar note is a caution. Some of them are so dirty that they remind you of the Scotch one-pound notes, and are a striking exemplification of u filthy lucre " in the concrete. Have you ever, gentle reader, in the far North, purchased West Highlanders or black-faced sheep, and received any change from the drover ? He would produce such a greasy wad of paper money, that hounds would run you "gaily" if you pouched one scrap of it. Some of the American one-dollar notes must be near relations to their Scotch congeners. I believe if you laid them on a table and watched them silently, they would " walk up and down stairs," as if inhabited by a tribe of the pulex irritans. It is to a metal-habituated man an accursed coinage. Nevertheless, "trouser them," I say, and thank God when you bid adieu to their custody. Golden dollars and half-eagles do exist, but rarely are they used. I am told that New THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 21 Yorkers have ever been so predisposed to a paper currency, that in olden times, when the bank-note shifted its value like a thermometer's quicksilver, the ragged " shin plaster " was even then preferred to the bright silver piece. Now, as to American architecture in New York. Driving out to Central Park, I said to my Jidus Acluites, " Kindly show me the exteriors of the dwellings where the American Croesuses reside, because architecture and all buildings have a strange fascination for me, as an old pupil of Viollet-le-Duc, and one of his most ardent admirers." The outside of a house, palatial or otherwise, if erected by the occu- pant, is the keynote to his intellectual taste. " A man's dress is indicative of his taste and mind," said Lord Chesterfield; harmony without reigns alike within. Never before did what is termed compen- satory balance come more forcibly before one to prove how rarely anywhere does good taste run in double harness with great wealth. I saw, indeed, where the mighty Croesuses live, and sighed sadly, wishing them no greater harm than that an earth- quake or a monumental conflagration would lay some of them low. But why do they not erect mansions of white stone or New England marble, as in Wash- ington, which are stately and dignified worthy of 22 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR the great name and possessions of the occupants ? Why this never-ending chocolate ? The Americans have the good fortune to have residing in their midst an architect of celestial taste, Mr. Stanford White, who must be an exceptionally gifted mortal, and, if I err not in my forecast, one destined ere long to win a foremost European repu- tation. His latest creation is the building called the Madison Square Garden, with its Giralda Tower. It will certainly rank as one of the most artistic creations of the century in this new world, if not in the universe. A few lines giving a description may not be out of place. The Madison Square Garden covers an area 200 by 500 feet, and includes a theatre, a concert-hall, and an auditorium big enough for Olympian games. Steel is largely used, and deftly concealed in this fireproof structure, terra- cotta ornamentation and charming marbles lending their florid effects. Those who have visited Seville, and have seen its beautiful Giralda Tower reaching to the heavens, will be equally delighted to see the tower of the Madison Square Garden, which is seen to best advantage from the adjacent park. The tower looks to be about 40 feet square, and when nearly 300 feet from the ground its outline takes the pyramidal form brought about by graceful narrowing THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 23 colonnades, which end in something like a floral- shaped cupola, above which is a colossal vane that is in reality a flying Diana, who is aiming to shoot the wind in its eye ; her veil loops and her foot stretches behind her, not unlike Mercury's on a heaven-kissing hill. This figure of Diana is 350 feet above the pave- ment, whence her pirouettes are more conspicuous than those of any ballet-dancer from the stalls. New York houses, as above noticed, are nearly all built of chocolate-coloured stone, with small windows, and are often very unsightly. They are so alike that they recall the monotony of the celebrated street in the " Forty Thieves ; " Morgiana, indeed, would never have found her way back to a New York house with- out a piece of white chalk. An amiable denizen of the city tells me that this red stone at first was nearly as cheap as fire-brick, which, by-the-way, is very red. These dark houses accentuate the few white ones, among which a conspicuous and really handsome one is that of the late anointed king of the dry goods storekeepers, A. T. Stewart, who gave most potent value to the verse in the Scriptures, "He heapeth up riches and knoweth not who shall gather them." His marble palace is now the home of the Manhattan Club, an institution in whose hands rests the ark of the Democratic covenant. In the matter 24 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR of small windows, however, to which I strenuously objected in most houses, I was completely bowled over by an American telling me that "if we had the darkness and fog of London, we would need bigger windows ; but as we often have Siberian weather in winter, the smaller the window the less need of fuel." Shops in New York are, many of them, magnifi- cently roomy buildings; but few purely American specialities appear to the view of a casual observer, and an Englishman can't help seeing that the best shops depend mainly on European importations. These objects of European extraction cost here usually two to four times in excess of what they can be purchased for at the foreigner's own home ; therefore he may say to himself as to purchasing, Cui bono ? I noticed specially that Pears' soap is everywhere in America. It shone on me, or rather on my face, on board the Majestic, of the White Star Line ; it followed me to my hotel in Madison Square ; then pursued me on board the car to Chicago. It is held in very high repute, according to the "modest adver- tisements," for do not the Jersey Lily's autograph and also La Diva Patti's accompany it everywhere ? Indeed, American virgins, foolish or otherwise, use it, believing that it bestows a peach-like bloom upon THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 25 the face and hands, and one said to me, u Just lovely ! " I thought she was referring to ME, but alas ! I was in error. The Americans, though they are the champion numismatists and collectors of coin in the world, and are far ahead of us in the race for wealth, have still much to learn about what might be termed " safety valves " viz., love of pleasure and the per- fection of healthy sports ; therefore, Brother Jonathan, take kindly the above word of reproof given from my heart, for I wish you well ! No hospitality offered in any country is so profuse and generous as yours, especially to your "kin beyond the sea." The trouble you will take, the money you will spend in a truly imperial manner ! It is no fault of yours if your honoured guests do not have a right good time of it. Nevertheless, life in New York seemed to be a very grave and serious business, resulting no doubt in a great measure from the country being a new one with few idlers. Those who might set aesthetic outdoor examples are too busy in their titanic operations of amassing wealth. An Englishman notices that the Americans drive to the right, as in foreign capitals, but the reverse of the English way. One and all admit the error, and cannot explain otherwise than that it has crept in 26 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR unawares and is now an established custom. But if leading equine clubs were seriously to take the matter up, it is not too late to rectify so serious a crime in British eyes, for it is opposed to all common sense and not justifiable by the wisest rules of the road. 11 The rule of the road is a paradox quite ; In riding or driving along, If you go the left you are sure to go right, If you go to the right you go wrong." I was very much pleased with the horses generally, which were far ahead of one's acquired impressions of an American horse. Their tails were squared, and here and there the turn-outs looked smart, although " loin straps " were very much affected. Further improvement might be made by removing all hirsute appendages from coachmen's faces, and by the introduction of the British tiger at the coachman's side. Here and there are black coach- men, with soft wideawakes on their heads, but I must say it was a pleasing exception to see a coloured man well set up and driving with the pride of his art. . As regards American carriages, if built on Euro- pean models, they are hors lignc, especially those constructed for country work, such as omnibuses, THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 27 c/iar-d-bct'iics, buck-boards, or racine waggons, for conveying luggage and suitable for quick-running station work, or going to cover. One must refer, also, to their extra lightness and beautiful finish ; they are unrivalled ; indeed, much of the steel fitting is like choice goldsmith's work, for it is almost too good for carriages, but it means marvellous strength and wear, added to inconceivable lightness. The American shapes generally I do not like, but if you send out your own model, the copy that will be returned will be a joy for ever a dream of enchanted beauty. Foremost stand Messrs. Healy, of New York. The senior partner is a cultivated gentleman, an ex-officer in the army, and one who served with distinction in the American War ; he is a member of the Union League Club, and naturally fully cognizant of the requirements of gentlemen. He was decorated with the Legion of Honour by the French Government, at the Paris Exhibition, for the beautiful vehicular exhibits of his firm ; he is, besides, a great traveller, but whether at home or in any capital of Europe is cosmopolitan in his ideas, culling here and there the latest improvements and beauties in all matters connected with his busi- ness. I discussed with him the truly irrational mode of American driving, and sought to discover 28 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR why the driving community counting among them, as they do, numbers of very smart coachmen, men who really know how to put their horses together and drive them why these men should allow this stigma to rest on their shoulders, and permit them- selves to be called " blooming foreigners " in equine matters by Englishmen, who represent the highest recognised standard of intelligence in all matters connected with horses and sport ! Let it be preached everywhere "Alter your mode of driving." Mr. Ilealy, who is facile princcps in such matters, assured me that when driving he always sits on the near side in order to modify as far as he could this national defect. Before leaving the subject, a last word : Eemove loin straps and shorten your poles then bless me for the hint. CLUB; would not be gracious, or even grateful, if I were not to make a few passing remarks on the extreme hospitality and liberality shown by leading clubs in New York City to strangers properly introduced, whereby so many pleasant acquaintances are formed. America used to be such an uxorious country the men knowing no other society than that of their wives that a city club was unknown in the early part of this century. The directory of New York, however, now gives the titles of 300 in the city. A traveller cannot, of course, see the whole of them, any more than he can do justice to the 365 churches of Rome. Nevertheless they are all open to foreigners, and the habit prevails, it is said, in every one of them of asking the stranger to drink on every occasion in 32 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR the most generous fashion. The formation of clubs keeps going on in New York in spite of the existing facilities for the club man. The Metropolitan or Millionaire's club has lately been projected. Its entrance fee of $500 and annual charge of $100 are considerably above the same things in London. Perhaps the finest club now in New York is the Union League, as it was built expressly for the pur- pose, containing stately dining and banqueting rooms at the top of a high house from whose windows the city is seen, for it stands on Murray Hill. This club is a political organisation, dating from the great Rebellion in 1863. It has an admirable table and wine cellar. Besides these material advantages, there is a large library, domiciled in a spacious room of considerable architectural pretension. There are, besides, monthly exhibitions given of pictures, where may be seen collections of extraordinary value and the highest novelty. This would seem to be a function of a different organisation from a club, yet these monthly exhibitions attract crowds of resident ladies and non-resident men (all admitted by ticket), who enjoy them as much for the three days they are visible as they would a small Salon exhibition. Indeed, it could not be otherwise, since nearly every one of their picture-shows includes the names of THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 33 Gcrome, Bougereau, Meissonier, Cabanel, Chaplin, Detaille, De Neuville, and artists of their rank ; and occasionally there are special exhibitions of classic masters worthy of a king's purchase. Another beautiful but small club-house is the Players'. It is the art-work of Mr. Stanford White, the architect, carrying out the ideas of Mr. Edwin Booth, who most generously presented the furnished club-house as a memorial of his father, who in older times was the most prominent actor of the United States, as was also the son undoubtedly till within a year or two. This club numbers about five hundred members, principally authors, actors, and theatrical managers, with a fair sprinkling of artists. Every Saturday night there is a symposium, at which assist nearly all the distinguished strangers who may happen to be in the city. There is a free supper provided, and in the grill-room, a marvellously cosy, beautiful apartment, one may often see an ex-Presi- dent of the United States at table flanked by a young tragedian, or by that drollest of men Wilson, or De Wolf Hopper, in a fellowship that proves how close the stage is to every heart. The Players' is an exclusive club, and, being one of the newest, is an object of interest to strangers. Since the charm of its interior, once seen by travelling actors and men c 34 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR of leisure, cannot be forgotten, it becomes the subject of many a pleasing reminiscent anecdote. Thus is its fame carried. Once a year, on the 23rd day of April Shakespeare's birthday ladies are admitted within its doors, and I am told the demand for tickets is a very serious question with the members, who are only allowed two apiece. As a museum for playbills, theatrical relics, portraits and casts of dis- tinguished actors, and as a library of dramatic litera- ture and criticism, the future of the club will be of great interest to all those fond of the stage. I NEW YORK SIGHTS IF an Englishman is asked aboard ship, on his return trip from New York, " What did you see ? " that is, in case he has had a month there he will probably say, Trinity Church, Broadway, Fifth Avenue, Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum, and Brooklyn Bridge. These sights live in the memory like Niagara, only there is something so stupendous as one obtains his prima vista of the bridge, that he must say to himself, " Is this the work of man ? " All other bridges that one sees in different parts of the world suggest the work of engineers, but the Brooklyn bridge is pre-eminently imposing, and seems to have enlisted in its con- struction some of the grand energy and perfect 38 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR adaptation of means to ends that distinguish the works of Nature alone. While it is so utilitarian in the entirety, its lines are most graceful, and when you get away from immediate contact with its pon- derous existence, so as to see it in the landscape, it is beautifully poetic ; and one cannot say too much in eulogy of a construction that is so noble, useful, and beautiful. