Part 7 (1/2)
Middle-cla.s.s Americans are fond of sport in every way, but the aristocrats lack sporting spontaneity; they like it, or pretend to like it, because it is the fas.h.i.+on, and they take up one sport after another as it becomes the fad. That this is true can be shown by comparing the Englishman and the American of the fas.h.i.+onable cla.s.s. The Englishman is fond of sport because it is in his blood; he does not like golf to-day and swimming to-morrow, but he likes them all, and always has done so.
He would never give up cricket, golf, or any of his games because they go out of fas.h.i.+on; he does not allow them to go out of fas.h.i.+on; but with the American it is different.
Hence I a.s.sume that the average American of the better cla.s.s is not imbued with the sporting spirit. He wears it like an ill-fitting coat. I find a singular feature among the Americans in connection with their sports. Thus if something is known and recognized as sport, people take to it with avidity, but if the same thing is called labor or exercise, it is considered hard work, s.h.i.+rked and avoided. This is very cleverly ill.u.s.trated by Mark Twain in one of his books, where a boy makes his companions believe that white-was.h.i.+ng a fence is sport, and so relieves himself from an arduous duty by pretending to share the great privilege with them.
No one would think of walking steadily for six days, yet once this became sport; dozens of men undertook it, and long walks became a fad.
If a man committed a crime and should be sentenced to play the modern American game of football every day for thirty days as a punishment, there are some who might prefer a death sentence and so avoid a lingering end; but under the t.i.tle of ”sport” all young men play it, and a number are maimed and killed yearly.
Sport is in the blood of the common people. Children begin with tops, marbles, and kites, yet never appreciate our skill with either. I amazed a boy on the outskirts of Was.h.i.+ngton one day by asking him why he did not _irritate_ his kite and make it go through various evolutions. He had never heard of doing that, and when I took the string and began to jerk it, and finally made the kite plunge downward or swing in circles, and always restored it by suddenly slacking off the cord, he was astonished and delighted. The national game is baseball, a very clever game. It is nothing to see thousands at a game, each person having paid twenty-five or fifty cents for the privilege. In summer this game, played by experts, becomes a most profitable business. Rarely is any one hurt but the judge or umpire, who is at times hissed by the audience and mobbed, and at others beaten by either side for unfair decisions; but this is rare.
Football is dangerous, but is even more popular than the other. You might imagine by the name that the ball is kicked. On the contrary the real action of the game consists in running down, tripping up, smas.h.i.+ng into, and falling on whomever has the ball. As a consequence, men wear a soft armor. There are fas.h.i.+ons in sports which demonstrate the ephemeral quality of the American love for sport. A while ago ”wheeling”
was popular, and everybody wheeled. Books were printed on the etiquette of the sport; roads were built for it and improved; but suddenly the working cla.s.s took it up and fas.h.i.+on dropped it. Then came golf, imported from Scotland. With this fad millions of dollars were expended in country clubs and greens all over the United States, as acres of land were necessary. People seized upon this with a fierceness that warmed the hearts of dealers in b.a.l.l.s and clubs. The men who edited wheel magazines now changed them to ”golf monthlies.” This sport began to wane as the novelty wore off, until golf is now played by comparatively few experts and lovers