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a private enterprise, which a score of aesthetic gentlemen have nourished with their funds for twenty years. It has been receiving legacies and gifts superior to those of any gallery in the world during these years, yet it has never received but a pittance from the city, and, I am informed, nothing from the State of New York. I was struck with the many masterpieces contained in the galleries. Meissonier's " 1807," Breton's " Pardon," Rosa Bonheur's " Horse Fair," and many others testify to the liberality and pride which the generous New Yorker takes in making it an imperial collection for the benefit of the public quite free of cost, and in spite of the fact that the Republican theory, which ought to foster the arts, strangely considers it a part of the City and State function to ignore and starve them. One hears many speculations about the future THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 39 population of this island. Figures could be quoted to show that within fifty years it will rival, probably the London of to-day, if not Paris included. But how these people will be transported, when they occupy the soil with the incredible density one now sees in their tall houses, is a work of the imagination. Already the most perfect system of transportation in the world is the New York Elevated Railways. For a city two miles wide and twelve miles long, the four lines, about equidistant for the traffic, constitute a nearly perfect metropolitan system. The evils we are afflicted with in the underground system of London, which may be recounted as darkness, damp- ness, stenches, gas, blacks, smoke, and even dust, are each and all altogether unknown here. The enormous business of the New York Elevated Roads prevents a high rate of speed, but the motion is as agreeable as flying through the air, with positively no inconvenience whatever ; for even in winter the cars are heated, and they are always so light and smooth-running that a man goes to his business from the north end of the island to its southern apex or back in a little over half an hour, during which he need lose no time, for, the car being lighted, he can do his newspaper reading under the most luxurious conditions. The Elevated Road is now so crowded that 40 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR an underground system is agitated ; but I imagine that if the latter is ever adopted in New York, people will pay two prices to travel through the air rather than burrow gratis through the ground. The Ele- vated Road carries a passenger twelve miles for five cents. The theatres of New York are generally very attractive. When you have paid for your seat, which costs a trifle less than the London prices, you are thereafter free, and are not haunted for the little fees which, if not exacted, are expected, in London. The mounting of the pieces shows the at present French taste; and, as for dressing, it seems to be the custom to advertise women's costumes and sometimes the absence of them rather than their histrionic ability. There is one actor, however, named Francis Wilson, who, as a comic, is at least equal to the best in England. Should he play " The Merry Monarch " in London, there is no doubt of his success. Such natural fun and exuberant comi- cality all within the bounds of propriety are rarely excelled. New York contains now about thirty theatres, and the tendency of the most popular is, as in London, towards musical entertainment. I saw " La Cigale '' presented in very good fashion in an uncommonly beautiful theatre, where such a mass of THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 41 colour was exhibited, not only on the stage, which was full of pretty girls, but also in the audience, that it made quite a memorable evening. Prejudice against class, I presume, and the disposition of the American to enjoy everything in common with his fellow man, is probably the reason why one sees no boxes in any of the theatres, except those about the proscenium. With this New York mode of seating more people can be put into the same space, and hence a lower price of admission can be allowed. EW YORK is getting less and less desirable as a place of residence every year. Its noise and rush and constant excite- ment are too much for people who have any nerves. It wears them out, and they are old before their time. For those who like outside amusements, who don't care for quiet evenings at home, New York is the place. There is more going on here in one night than there is in any other city in the Union in a week. This exactly suits the large class of people who have no homes, the people who live in hotels and boarding-houses, seeking their pleasures any where but at their own fireside. However, there is now a decided movement countryward, and it is likely to increase now that 46 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR access to Westchester County has been made so easy. You can get on the Second or Third Avenue Elevated Road at any station, and, without getting off the platform, take a car that runs as far as New Rochelle without stopping. When Edison's new electric motor is an established success, every suburb of New York will be brought within easy reach. New York has not, of course, from her geographi- cal figuration, so many residential outskirts as London, Paris, and many other Continental cities ; but one would not do justice to one's " flying leaves," to ignore Tuxedo and the social advantages of the Tuxedo Club ; they fully deserve a traveller's notice and visit. Through the kind hospitality of an old China friend, who has a beautiful bungalow there, located on one of the promontories overlooking the lake, I was invited to pass a few days, and be an honoured guest at one of the famous Tuxedo Balls. A few words about Tuxedo and the formation of the Club might interest some of my readers, so I beg to give the following details : A run of an hour or so from New York by the Erie line thirty-eight miles lands one in one of the most beautiful wild forest stretches it has ever been my good fortune to see. As viewed from the railway, it appears one of the densest of forest wildernesses. It might be matter THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 47 for niild wonderment that people should have clus- tered together to form the occasional villages in so lonely a district, but it requires more than the mere telling to make the casual railway passer-by appreciate that, in one of the most secluded spots of this wild territory, the cream of the' New York fashion and aristocracy had taken up its abode. Yet such is Tuxedo. The idea was formed by Mr. Pierre Loril- lard, the owner of some 5000 acres, situated on the Bamapo Mountains, to found a club and subdivide this beautiful estate into certain building lots, where, in summer and autumn, denizens of the heated city might have their bungalows erected amidst highland scenery and the most beautiful air. Americans are, as a rule, very gregarious in their tastes isolation to them, in any sort of form, is only equalled by penal servitude their general life shows it ; a restless love of liking to be always en Evidence, even in travelling ; privacy is most distasteful, that is why cafe and hotel keepers amass such large fortunes. Paran Stevens, the Astors, and others accumulated wealth in this walk of life. How different from John Bull ! If he prays, let it be in a panelled oak pew, shrouding him from public gaze ; if partaking of the civic mutton chop, he enters a box ; in railway travelling, what shallow devices he pursues to guard against invasion 48 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR of his railway carriage ! Seclusion is to him the very breath of his nostrils. In Tuxedo all the forest land is dotted with very pretty bungalows, standing in grounds of five acres and upwards. The resident members of the Tuxedo Club are those who own plots, and have built houses thereon. Any one can buy land in Tuxedo Park that is to say, any one can pay the purchase price and receive in return a contract for property ; but more effective than the familiar strand barbed wire fence, that surrounds the whole track, is the clause voiding this contract, if the party of the second part be not duly elected to membership of the club. But once become a land-owner, he finds here, not only a spot of unique beauty, but every accessory of health and convenience beautiful roads, kept as in a private English park, perfect sewerage, and telephonic service. A Tuxedo Park Association was thus formed, with Mr. Pierre Lorillard as president. The Club is open all the year, but singularly, for such an ideal rural spot, the Park is almost deserted during the mid- summer days. It is about September, at the height of the bass season, that the sportsman puts in an appearance, and Society begins to transfer its social functions thither. Weekly orchestral concerts by the Hungarians begin at the Club-house, with sun- THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 49 set teas on the glass-encased verandah, dinners and routs innumerable, aud autumn dances in the superb circular ball-room, with azure and silver dome of radiating rafters. At New Year's time High Carnival is held, including every conceivable winter sport coasting, sleighing, skating, ice-boating, &c., with police protection, and absolute privacy from intrusion ! Pheasants are being bred in large numbers, trout- hatcheries established, so as, later, to organise battues and give varied sport to the members of the Associa- tion. It is needless to say that the air is most ex- hilarating, and it must be a health resort of the highest order. The greatest sociability and hospi- tality reign everywhere, the Club-house being a neutral ground for forming the pleasantest of all kinds of reunions. A VIEW OF "THE FOUR HUNDRED" A CERTAIN rather fatuous person, who has been more or less prominent, according to the point of view taken in social matters, was reported some years ago to have said that there were in New York society but four hundred persons. Probably the man in question never made any such remark, but the thought was a happy one, and " The Four Hundred" has come to be synonymous with the cream of New York society. Of this organisation I purpose to give a brief analysis. Some moderately wise man once said that social differentiation in New York was based upon the . 54 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR position of the word " van " in a man's name. Thus, Van Courtland, for example, is aristocratic ; Sullivan is plebeian ; but when you deprive Van Courtland of his money and hand it over to Sullivan, the position of the " van " is not so important. There is much truth in the above, although it must be said, in justice to the Four Hundred, that Van Courtland, with a little money, would stand a better chance of social recognition than Sullivan with a great deal that is, until Sullivan had proved him- self to be possessed of tact, savoir faire, and savoir vivre, in which case his fortune would give him the advantage. In the colonial times New York possessed an aristocracy which was composed of the large land- holders of the Hudson Valley. These people had manorial rights and privileges, and they naturally, under the leadership of the Governor, who repre- sented royalty, dominated the society of the period. This aristocracy of the land-holders was composed of men of both Dutch and English blood, some of whom had excellent social antecedents on the other side of the ocean, and all of whom had had influence enough in the early days of the colony to have feudal powers given to them over the people whom they induced to settle on their broad lands, these latter THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 55 having been obtained in various ways, some of them being extremely obscure and devious. In fact, the whole organisation was a very close copy of the English life of the period, a landed gentry giving laws and tone to a commercial community. The Eevolution put an end to the political part of this system. Manorial rights and entails were done away with, and, with the extension of the suffrage, Dennis with his bar-room or Fritz with his brewery became of more political weight than Van Blank with his acres. Socially, however, these families that is, those of them who had espoused the popular cause and had not emigrated held their precedence for a long time. In fact, up to the year of the opening of the Erie Canal, with the rapid increase in com- mercial wealth which followed, New York society continued to move along very much on the ante- Revolution lines, and there was much distinction of persons. To a man in what is slangly called the " swim," the New York of that early day was a very pleasant little place. The waters about it were clean, the shores were picturesque, all sorts of good things to eat and drink abounded, and the town for the period was very rich. The business pace was, as compared to that of to-day, much as the pace of a waggon or a sailing ship is to that of an express train 56 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR or a Liverpool record-breaker. People had time to sit down and think, and also had time for much dining and dancing and general amusement. Manners among men were more dignified and courteous than at present, for the practice of duelling was rife, and, with all its faults, the duello was a conservator of good manners, to say nothing of good morals. Then, too, if a man wanted excitement, he had only to take an interest in politics, for the bitterest party feeling of to-day is milk-and-water compared to that which existed when the century was young. The society women of that period were, so all foreigners reported, easy, simple, and graceful. They had travelled little, and, of course, were pro- vincial. They were not especially well read, and although many of them wrote bright letters, they would have considered the perpetration of a novel as something which a New England school-teacher might be guilty of, but not by any means a woman in New York society. Naturally enough, English social ideas and methods were copied as closely as possible, and, in fact, New York society has always been dominated by the West End of London, and to this day, though, perhaps, she would not confess it, a New York society woman looks with as much reve- rence towards the Court of St. James as did her THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 57 predecessor of the colonial period. As the century progressed society progressed with it, in some directions for good, in others for ill. Gradually the prestige and influence of the old colonial families became eclipsed, as their fortunes were overshadowed by the great sums acquired by the daring and able men of affairs who had sense and strength enough to grasp the new forces, such as steam and electricity, and wield them to their own advantage. The social world certainly was both widened and broadened by this influx of new people, but at the same time it was somewhat vulgarised and expensively mounted and adorned (as are the Four Hundred to-day) with all that architect, artist, and artisan, urged by high pay, can do in the way of decorating life, and it must be confessed that the manners of its component parts are not fine. Both in private and public there is apt to be among these people a lack of dignity and also of repose. Both men and women carry into their social lives that strained intensity of energy which enabled their fathers to accumulate the money on which they live. There can be no dignity without repose, and although the sight of a crowd of people engaged in a perpetual foot-race may be admirable from certain standpoints, the performance is certainly not a dignified one. 58 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR How the Four -Hundred got itself made up, and what the requisites are for belonging to it, and why one family should be included, and another, to the full as well born and bred and just as rich, should be excluded, are questions very difficult to answer. It is usually supposed that money is the only neces- sary qualification. This is a mistake. The Four Hundred are, it is true, in the aggregate very rich, but several of the largest fortunes in the land are outside of the pale, and many of the recognised leaders are by no means plutocrats, while of the very rich people in the smart set several of the richest have only of late years, and after many and divers snubs and vast expenditure, succeeded in reaching the goal, while there are many others of commensurate fortunes who, after many strenuous efforts, have betaken themselves to London or Paris, where Americans are all supposed to be on the same plane, and where, by dint of regilding exiguous coats-of-arms and lavish entertaining, they have achieved the success of being not in but of society a subtle distinction, but one which to the initiate means a great deal. So it is not wealth alone which is required, although of course, some money is necessary and a great deal is very convenient to have. Neither is learning nor die- THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 59 tinction, civil or military, a requisite. On the contrary; such attributes are rather a drawback. One does not meet the men the nation delights to honour among the Pour Hundred as a general rule, although, if one of its members were to distinguish himself, he would not thereby necessarily jeopardise his position. In fact, the liberality of the Four Hundred goes so far that the half-dozen of clever women in the circle who have written books, or perchance painted pic- tures, have not by such action lost caste, although it must be said that in each one of these rare in- stances the perpetrator of the anomaly was already a member of the association. If she had not so been, neither book nor picture would have assisted her social ambitions, but would have been a heavy handi- cap, which no speed or action could have overcome. If it is desired to study the Four Hundred under the most favourable circumstances, visit Newport in the season. Newport is New York society, with New York, its bustle, its noise, and its strenuous- ness left out. Newport has become the very centre and nexus of smart society, and truly a better choice could not have been made than that green- sodded, soft-climated, rock-ribbed isle by the sea. In Newport, a shrewd observer can very soon diagnose the Four Hundred. His first observation 60 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR will probably be that this society has no just sense of proportion. He will see houses, called in an absurdly depreciatory way " cottages," many of which are veritable palaces costing vast sums of money, and replete with art gems culled from the collections of impecunious people of rank abroad. He will likewise note the large and beautifully- appointed stables, and the carefully-kept grounds, resplendent with flowers ; and then he will, after admiring the scene, suddenly discover that all these splendours are erected on the basis of an acre or so of ground. In fact, he will be very soon sorry for the ground which has to bear so great a weight on such a small surface. Later on the traveller, by reason of letters of introduction, will see something of the home life of these deities of fashions Olympians who are gene- rally so far removed from ordinary American life and thought, that they are practically denationalised. Properly presented, the stranger will be lavishly treated. He will find the breakfasts and luncheons veritable banquets, and when he dines he will wish that the repast could be divided into sections and spread out through the entire week. Also, he will note the fact that the whole pool is in a state of rapid perturbation. Everybody is under high pres- THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 61 sure. The hostess who appeared in orthodox dinner costume last night will likely be seen about the streets next day, before two o'clock, in four different costumes and as many varying vehicles. In fact, after a few days of this sort of carnival, the student will depart for quieter scenes, reflecting that he has had more food and wine than was good for him ; that the women had changed their clothes with a rapidity which suggested the "lightning personifiers" at the circus, and that he had met a number of people who could have put mind to mind in an agreeable way if they had only had the time for reflection. In another direction, too, there is much good in the women of the Four Hundred. To be in the set it is almost essential to belong, at least nominally, to the Episcopal Church, or as its votaries prefer to call it, the " American branch of the Anglican Catholic Church." Now, this church in New York is prac- tically a great charitable organisation with Trinity Parish at the head, and in the carrying out and raising money for these beneficiaries, to their honour be it recorded, the matrons and maids of the Four Hundred are prominent. And in many ways their personal influence is very marked, as, for example, in certain sewing schools where attempts are made to teach the very " toughest " possible gutter girls the 62 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR rudiments of plain sewing and personal cleanliness. It has been found that neither members of Protes- tant sisterhoods nor paid teachers have as great an influence and control as these young women of fashion, who, by the way, are always ready to give time and trouble to such work, and who explain their control by the statement : "Oar gowns over- awe them." There is another thing to be said in favour of this much criticised society. Usually moral scandals are common enough in New York life, but scandals among the high flyers, the Newport and Tuxedo set, are very rare indeed. Another very good point about these ladies is that they generally accept bad fortune gracefully. Some of the hardest- working and most successful women in town erst frivoled life away with the most frivolous, but when the cold wind blew they faced the situation and went contentedly to work as if Newport had never existed, and the Patriarchs were an idle dream. Occasionally, too, some damsel of this sort loses her heart to a poor devil in the army, and is translated to a Western post, where it is always noticed that she puts up with adobe quarters and impossible service better than any other variety of female whatsoever. It seems rather odd to write about a section of the American social organisation as having meeting- THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 63 places and boundaries apart from the rest of the people. Odd as it may seem, it is perfectly true. New York has crystallised a society which is de- cidedly apart and by itself. It is exclusive ; it makes its own laws, and admission to it is as difficult as it is to get into the two or three clubs which its male members support; and, as before said, in its externals at any rate, it is more English than American. It has in these latter days learned its Burke and Debrett, and it knows, by repute at least, London society very well ; hence and emphatically, unless the wandering British swell has a good record, he is not taken up by it, while, so far as its own country people go, no rank, civil, military, or intel- lectual, is an open sesame unless the indefinable something else be present. THE LADIES ow to speak of " The Ladies," always a theme of wild joy and interminable interest ! Strangely, though I had penned folios of interesting matter, I recsived anonymously certain previously written articles, so subtle in delineation, and so truthful, that, while rendering every homage to the unknown writer in giving his views, I warmly endorse all that he has said. La belle Americaine is Iwrs liyne. The universal criticism of the American girl in Europe crudely describes her as beautiful, rich, strange ; with alas ! one defect, to be dilated upon later. I have rarely heard the first descriptive epithet omitted; indeed, one is astonished to see the re- markable beauties who come out of unheard-of " districts " in America. It seems a new immigration of the human race; for in London, Paris, or at 68 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR Nice or Homburg, one runs against a blonde beauty of such surprising lustre, or a brunette so tall, so superb, so flashing, with such hands and feet, that the proverbial Duchess, who is supposed to have a monopoly of these appendages, is nowhere ; then to find that this glorious Helen has come from Denver, or Kansas City, or still further west ! There is no doubt that the mixture of race, or atmosphere, or whatever makes beauty that subtle but most de- sirable alchemy is floating like thistle-down in the air of the United States of America. It is also a question which must puzzle those who pretend to write on heredity, why these children of men and women who have laboured with their hands, men and women that have never known luxury, possess hands which rival those of the Venus di Medici, feet which have Chinese smallness and the Spanish instep, and little shell-like ears which would point to an ancestry of a thousand earls. The one defect deferentially I state it is the American pronunciation, most unmusical and un- pleasant to us who love the low soft caressing voice of their southern sisters, who murmur lo famo so sweetly. The reverence that is paid to woman in America is astounding. Doubtless her very free and easy THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 69 training, and the consciousness, which has been hers from the moment she could walk and talk, that she can aspire to any position, have given her boldness to clasp the sceptre of social sovereignty, and she is a living example of the truth of Goethe's lines : " What you can do or dream, you can begin it I Boldness hath genius, power, and magic in it." However, such triumph does not follow every Ameri- can girl. It would not be necessary to write this if it did. For so dear is success to the human aspirant, that it would be clutched even at the expense of much that is more really valuable. And by success I mean, for the moment, merely the truest, while poorest and most worldly definition of the word. Rank, title, position in Society, are very dear to the American girl ; and it is no wonder, since she comes, like young Lochinvar, out of the West and the West means, in Europe, everything from New York to San Francisco that she is dazzled by these glittering stars. She finds that a title, however en- cumbered, insures its owner the kind of respectful recognition from servants, tradespeople, inn-keepers, indeed, from everybody up to the highest grade of society, which is so pleasant to women, who, unless they possess some very remarkable magnetism, get 70 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR no such marked attention in their own country. Would a Princess, driving up to Tiffany's or Del- monico's, move that obdurate mass a single inch ? And yet what crowd at the Louvre or the Bon Marche would not fall into respectful aisles, as a great lady, preceded by her servant, makes her way ? And in London, too, what a magic wand is a carriage, and the consciousness of title ? It is an entering wedge everywhere, but to speak of the toadies, the flatterers, or hangers-on to a title, would be but to open a discussion on a threadbare theme. The American girl's ingrained lack of reverence applies to rank. Much as she is dazzled by title, she really feels no sort of reverence for it. Perhaps that is one reason why she is so amusing to princes, to whose jaded ears, tired with flattery, the blunt truth issuing from coral lips and dazzling teeth is so grateful. So to these victims of pomp and etiquette, very entertaining is this strange, wild gazelle of the forest, with her beautiful, soft, fearless eyes, which regard the prince as only a man, and will eat out of his hand and bite it afterwards, perhaps ! To the philosopher, to the republican, to the shade of Thomas Jefferson, the conduct of the American girl of to-day is most unworthy, unpatriotic, and un- American. But how rosaate it all is to the young THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 71 girl herself, already intoxicated with the homage to her rare beauty which every eye has rendered since she left the ship ! It is no wonder that many poor moths singe their wings at the blazing and alluring candle held aloft by men of title, whose rank is but the guinea stamp minus its gold. In the matter of dress, an American girl rises to the situation at once. She is very rarely, if ever, badly dressed. Given such an amount of prettiness as she has, such quickness of eye, and so long a purse, Paris dresses her like a dream; then she wears her clothes like a queen, or as queens but seldom do. There is one fact about which the American girl can be sure : she is at present the most talked-of creature in the world. Never before did the women of one nation so successfully invade all nations, and reverse the Sabine legend by carrying off the most able-bodied warriors. Her march over Eng- land and the Continent is a triumphant one: it is one great story of conquest, and these lovely Amazons stop for no ocean, river, or geographical boundary. And what does she get in return ? Rank, castles, a new domain, full of the romantic associations of antiquity, art, and literature. She, the morning 72 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR glory, shall be trained over ancestral oaks. She shall be on the sunny side of things. The earth returns her smile in flowers ; her sun-dial bears this legend : " I mark no hours but sunny ones." The shadow which the American girl is just now casting on the map of Europe is therefore, generally speaking, a robust one. If she chooses it can be most attractive, and in a thousand cases she makes it so. No women are more courted, admired, and praised. If they choose to respond by being bouncing and loud, it is a fault easily corrected. Remembering they come from a country where they are always first, they are sometimes found running against cobweb lines of etiquette. Like persons who come out of a glare of light into a dark room where they do not see, what wonder if they make some mistakes ? Another international marriage has just occurred, and another European nobleman has won the heart of a fair American. But it was only natural that Miss Stevens now Countess Micislas Orlowski should choose from Europe rather than from the United States the companion of her life, for her mother and sister the Duchesse de Dine and the Comtesse de Galliffet had set her the brilliant THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 73 example. At first blush it strikes a European as a little odd that American girls, citizens of a great republic, should elect to become aristocrats, nay more, nobles. But there is nothing so very strange about it. Americans take a peculiar interest in Courts, kings, and titled people generally, for the very reason that they find nothing of this kind at home. Just as, when they cross the ocean, they visit the picture-galleries and the public monuments, so they are curious to see crowned heads, dukes, and marquises ; the latter are " sights " as much as are the former. Whilst on the subject of American ladies, there is an enterprising journal called the Ladies' Home Journal, which is published on the other side of the Atlantic. The conductor of its affairs has had the happy idea of " drawing " several eminent Englishmen, who were asked to write brief New Year messages for publication to the readers of the Journal. Here are some extracts from the sheaf of letters which resulted from the editor's request : 74 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR Canon Farrar on Women's Aims. If it be true that " the corner-stone of the com- monwealth is the hearthstone," how important is the work of every woman, even in that sphere of family life which many are tempted to despise as too narrow for their energies. Every woman should, indeed, aim at doing good in wider regions of life, and should endeavour by the irresistible force of sweet and silent influence, if in no other way, to raise the whole tone of national thought and con- duct. But even if a woman, whether married or unmarried, be "never heard of half a mile from home," the purity and loftiness of her ideal, the devoted unselfishness of her life, may tell with immense and continuous power upon every member of her family. The Dean of Westminster to Americans. As the pupil in early youth, as the close friend for forty years of my illustrious predecessor in the guardianship of a building as dear to the citizens of the United States as to the children of our mother country, I hope that the women of America will accept the good wishes for the coming year of one who knows how vast is their influence in THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 75 shaping the ideal, in forming the character, and in moulding the history of the still youthful nation which shares the birthright of all the memories connected with the Abbey of Westminster. None w ho enjoyed the friendship of Arthur Stanley can forget how the closing years of one so dear to them were brightened by the kindness and hospitality which he received on his visit to the United States in 1878. Mr. Haggard : " Women Content to be Women" It is to the women who are content to be women that I send my warmest wishes to those true women whose hope and happiness lie in their homes, and whose desire it is to rule, not at the polls, the markets, or in Congress, but in the hearts of men and children. May they be such as our mothers were ; I can wish them no better. May they find love in their homes and infants at their knees, and, above everything, may they find religion to help them in their sorrows, and to console them when all else fails. Mr. Froude's View of American Ladies. What am I that you ask me to send a message to the ladies of America ? Have I not found them 76 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR everywhere witty, beautiful, and delightful ? And what more can I ask, since I have not to pay their dressmakers' bills, except to wish for them a year of happiness and content during 1892 ? Sir Edwin Arnold's Persian Reply. I wish I were better able to fulfil your wishes by writing a message to the women of America. What would I say about them as a class? It is very difficult ; but, since I must answer, briefly I would reply in the Persian word, Afrin i.e., " Allah make more like them." Mr. Thomas Hardy on American Earnestness. American women seem to be more earnest of purpose than those of European countries. I have been told that this opinion arises from my having met only the best womankind. Be that as it may, such is my impression, and I am glad to record it upon this occasion of sending a New Year line to the women of your country. Max ORett: "No Room for Improvement." My heartiest New Year's greetings to the fair daughters of Jonathan. What I wish them for the THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 77 year 1892 is embodied in my answer to a beautiful American lady who one day exclaimed in my presence, " How I do wish I were a man ! " " Madam," I replied, " you are ever so much better as you are." Do remain what you are, dear American ladies ; there is very little room for improvement. A Message from Mr. Charles Dickens. A warm and heartfelt New Year's greeting to the women of America from the son of one who, though dead, still lives, a loved and cherished friend, in thousands of American homes. God's blessing on the daughters and mothers of that great people who, hand in hand with Great Britain and Australia, must surely dominate the world ! I have already had something to say about the American girl in Europe, but the place to see the American girl is here. From having been in the past a helpless object, whose sole idea was matrimony, and whose ability consisted in playing the piano badly and singing worse, she has now invaded the industrial territory of men, and there are a hundred and fifty employments open to her. It is surprising to find how women are employed 78 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR in the United States with work at which men are alone to be found in Europe. There is one pro- fession, exclusively the woman's in England, which has no representative in a similar capacity in the United States, that is the barmaid's. 1 am told, however, that there is a drinking saloon lately opened near the Brooklyn Bridge where there are two English barmaids, who were expressly imported for the purpose of breaking the rule. In Washington, through which I paid a flying visit, there is an army of fair clerks in all the departments. There are many thousands of them. It is said that their average salary is about one quarter less than that paid to men who do the same work. Generally, women's clerical and departmental work is satisfac- tory, but there are drawbacks which would make men preferable even at the difference. Gallantry, like atmospheric air, that enters everywhere, finds its way also into the departments ; why, since the man would have no consideration shown him in the per- formance of duty, is it considered necessary to treat the woman with so much more distinction, that in the end she is often an embarrassment ? Some old Civil Service curmudgeons have been known to say that there was too much flirtation in the depart- ments, aod they couldn't eradicate it ; but this must have been a libel. I saw an advertisement in the New York Herald of an employer seeking for travel- ling saleswomen (sales-ladies they have been called), and he gave as a reason that his men travellers would use his money in getting drunk, hence he was forced to employ women ; therefore I imagine if the flirta- tiousness of the woman and the bibulous infirmity of the man are relatively considered, the weight of the testimony would be in favour of the woman. Victor Hugo called this the " century of women," and when we think that it is only forty years since the American husband not only owned his wife and all she possessed, while to-day she is as independent of him as it is possible for the law to make her, one can see that this is really the " century of women." The law of most of the States gives the wife the authority to put her husband in gaol for non-support, while there is no law to compel her to contribute a sixpence to his support should he fall ill, were she even a millionairess. I don't know whether the lady of America is freer than her English sister to occupy the pulpit or the platform in advocacy of useful theories or new ideas, but there does seem to be a visible licence that the sex possesses in America beyond any other country. The Oriental theory 8o THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR of a woman having no soul is reversed here, where the veneration for the sex has reached what a Euro- pean might consider absurd lengths. I am told it is only a few years since it was the custom for men to give their places that they had paid for to women, whether in the cars or in places of amusement. In the streets, whether by day or night, a woman is singularly free to move as she pleases in this metro- polis of New York. Nearly every man seems to be a policeman for her protection, and she would have to be obstreperously dressed and mannered before a man would presume to accost her. It may be interesting to the reader to know what Mr. Max O'Rell, the French satirist, has to say. He lately charmed a large audience at Brooklyn with a lecture on " Her Highness, the American Woman." Mr. O'Rell's lectures, like his writings, consist of a lot of bright sayings, aptly illustrated. He had little to say about the American woman that was not highly complimentary. " What strikes the foreigner most forcibly about American women," he said, " is the absence of stupid faces found among them. I do not say that all of your ladies are beautiful, but they are all intelligent- looking. " American women are typical. They are unlike THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 81 any other women I know. There are no women to compare with them in a drawing-room. Their beauty, physically speaking, is great, but we foreigners are more struck by the frankness of their eyes, the naturalness of their emotions, and their general genuineness. " So far as I can discover, from the age of seventeen or eighteen years your American girls are given almost every liberty. They take the others. And why not ? The respect for woman that seems to be inherent in American men makes it safe to allow the girls full liberty. In this country women have a great deal of influence. You will find that in any country where woman has influence the standard of morality will be raised. " I have never discovered in the American woman the slightest trace of gratitude to man. In fact, I think I have detected a shade of contempt for the animal called man in the American woman. Perhaps it is because you Americans treat them with such profound respect. The men of Europe, including those of my own country, can take lessons in polite- ness toward woman from you Americans. They will stand back with hat in hand to let a lady pass, as you will, but at the time their eyes are busy admiring whatever of beauty may be passing them, 82 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR while your American will look in another direction, BO as not to embarrass the lady. "Europe is learning valuable lessons from you Americans as to the relations of the sexes. They view with wonder your plan of educating your boys and your girls and your young men and young women in the same schools, in the same classes. But in the finished product the learned young woman of your land able and ready to meet your young man in all matters pertaining to the brain they see the wisdom of your action. " One beauty of the American learned woman is that she does not make a guy of herself. France and England have their learned women, but their learning has made guys of them as a rule, and when you see one of them in a drawing-room you walk the other way if you can decently do so. Your American learned woman remains a woman in spite of her learning. She dresses well, and tries to look as well as she can not to please the men ; oh, no ! but to please herself. " If I had to be born again, and could choose my sex and my place of birth, I would shout, at the top of my voice, ' Make me an American woman, Lord!'" While I am giving certain prominence to remarks THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 83 by a clever writer on American girls, it may be of interest to learn what an American thinks of the English girl ; herewith are some remarks by Mrs. Annie Payson Call : "English women are showing a marked supe- riority over American women in the college career. They are taking prizes, and attaining marked intel- lectual distinction, not because their scholastic advantages are greater, nor because of superior intellectual gifts, but because of better physique, more normal nervous systems, and, consequently, greater power of endurance." These contrasts emphasise the proposition which I maintain namely, that the first, the greatest, physi- cal need for women, is a training to rest ; not rest in the sense of doing nothing, not repose in the sense of inanity or inactivity, but a restful activity of mind and body, which means a vigorous, wholesome, ner- vous system, that will enable a woman to abandon herself to her study, her work, and her play, with a freedom and ease which are too fast becoming, not a lost art, but lost nature. We have jumped at the conclusion that the style of training which is admir- ably suited to men must be equally adapted to women. However that may be in the future, there is a prior necessity with women. After their greatest 84 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR physical need is supplied, they may, will, probably, reach the place where their power will be increased through vigorous exercise. It is evident that the gymnasia, and various exer- cises established in schools and colleges for women, have done little or nothing towards supplying this greatest need. The girls are always defeating the end of the exercise, first, by entering into every motion of the exercise itself with too much nervous strain; second, by following, in their manner of study, in their general attitude of mind and habit of body, ways that must effectually tell against the physical power which might be developed by the exercise. Truly, the first necessity now is to teach a girl to approach her work, physical or mental, in a normal, healthy way, to accomplish what she has to do naturally, using only the force required to gain her point ; not worrying all the time she studies for fear the lesson will not be learned ; not feeling rushed from morning to night for fear her work will not be done ; not going about with a burden of unnecessary anxiety, a morbid fear of her teachers, and a gene- ral attitude towards life which means strain and constant strain. A glance forward intensifies the gravity of the case. Such habits once developed in a girl who is fitting herself to taach are strongly felt THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 85 by her pupils when she takes the position of a teacher. The nervous strain is reflected back and forth from teacher to pupil, and is tlms forcing itself upon the notice of others, and proving day by day more clearly what is the greatest physical need. Those who have observed this tendency are wont to say : " Give the girls plenty of exercise, plenty of fresh air ; see that they sleep and eat well, and this greatest need will be supplied without thought." If the un- healthy condition we have noted were just making its appearance, the remedy would be sufficient. As it is, such a remedy suffices in a few cases, in most cases partially, but in some not at all. The habit has stood now through too many generations to be overcome without a distinct recognition of the loss of power, and a strong realisation of the need of re- gaining this power. Indeed, so great a hold on the community has this want of quiet and easy activity in study and in play, that it is not rare to find young girls who believe the abnormal to be the natural life, and the other unnatural. As one girl told me once, in perfect good faith, " I keep well on excitement ; but it tires me terribly to carry a pitcher of water upstairs." This, I know, is an extreme instance, and yet not so uncommon as I wish it were. To swing such a girl, or one approaching so abnormal a state 86 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR suddenly back into the normal, would be most disas- trous ; she would not recognise the world or herself, and would really suffer intensely. She must be carried step by step. To restore her is like curing a drunkard. NEW YORK RESTAURANTS o\v for a few items on gastro- nomic joys. Nowhere can succulent dishes be better served than at Delmonico's, the Hoffman House, and many other joyous hostelries, but the former has rightly a royal European reputation. Brillat-Savarin, the celebrated French gastronomist, whose destiny it was to popularise a rational tbeory of diet, came to America the latter end of last century. The greater portion of his time was occupied in grumbling at American cookery ; in the intervals he taught his native tongue and played in the orchestra of a New York theatre. When he published his " Physiologie du Gout " that witty compendium on the art of dining he devoted to the American cuisine the briefest of 90 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR records. It runs as follows : " Sejour en Ame'rique . . . ." A few dots and that is all. When, like Talleyrand's experience of sauces and religions en perfidc Albion, so Brillat-Savarin only found one dish to please him, and (alas ! no record of even that is kept) thirty-two religions. Now, the United States boast of sixty-four religious denominations, and, in the last ninety years, of thousands of native dishes, not including those borrowed from France. French cooking was practically unknown until 1825, when the Brothers Delmonico set foot on American soil. The name is now a household word from Maine to California, and from the Lakes to the Gulf. The history of France is in a large degree the history of its cafes, and though serious men may shake their heads in disapproval of my statements, the social history of New York during the past fifty years could be written from the history of the Delmonico restaurants. It was there that Louis Napoleon, after- wards to become Napoleon III., dined habitually, Prince de Joinville his two nephews Comte de Paris and Comte de Chartres,at the opening of the American Civil War. It became, and has always retained its reputation as, the Mecca of all good livers. Its records boast that here Sir Morton Peto gave his regal banquets and Ward McAllister's swan dinner THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 91 a miniature lake in the centre of the table, where swans and canvas-backed ducks floated serenely around amidst aquatic plants. Charles Dickens was a frequent visitor and awards " the highest meeds of praise." It is almost the first American institution to which the foreigner when he lands in America is introduced, and about the surest spot for finding a friend who has just arrived in town. Delmonico is a trifle too severe maybe, or too despotic perhaps in his regulations, as one concludes in passing the Argus-eyed guardian at his portal, who instantly, and apparently intuitively, detects any clever attempts of objectionable characters to enter there. The puritan simplicity of the Delmonico convives duly gathered, is eminently respectable, and consequently appalling from the dull common point of view, but it is this stern rule that gives this caravansary its angelic clientele. As you take your seat there is the iced water. It is a national beverage, very captivating and economical, but very diluting to the stomach's solvency, if not actually destructive to its inner coating. As regards champagne, vintages are unknown to the wine card and uncared for by the popular taste. The Yankee palate claims the saccharine in its extremity. Furthermore, wine of all sorts, whether pure or un- blushingly breaking the seventh vinous command- 92 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR ment, " Thou shalt not commit adulteration," is very costly. I give a sample of a daily menu showing the prolific edible products of this country, and the many very charming dishes, beautifully served. I now make extract from a charming article which recently appeared in the Saturday Review. Mr. Walter Besant makes this strange declaration : "As there is no cookery in America, it was impossible, save by the aid of canvas-backs, to dine a 1'Ameri- caine." Now all good Americans and other travellers will hasten to pronounce this declaration monstrous and indefensible. Has Besant never heard of Terra- pin, the true diamond-back Terrapin of the Chesa- peake, whereof the belles of Baltimore make their boast ? Knows he nothing of the Chicken Gumbo of the Creoles of New Orleans ? Wots he not of the soft- shell Crab of New York? The travelled English- man, who cherishes pleasant recollections of the high deeds of a sable cordon Ueu in Baltimore, or of a naturalised chef at Delmonico's, will deny all this and would instantly draw up a Rabelaisian list of the achievements and triumphs of American cookery, setting forth the merits not only of Terrapin Soft-shell Crab Gumbo already noticed, but also of THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 93 Buckwheat Cakes Corn-bread Kedsnapper Prairie Chicken Corn-on-the-cob -Striped Bass Succotash Pumpkin Pie Squab Clam Chowder Sweet Potatoes Spanish Mackerel Shad Waffles Pompano Strawberry Shortcake. The list is not comprehensive, far from it, but it is characteristic as far as it goes. And yet we doubt not that the most devout gastro- nomer in America will willingly forgive Mr. Walter Besant for his aspersions on the cookery of the United States, mainly through ignorance, because he has made an exception in favour of the canvas-back. No man, without instant loss of self-respect and of all reputation as a critic of eating, may say a word against the canvas-back. It is reported that when the makers of the American Republic were about to choose a national emblem, Benjamin Franklin (great in gastronomy as in the whole circle of human know- ledge) wished them to adopt the native turkey rather than the imperial eagle, an unsavoury bird, often as double-faced as he is two-headed. Now truly the canvas-back is ? in one sense at least, the national o 4 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR bird of America, the one which bears tidings of peace and good-will to all nations, in whose presence all asperities modify, all prejudices fade. The canvas- back is the crowning glory of the American kitchen. As to the cooking of the canvas-back, there are two opinions or rather there is the greatest possible variety of opinion in regard to the duration of that operation. There are those who declare that the canvas-back cannot be too little cooked, and that to carry it three times round a hot kitchen is quite sufficient. But this is the real way to cook a canvas- back duck : take it as soon after the " leaden messenger " brings it down as possible, even while it is yet warm, and cook it thus: Before a brisk fire roast for from thirteen to eigh- teen minutes, gently from time to time pressing its tender breast with the finger until the fire has hardened the flesh till it no longer indents under the gentle touch ; only then is it done. All the while it roasts, however, keep turning and basting with a gravy composed of its priceless dripping, to which add a little gravy and a pinch of salt. The fire should be a brisk one (hickory the best), so that it may be done " to a turn " in fifteen or at most twenty minutes by the clock. Serve it up immediately in its own gravy, with a dish of nice, well-boiled (and then THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 95 fried) milk-white hominy. If then you don't like it, God help you. The American cook has learned wisdom within the last forty years, and Mr. Laffan's advice in regard to time and the use of water strikes us as sounder than Mr. Skinner's. Mr. Laffan gives us also excellent suggestions as to the carving of the properly cooked canvas-back advice much needed, we fear, by those who have never tasted the duck on his native shore. " Slicing the bird is unheard of. The two-pronged fork is inserted diagonally astride the breast-bone, and the knife lays half of the bird on each side, leaving the ' carcass ' on the fork between. The tri- angle of meat, an inch thick, comprised between the leg and the wing, with its apex at the back and its bone at the breast, is considered the most delicious morsel of meat that exists." As this is the only way of carving the canvas-back to advantage, it follows that the proper allowance of ducks for a dinner is one to every two guests, so that each guest may have a breast. Of course if the dinner is very simple and brief, and especially if the diners are mostly of the sterner sex, this allowance may be doubled, and every man may have a bird of his own. There is a host in New York who is fond of the national game of the United States poker and who 96 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR gives little poker parties, preceded by an appropriate dinner. As it happens, poker can best be played by either six or five, whence its occasional nickname, " Five-handed Whist." The host seats his five guests about a round table. Before every man is an ice- packed bottle of the dry champagne he affects. The oysters are succeeded by terrapin. Then a canvas- back is put before every guest, and one or two more are held in reserve for any man with an appe- tite. Afterwards comes a mayonnaise of celery ; then the sable waiter serves a little fruit and a cheese ; finally there is a cup of coffee, after which the table is cleared for action, and the search for four aces follows the tasting of the terrapin and the carving of canvas-backs. Nothing could be better than the entertainment here offered : terrapin, canvas-backs, and poker; these are the highest of sublunary delights to an educated " gourmet." But, sad to say, this heavenly bird is disappearing. Forty years ago he visited the Chesapeake bay in vast flocks to peace- fully feed on the wild celery and impart to his flesh the flavour that nothing earthly equals. The canvas- back was easily knocked over with a stone, and one of the blunderbuses of that day would lay twenty of the birds low at one shot.Ten years ago you could often buy a fine pair in the city of Washington THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 97 for one dollar. Now a bird commands in the New York market three dollars and a half, and one bird daily is not a bad bag for a " gunner " at these figures. Twenty years from now the canvas-back will have gone to join the now extinct buffalo. As regards midday beverages, one's brain reels at fond memories of Manhattan cocktails, Remsen re- freshers, gin fizzes, the most subtle and captivating, and hundreds of others, all to be imbibed for a com- paratively small outlay. The use of ice in New York must be prodigious. Oysters are always served on a small plateau of ice, and are extremely appetising. CUI BONO? THE social configuration of the city of New York has been compared, in a homely but effective simile, to the cross section of a sandwich with a thick slice of dry bread on each side to represent the populous east and west sides, and a narrow central line of butter to betoken the stately thoroughfare, Fifth Avenue, famous as the chosen head-quarters of American wealth and fashion. Now we come to a very important point. Is America worth visiting? To the first section of my readers, an integral portion of le monde ou Von s' amuse the butterfly class, male and female I say, you will be grievously disappointed. Some well-nigh threescore years have passed over my brow, wherein fai lien vecu (as one of my line once 102 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR wrote, " Coine what may, I have been blessed "), an experience that entitles me to give with un- hesitating confidence the above decided opinion to those who turn their backs on Europe to seek pleasure in America ; adopting a well-known motto : " In every outlay there should be a suitable return ; " otherwise cui bono ? since life's pilgrimage is short, why quit the substance for the shadow ? To you, happy sybarite, in whose sunlit experience never once has a crumpled thistledown obscured your vision, the breath of whose nostrils means celestial refine- ment ; you who have absorbed (au jour m$me de votre naissancc) honoured ancestral blue blood with its refined associations, dating of course from the Norman Conquest ; you, like the fairest and rarest of the orchid tribe, to whom winds blowing from the east, or any other accursed quarter, might chill your liver or otherwise retard gastronomic joys ; you, mes viveurs, why should you endure earthly purga- tory ? Later doubtless you will have your fair share, but now why throw away two months of your life, enduring all the perils, and many a mauvais quart cChcurc, amidst Atlantic waves ? Justly did Lord Beaconsfield term it a melancholy ocean, rarely ever a sail, or passing steamer, or even a sea-bird to cheer one's vision. Indeed, I ascribe to its dreary con- THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 103 tiguity most of the troubles of tearful Erin and all this for what ? If any satanic friend writes you to accompany him to the World's Fair at Chicago, say, God forbid ! and make the sign of the + . The first thought, when travel is contemplated in unknown lands, should be the cost. Well, I am not exaggerat- ing when I state you must here reckon one dollar as needed to go as far as a shilling at home. I give a homely instance. Directly on arrival at my hotel, I told my servant to send up a barber ; he came, ex- hibiting no special tonsorial skill. I have only four hairs on my head; these I wished artistically ad- justed ; he then shaved me : charge, $1. The cost of sartorial gems in America is appalling, and all luxuries are on a scale that (Dio Grande) none but a Rothschild could survive; flowers for adornment of rooms or otherwise, constituting one of the charms of life, can only be purchased at ruination prices. Of course it is only fair to bring to notice the vast distance whence all European products are imported ; the high duties and the high rents of New York ; these may justify in some measure such charges, and hence the enforced outlay ; but why travel hither- ward, say 5000 to 6000 miles, to impoverish one's capital and income without adequate recompense? If you are hypnotised, however, and do jbld, I now 104 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR give you as briefly as possible what I think your impressions of America will be. You will exclaim : Great Scott ! sir, I have visited it ten years too soon, and, as Lord Chesterfield is reported to have said of a woodcock on a golden salver at the first in- cision of his knife, you will similarly say of America, "It wants four minutes' more cooking." If you yearn for travel, go and visit rather the fairest land and the most interesting of God's universe, Japan, the land of thellising Sun, the land of gentle manners, the terrestrial paradise. Head Sir Edwin Arnold's last volume, entitled " Lands and Seas," and if you never returned home, although my tears might flow and ashes be put on my head, I should endorse heartily your Bacon-like judgment. 7 SURANCE, JEWS, AND JUSTICE I WAS very much struck during my stay at New York, in glancing over several prospectuses or insurance advertisements, to see the novel and original way in which these matters were conducted in America. One of the agents of an insurance office of quite the highest standing made me the following proposal : " Referring to our conversation of last evening, I desire to say that for a man, fifty-four years of age, in active business, our fifteen year Semi-Tontine Plan is the one we can most conscientiously recommend. " An insurance for $100,000 = 20,000 would cost per annum $7000 - 1436. In fifteen years the total payments would amount to $107,700 = 23,850. " If the insured is then alive, and desires to avail io8 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR himself of the result of his investment, he will get a cheque for $124,900 = 24,980. "This amount, however, is estimated upon our actual experience of the last fifteen years ; but $70.665 (14,133) is an absolute guarantee ; or, if you so desired it, you might draw out your share of the profits, which, in the past fifteen years, have amounted to $54,235 = 10,847 ; and, in addition, get a fully paid-up policy for $100,000 = 20,000 ; or you could let your profits remain with the society, and in lieu thereof take a paid-up policy for $177,000 = 35,400. " Owing to our rates of interest in this country, we are enabled to offer much better results to our clients than can possibly be done abroad, and on our list for the full limit may be found such names as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Theodore and Henry Have- meyer, Wm. S. Webb, and, in fact, all the very rich men of the country, who believe it wise to devote a portion of their annual income to securing prompt payment of a large sum of money immediately upon their death, so as to carry along their business without disturbing their assets. Among the British clients, the names of the Marquis of Anglesey, Lord Willoughby, Edward F. Coates, Leopold Hirsch, and many others of prominence appear. THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 109 " I do not believe there is any other investment in the world which produces such good results, and is so conducive to a man's peace of mind, as that offered by this society. "It is unnecessary, I presume, that I should say anything of the financial standing of this society. I may succinctly state, however, that our assets, consisting chiefly of Government bonds, real estate, and real estate mortgages, amount to $120,000,000 ; that our total undivided surplus, over and above the 4 per cent, reserve, which we are required to retain as a guarantee to policy-holders, is $24,000,000. Our annual income is $35,000,000. Last year we wrote 204,000,000 of insurance." There are now probably over 100,000 Jews in New York, and they constitute a very important element of the population. A walk through Broad- way makes one say, " This is Mesopotamia." Think of the signs, which cover the available spaces upon every house for about three miles, being crowded with Jews' names. It is a fact, that from the Post Office to Union Square, two-thirds of the sign-space of that famous thoroughfare bristles with Hebrew names. Very little study is needed to guess the owner's nationality, disguised as his name so often is by anagrammatic dislocations of its letters, or by the i io THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR prefixing or suffixing of other letters to a name of Biblical origin. Intelligent New Yorkers say that about three-fifths of the Broadway houses are now those of Israelites. Funny stories about the race are always current. Here is one : A Christian sportsman bought a blue yachting suit from a Jew clothier, who assured him that its colour would stand fast against any salt wetting it could possibly get indeed, that the solid rocks would run before the suit would lose its tint. The following day the suit got a wetting, and its colour promptly departed by soaking through, to dye the skin of the wearer a permanent azure that no soap would remove. Enraged, the deceived man sought the clothier's shop. The two proprietors seeing him coming, and antici- pating a row, ducked under the counter, leaving young Isidor, aged twelve, in charge, when the following dialogue occurred : " Where's the man who sold me the blue suit ? " " Dot man was my uncle ; he is dead." " Dead ! How did it happen ? " " Ven my fader came in, and knowed he sold you dot suit, he got so mad dot he killed my uncle." " Indeed ! " " Yes, and ven he seen he killed him, he got so THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR in frightened for fear he'd be hanged, dot he committed suicide." Oh, dreadful ! " " Yes, they are both dead ; but vat might be the matter mit dot suit ? " " I got it wet, and the colour ran and has dyed me." " Vy, you don't want us to pay you noddings for dot, eh ? I tell you vat you do. Round the corner the Dime Museum will engage you. Last week the blue tattooed man fell in love mit the bearded woman, and they ran away, they have got no blue man; you go there and oxhibit yourself, and they will pay you feefty dollars a veek." Upon hearing this, the deceived man sadly left the shop, when the two frightened proprietors emerged from under their counters. The uncle, in a paroxysm of emotion, fell on Isidor's neck, exclaiming, " Ach Gott ! Vat a chenius ! Vat a future ! " And the father, choking with tears, " Mein sohn, ach mein sohn ! Vat a salesman ! " The eleventh census of the United States of America will not furnish more than a clue to the numerical strength of the Hebrews in the commercial metropolis. " Immigration," remarked an intelligent Jewish observer, " in five years has averaged 25,000 a year, of which more than 70 per cent, have stopped H2 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR in New York." There, in the Jewish quarter, the number of inhabitants averages 330,000 to the square mile. In the most densely populated region of old London the average is only 175,000. The English hive cannot exhibit a single cell like the seven-story house in New York, which lodges, or did lodge, thirty-six families, including fifty-eight babies and thirty-eight children over five years of age. Nearly all countries, civilised and semi-civilised, have contributed to this startling exhibit, which is larger than that of any other locality on the face of the globe. Modern immigration is of merchants, manufac- turers, and artisans chiefly. Farmers are notably few. As agriculturists, the Jews are not remark- ably successful. Their colonies in Kansas and Dakota were total failures. In New Jersey it is otherwise. The settlements at Vineland, Alliance, Rosenhayn, and Carmel accomplish all that can be reasonably expected. In no city have the Jews been more successful as traders than in New York. " Of the 400 buildings on Broadway, from Canal Street to Union Square, the occupants of almost all are Hebrews, over 1000 wholesale firms out of a total of 1200 being of that race. Hebrew firms also predominate in the streets contiguous to Broadway within the territory named. THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 113 Nor elsewhere have they been more successful, on the whole, as bankers and financiers. The thirty- five firms, whose average rating in 1890 was over $13,000,000, but whose available capital is, in all probability, $100,000,000 or more, include the names of Seligman, Hallgarten, Wormser, Lazard, Scholle, Kuhn, Loeb, Schiff, Ickelheimer, Speyer, Schafer, and many others, some of whom are more conspicuous for philanthropy than for wealth. " Holdings of real estate by the Jews in New York are estimated at from $150,000,000 to $200,000,000, and five- eighths of the transfers are said to be for their account." The face of a Jew is towards the future; but whether that future will bring repatriation is a matter of indifference to the reformer. He wills none of it. " New York is my Jerusalem," he says. " The V V United States of America is my country. In fact, my Jerusalem is wherever I am doing well. I don't want to go to Canaan, and would not if I could." Let me here introduce a few remarks upon the mode in which justice is administered in New York. Some clothes were stolen during my stay in that city, which caused me to write to the Press for information, and especially to learn, when it was all over, whether life were safe since personal property H Ii 4 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR evidently was not ; but the exasperating experience is contained in the following recital. Residing in one of the principal hotels near Madison Square (of which, for obvious reasons, I suppress the name, as the greatest kindness and assistance have been shown me there), my servant detected a thief in the act of stealing clothes from my rooms, and handed him to the proprietor, who promptly secured his arrest. In the presence of the police-officer, Detective Dennis Grady, and the pro- prietor, and also four employe's of the hotel, he confessed the crime. In the interest of the other guests, travellers, and the servants of the hotel, I was urged to pursue the matter and seek legal punishment of the offender. All needed steps were taken by me, at considerable personal inconvenience and expense; not the least was to delay a visit to Chicago, where eventually I was able to go only by leaving my servant behind to prosecute. All this was done merely to aid justice in every possible manner. The thief was first bailed for $500, and later, after certain delays, the case was tried at the Special Sessions, before Justice Solon Smith, who simply asked him certain unim- portant questions. But the detective who arrested him, and indeed none of the others, was ever called THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 115 upon to prove that he had heard him confess his crime. Was this because the thief was an Irishman, while his pursuer was an Englishman ? However that may be, the culprit was promptly discharged by this Judge Smith (baptised Solon), and he is at liberty to try his hand again at robbing other Saxons. One can therefore only submit the occurrence to public print and public opinion, as the only satisfac- tion for all the trouble taken to shield the fellow- servants of the thief in the hotel from unjust suspicion, which otherwise might have fallen upon innocent men and women. Judges are elected in New York. The last election news is gratifyingly to the effect that Judge Solon Smith has been enthusiastically elected to remain in private life. REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS DURING the late elections, Mr. John S. Smith, Chair- man of the Eepublican Club, is reported to have thus spoken, referring to New York : " The great fire of 1835 destroyed a large portion of this city, but in a short time it was restored by finer structures than were consumed. At other periods great financial panics have paralysed our banks and well-nigh destroyed our commercial interests. Yet a worse calamity has fallen upon us during recent years. A vile and destructive foe has risen and seized upon the city. It is Tammany Hall. It dominates not only the body politic, bat permeates every channel of business. (Applause.) 120 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR "Were this all, we might submit and suffer. But when we reflect we see that Tammany is a perpetual curse upon the metropolis of the Western hemi- sphere. We know that whenever the name of this great city is mentioned in this country or in foreign lands, that name is received with little or no respect, because it is synonymous in the mind of the hearer with that notorious organisation, Tammany Hall. (Applause.) "Tammany has defiled the good name of the metropolis. The Tammany taint upon its record turned the World's Fair over to a rival. Its extor- tions and misgovernment are driving capital, com- merce, and industries to other centres of trade and manufacture. But a bad name has often been restored to respect by a single heroic deed. Gettys- burg and Antietam ennobled many a ruined life. One act of heroism will redeem New York. Let the citizens rise as one man and strangle the Tammany tiger, and New York will once more raise its head as one of the greatest of the great cities of the world." (Applause.) Kesolved, " That the exclusive patronage of Tammany Hall, by which it disburses annually through the city's pay-rolls more than $19,000,000, has debauched the public service, destroyed the sense THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 121 of individual responsibility in the citizen, and made the possibility of a government in this city of the people, for the people and by the people, almost a delusion and well-nigh hopeless." Resolved, " That we appeal to those who toil for their daily bread and believe that an honest day's labour is worth an honest day's wage, to repudiate a system of municipal control which demands an assessment for the privilege of working, and destroys the hope of honest industry to acquire comforts for the home or accumulations for old age." Resolved, " That we remind those taxpayers who, by self-denial and patient industry, have accumu- lated property in this city of their reliance when no longer able to toil ; that already their tax appro- priates one-half of the average earning power of every dollar they possess for the support and main- tenance of the government under which they live ; that extravagance, waste, and corruption characterise the methods of the faction which dominates and con- trols the affairs of the city, and that, unless the mass of voters come to the rescue, honest and economical government will be impossible and beyond reach." Resolved, "That we view with alarm the per- sistent effort and intention of this political association to extend its power over the entire State. 122 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR " That the Republican party, which has always come to the rescue in every political crisis, is entitled to the patriotic support of all good citizens, without regard to party, to resist this invasion of an organised political army, demanding tribute and obedience from every village and hamlet in the State." Hear! hear! say I to the great Republican orator. Down with Tammany Hall, if it is as bad as here described. Well, then, I personally object to be misgoverned or trodden under foot by any one, especially the Irish. From that misfortune a residence in Chicago would exempt one, for the Germans there far out- number them. If the abuse of the Democrats by the Republicans finds a place in these leaves, justice requires that a looker-on like myself should give the Democrats a hearing. Therefore the following choleric statement as to electoral corruption in New York State may be entertaining reading, premising, however, that a charge of rascality has always been the solace of a defeated politician : " The floaters, or men who own no party allegiance, but sell their votes to the highest bidder, are apparently a recognised institution in American THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 123 politics. A particularly flagrant instance of their employment is thus described by a correspondent at Plattsburg, in the State of New York : "$50,000 spent in a single county, or twenty dollars a vote. "The recent election in Clinton county cost the two great political parties more money, according to reliable authority, than any previous political contest. The Republicans organised the floaters of the several election districts of this town into clubs, schooled them in the manner of voting, supplied their club quarters with liquor and cigars, and promised to pay each one of the floaters $5 for his vote. On election day the Democrats offered $10 per vote, and there was a stampede of the floaters. The Republicans raised the price to $15, and the Democrats im- mediately offered $20, and secured at least 90 per cent, of the floaters. In many instances the money was paid to the voters on the public high- ways with no secrecy whatever. In one of the election districts of Plattsburg the Republicans pitched within 200 feet of the polling place a tent, in which during the entire day floaters were paid for voting the Republican ticket. The cashier was seated at a table on which lay thousands of dollars in bank bills, which were paid to the voters as 124 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR fast as they presented the checks given them by the workers. It is a well-known fact that the Republican corruption fund in Clinton county was upwards of $20,000 in a Plattsburg bank for election purposes. It is claimed that the Repub- licans had nearly all their money out in different parts of the county, while prominent Democrats do not hesitate to say that nearly every dollar of that $33,000 was paid out on that day to floaters." itfiff" YORK, as well as London, has its Print- ; ---> ing House Square. Clustered round the younger of the two are all the large newspaper build- ings of the Yankee metropolis. To your upturned gaze these buildings show, as one aspires beyond its neighbour towards the clouds, the chronological order of their building. Indeed, New York exhibits by the height of its larger houses all over the city, the progress of the " elevator " which appeared about twenty-five years ago, when houses first became seven stories high. They have now reached fourteen stories, and the architects are tackling the problem of twenty. It is about Printing House Square that the large publishing and printing houses of the great morning dailies are to be found. They come in this order: Tlie Sun, Tribune, Times, and World; 128 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR the other large daily, the New York Herald, is about a pistol shot distant, and stands on Broadway. The Square is really a triangle, in about the centre of which, surrounded by car tracks, is a rather puffy bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin, and within a few yards of this travesty of the great philosopher is a good sitting statue of Horace Greeley, which seems to be just outside one of the large windows of the Tribune building the Tribune newspaper he founded fifty years ago. The best of these imposing struc- tures, from an architectural point of view, is that of the New York Times, and the worst and the oldest, the New York Sun. The last giant structure to be finished is the domicile of the New York World, and it has about eighteen stories, if you include a very showy, rather than imposing, gilded dome, which is a perpetually " displayed " advertisement of the paper, visible from all points in the city. These five newspapers, along with the Journal of Commerce and an evening paper, formerly known as the Express enterprise, constitute what is called the "Associated Press," a company touching every part of this planet. Their successful procuring of the news through this widely reaching medium gave them for many years the supremacy in the newspaperdom of the United States. They have always sold their news to out-of- THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 129 town newspapers, but the Associated Press Organisa- tion in its exclusiveness has been almost an insuper- able barrier to the establishment of a new morning daily which would have to be not a member of this Association. A few years ago the New York World had run down so much that it was bought for a small amount by a Mr. Pulitzer of St. Louis ; but its principal value was its membership in the above organisation. Although printed on a paper that is far from white, its circulation has increased till it now distances any one of its compeers. The present large circulation of these dailies, and the wilderness of reading matter provided, has only been possible since the price of white paper declined to where it now is. Thirty years ago, during the Eebellion, the blank paper was worth twenty-five cents a pound and up- wards ; since then the use of wood pulp has brought it down till it is now about three cents a pound. Composition or type-setting has not quite kept pace with this shrinkage; indeed, it is more costly than ever, although Yankee ingenuity has been steadily directed towards perfecting type-setting machines. These are not generally used, but the Tribune has many in its service. A friend of mine^ells me, however, that there is one machine that is a perfect automaton, x 130 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR while its price precludes its general use. It "justi- fies " movable type. Inasmuch as the true principle has, at last, been found, there will also be a way reached of bringing its price within the exchequer of the daily papers. But the most important economise! 1 for the newspaper and its readers has been the fast printing press. From 15,000 newspapers an hour, which used to make the average head swim to con- template, the Messrs. Hoe now build a press that will print by contract over 90,000 folios an hour. To correctly understand this incredible velocity we divide it, and it shows 1500 folio newspapers a minute, or twenty-five a second, which may fairly be said to be the limit of printing velocity for some years to come. Besides the printing alone of the paper on both sides, there are some presses of a lower velocity, say 30,000 an hour, that not only print, but paste the fly-leaf, fold the whole paper, stack it in piles, while registering the number thrown off. Newspaper men treat these figures as a matter of course, and they no longer excite comment, but when we see not only the type, but also picture-blocks, printed from at this lightning rate, it opens a vista towards future journalism that requires a first-class seer to penetrate. Some of the New York papers, notably the New York Times, adhere to the old THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 131 newspaper make-up, and will not allow pictures, but it is a very interesting experience if one happens upon a fire, a street fight, an accident, or any public occurrence of moment that can be represented pic- torially in the columns of a newspaper, to notice the reporter-photographer coming upon the scene, camera in hand, with a rapidity hardly second to the fire department. Indeed, what is now called enterprise in a newspaper seems to have no restriction what- ever, and before long it is probable that the detective work will be taken out of the hands of the police authorities and become a department of the press, so remarkable have been the detections secured through newspaper enterprise. A friend of mine tells me that the newspapers are distinguished from one another by the classes of advertisements, or at least they were that the World was formerly the medium for all the auction sales ; the Tribune was the organ of the booksellers ; the Times the outlet of all the dry goods people ; and the Herald was, and is, famous for its " wants." But what the Sun "pre- empted " advertising patrons were was not so clear. All the New York papers, however, " spread them- selves " on their Sunday editions, and these are certainly wonderful. I saw that an engagement had been made by the New York Herald with Mr. Howells, 132 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR with Mr. Stevenson, and with Mark Twain for con- tributions to the Sunday edition of the Sun, and that Mark Twain's dozen letters, to cover about three columns each of that paper, were to be paid for at the rate of $1000 a letter. There is one thing that distinguishes the newspaper of to-day beyond that of the past. It is in the serious subjects, that are treated as popularly as they permit. I refer to philosophy, astronomy, physiology, psychology, and many of the sciences, whose names were unknown some years ago to what is called the average reader. Now, however, for these different subjects, the. news- papers keep upon their staffs especially for the Sunday editions men of the first rank in their respective sciences, and their contributions, too, are profusely illustrated. It must result, therefore, that the working-man of to-day who buys thirty-six broadsides of six or seven columns each of enter- taining and illustrated reading matter by the best pens, and all for the sum of twopence-halfpenny, must be a better educated man, with better aims in life, than the man of the past generation, who had neither the money to buy the newspaper, nor the newspaper if he had had the money to buy it. THE NEGRO PROBLEM IN THE UNITED STATES. THE negro problem in the United States has been, ever since the war, very difficult of adjustment. All that a traveller sees of it are the black faces he passes in the streets or the occasional employe in commercial houses ; or, more frequently, the male and female domestics in houses and hotels. In some leading clubs, the negro makes a very good waiter, particularly in this land where the prompt degenera- tion of a good European servant into a self-sufficient uncivil tyrant is one of the most curious results of its Kepublican form of government. The negro 136 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR seems to maintain his disposition to serve the Caucasian better than the immigrant from any land. In the South, however, there seems to be more friction, because the coloured man is in several Southern States numerically as powerful at the voting polls as the white man. I saw that the negroes who wield pens were agitating the right of the railroad to charge them the same as they do the whites, and then put them in inferior cars, this being a cause of a good deal of ill-feeling between the races ; for the black man claims that if he pays as much as the white he should get as much for his money. While there is in the North an undemonstrative race prejudice that neither time nor the improvement in the negro's condition or education will materially mollify, there is a stronger feeling in the South, where the old idea that the African was intended by God as a slave still prevails with the elder people, and the idea has still some remaining influence upon every white man as a tra- dition. The negro is seen in the North travelling like the white man, and occasionally sitting at a table with his friends at a restaurant ; but I under- stood that his occupying the best places in the theatres and the churches in immediate contiguity to the white is a rare sight. The fears of future THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 137 trouble to come out of this seeming racial anta- gonism are freely expressed, but there is in reality nothing to fear, because the attitude of the negro to his white oppressor when the latter was at his mercy during the Rebellion was the completest proof how generous would be the black man's forbearance under the highest provocation. This forbearance has called forth the approval of the slave-owners themselves ever since ; hence it is not likely that the present innocuous social ostracism would produce any serious result so long as the coloured man is protected by the Constitution of the United States in depositing his vote as freely as his white brother. In the South, however, in those parts where the negro vote would subject the white classes to coloured government, they reach their object by a short cut by simply preventing the negroes deposit- ing their votes, which is a cause of constant political irritation. The last census shows that the white race is increasing so much faster than the black that the latter will continue to be a political minority. Distinct from the negro, is the race of the Red- man, so-called " Indian." The condition of the Red- man who is allowed to exist under the banner of the Republic is a subject which has attracted the atten- tion of the best and wisest men in the United States. i38 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR The treatment of the Indians is a question of future policy. It is one which must exercise a very deep and abiding influence on the whole history of an ancient and interesting people. But it is exceed- ingly difficult to put in a short compass its most salient points before those who are unacquainted with the nature of the problems to be solved. This question has so often been the theme of dis- cussion and able writing upon, that I hardly feel able to add any new point of interest. DENTISTS IN AMERICA. One cannot refrain from rendering homage to this profession. I learn that either from climatic influences or partial neglect or from imbibing, as a rule, so much iced water, Americans are reputed to have bad teeth ; hence as necessity is the mother of invention the mar- vellous perfection of their dental science. I speak from personal experience and testify gratefully that their main study is directed to the skilful preserva- tion of noble ruins, the building up of fissures and crevices, such as may be either premature or the work of the ages. But the extraction of a tooth is for the graduates of the American College of Dental Surgery a sorrow, a stigma on their reputation, a confession of defeat. Their mechanical contrivances, THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 139 their beautiful work in the formation and installation of adjuncts to mastication, where or when Nature fails, that art may supply the aching void, exhausts one's powers of eulogy. I write in gratitude and mention warmly the services of Dr. Nisley, whose kitten-like fingers with which Nature has endowed him make the most searching operations painless. His beautiful work, and such dental benefits, com- pensate one for the trouble of going to New York to pay him a visit. Indeed, how little is known of the help one's teeth are to save the rest of the internal machinery and may not their decay and loss be the real precession (not procession) of the decay of the man unless perfect art can supply their absence ? NOW pause to offer (and sadly do I admit my feeble powers of expression) a fitting tribute to him who bears the highest name in his country Mr. Edison. It ought to be said, the highest name in the whole civilised world. Many points of in- formation in my further narrative in connection with this remarkable man have been gleaned from records by Mr. Warren Taylor. Mr. Edison has risen in these later days of the world's history to share the glory and renown hitherto monopolised by warriors, statesmen, and great painters, ancient and modern. Science in the mediaeval ages was somewhat regarded with contempt. It was Lord Bacon who first swept away the misconceptions that had hindered human advancement, and pointed out the truth that the end and aim of science is to improve man's condition by 144 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR increasing his grasp upon the secrets and the powers of Nature. From that beginning dates modern pro- gress, whose march, tardy at first, has gained speed with every decade. It was in 1769 that James Watt obtained the original patent on his steam engine, an event that harnessed to the triumphal car of science the first of those marvellous natural forces that are now its slaves. In 1807 Robert Fulton's boat, the Clci'mont, demonstrated the application of steam to navigation. In 1825 George Stephenson sent the first locomotive engine thundering along the first railway. In 1844 Morse flashed the first telegraphic message from Baltimore to Washington. The march of invention has grown more and more rapid, and each extension of knowledge brings to view a fresh vista of possibilities. The present generation has seen a greater addition made, by the agency of new inventions, to the activities and the material well- being of mankind than whole centuries contributed in former eras. Of these fresh discoveries the most remarkable and significant have been those gained by the study of that mysterious electrical force, still im- perfectly understood, which seems capable of almost unlimited application to human needs, and whose in- creasing use in a wide range of forms seems to promise the ultimate supersession of other sources of power. THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 145 The name of Edison is almost synonymous with the subjugation of electricity to the service of man. It has become famous as that of a typical American genius, who, though still a young man, has already turned out a long list of inventions of the first importance. The civilised world regards Edison as the master mind of the day, and its eyes are constantly fixed upon him in expectation of seeing some marvellous new product of his ingenuity. Of his realised achievements, the duplex and then the quadruplex system of telegraphy were at first the most salient. Then came the phonograph as yet in its infancy, while the carbon telephone, the tasimeter, and numerous other distinct mechanisms were also his. More valuable yet, probably, are some of the many improvements that he has effected in electrical apparatus and methods, notably the carbon of the incandescent lamp. As Mr. Edison is a man in the prime of physical and intellectual power, endowed with an unabated enthusiasm for discovery, and an apparently un- limited capacity for work, it is reasonable to suppose that his greatest triumphs are still to come. Such is his own confident hope. It is no secret that he expects to announce, before very long, the com- pletion of the task upon which he is now engaged K 146 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR the application of electricity to railroading with results that will utterly eclipse the best efforts of steam, and revolutionise existing systems of trans- portation. He was born in 1847 at Milan, an Ohio village, near the shores of Lake Erie. At thirteen he began his working life as a train boy upon the Grand Trunk Kailroad between Port Huron and Detroit. It is recorded that the young newsman was successful in his calling ; but he was not content to remain a mere dealer in periodicals, and decided to become a publisher. His office was an old freight car, where he got together three hundred pounds of type, and started the issue of the Grand Trunk Herald. It was only a small amateur weekly, printed on one side and without a press, the im- pression being made from the type with the hand. Still, the venture is an interesting evidence of the originality of the boy's ideas. Chemical research was his next undertaking, and a laboratory was added to his movable publishing house. He was intensely interested in the mechanism of railroad engines, and more especially in the workings of the electric telegraph. As he grew to manhood he decided to become an operator. Five months later Edison was competent to fill a position in the rail- road office at Port Huron. Hence he peregrinated THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 147 to Cincinnati, Louisville, and Boston, gradually becoming a first-rate operator, and gaining experi- ence that aided him to evolve many ingenious ideas for the improvement of telegraph appliances. At Memphis he constructed an automatic repeater, which enabled Louisville and New Orleans to com- municate direct, saving both time and labour. In 1870 he came to New York, in search of an opening more suitable to his capabilities and ambitions. He happened to be in the office of the Laws Gold Keporting Company when one of the instruments got out of order, and even the inventor of the system could not make it work. Edison requested to be allowed to attempt the task, and in a few minutes he had overcome the difficulty and thus secured an advantageous engagement. From this point dates the beginning of his celebrity. For several years he had a contract with the Western Union and the Gold and Stock Companies, whereby he received a large salary, besides a special price for all the telegraphic improvements he could suggest. Now, as the head of the Edison Electric Company, with its numerous subordinate organisa- tions and connections all over the civilised world, he is probably several times a millionaire. The inventor's possibilities are certainly dazzling. Should 148 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR Mr. Edison's electric railway be proved by actual operation to be what his experiments foreshadow, it would undoubtedly make him rich beyond the oft- quoted dreams of avarice. A system almost as much superior to the steam locomotive as that locomotive was to the stage coach would speedily be forced into general adoption on all the railroads of the world, a share of whose earnings amounting to an annual total of hundreds of millions would fairly be due to the originator of the motive power employed. The perfection of this invention is the chief work now in progress in the magnificently equipped laboratory at Llewellyn, close to the foot of the picturesque Orange Mountain in New Jersey. Here are the home and head-quarters of Mr. Edison. In the grounds at Llewellyn an experimental track has been laid down, which is about four hundred yards in length, and contains grades, curves, and all the practical difficulties of a railroad in miniature. The track now has three rails, but Mr. Edison says that the extra rail in the centre will not be used in the perfected system. With this discarded which of course will greatly simplify and cheapen the invention the general system employed will be the passing of a current down one line of rails, to be " picked up " by the car, THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 149 passed through the motor, and returned to the central power station by the other line of rails. Mr. Edison is naturally unwilling at present to disclose the details of the system, or to explain the manner in which he has overcome the almost insuperable difficulties that have impeded its realisation. Among the countless comments of the incredulous, the first would probably refer to the apparent im- possibility of sending a current through a long stretch of uninsulated rail. Things impossible to others are possible to Mr. Edison, however. His solution of the problem depends largely upon the phenomenally low voltage of the current he employs, and the fact that leakage diminishes with diminished pressure. To sum up the facilities of the laboratory, it may be said that in it are concentrated, as hardly any- where else, all manner of chemical and mechanical powers ready to render immediate service to their director's desires. Glenmont, Mr. Edison's residence at Llewellyn Park, is approached by a gravelled driveway that winds through trees and shrubbery. The interior is elaborately luxurious, with its ample rooms, broad stairways, and floors of polished oak covered with Persian rugs. At noon, and again in the evening, 150 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR Mrs. Edison drives to the laboratory for her husband, but there are occasions when she cannot persuade him to leave some unusually interesting and important ex- periment. He has a bed at the laboratory, but some- times he sets Nature at defiance by taking no sleep for days. There is a careworn look upon the great inventor's face, and he is not as rosy as he once was. But in spite of the vast amount of work he has done and is doing, he is still a young man for his years. Extremely modest and courteous in his demeanour, with a beautiful face trds sympathique, as the French say, there is genius stamped in every line of that mobile countenance. It is a head you would pick out of a thousand, and ask eagerly and inquiringly, " Who is that man ? " And I should feel prouder in grasping his hand than that of any living Emperor. 7? NEW YORK TO CHICAGO " EN WAGON " New York to Chicago, one thousand miles or thereabouts without leaving your car, west- wards, a straight run ! At 10 A.M. a New York Central Railroad express, hauling Wagner cars, leaves New York daily, a quick through train, and well-nigh the best to select ; certainly, if favoured by fine weather, as it enables you to see and admire the very striking scenery through which you glide. Before starting from New York, remember to have your luggage checked through to Chicago, naming your hotel there. Note, too, with care the Hotel Eichelieu, the most charm- ing hotel in America, quite the best one knows or ever heard of. For if, as in my case, an orphan 154 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR straying from the fold, one finds here a true haven of rest. The cuisine is quite perfect, and there is a cellar of the rarest vintage, P.G. 74 in Jereboham's, sufficient quantity in the same cellar to float any of H.M. ironclads ; Haut Brion of 74 too, and Mouton Rothschild 75 in magnums. Cardinal Bemis, as he is termed by his friends, the proprietor, has a know- ledge of vinous matters and of rare vintages not excelled certainly by any man living in Europe. He is besides a very rich man, and takes the greatest pride in his marvellous cellars quite apart from hotel requirements. Many a Chicago magnate's cellar owes its reputation to the Hotel Richelieu. I cannot speak too highly of Mr. Bemis and his charming wife, the ever thoughtful host and hostess. The charges, too, are very moderate, considering the super-excellence of all arrangements for a guest's comfort. Madame Sarah Bernhardt was under Mr. Bemis's roof on the occasion of my visit, and I had further the pleasure of meeting the silver-tongued orator of the West, Mr. Daniel Dougherty, a Philadelphia lawyer, and heard one of his beautiful after-dinner orations and recita- tions. He is a heaven-born actor, with the most courteous and graceful delivery it has ever been my good fortune to hear. To go back a little, I should add that on having your luggage checked through from New York to Chicago, a small metal card is given you to reclaim it with, then all trouble and risk are off your hands. Of course you will retain whatever luggage you need for use at night in the car ; two leather bags are the most serviceable. The New York station of the New York Central Railroad is very handsomely built, and well adapted for the convenience and comfort of passengers, very different indeed from the Custom House on one's arrival at New York ; the contrast is very striking. The bookstalls at the station are beautifully arranged with all kinds of newspapers and book literature, grave and gay, some very funny and bright, the magazines and engravings therein really of high artistic merit. As further advice, remember, too, to secure your sleeping car tickets a day or so beforehand, and secure specially what are termed "private berths." In going to Chicago select particularly those on the left-hand side of the train, and when returning to New York take the right-hand side berths, which enable you to see best the passing scenery. When going to Chicago it is well to travel by the New York Central Railroad, and when you return take the Michigan Central, so that en route you see the celebrated Falls of Niagara, 156 THE LAND OF THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR and thus, though breaking your journey, you really do not thereby lose much time. So, by leaving Chicago, say, on Wednesday at about 3 P.M., you can thoroughly see Niagara with comparative comfort and still be at New York on Friday morning early. The motion of the car is very pleasant, en route from New York to what jealous Americans of the seaboard call the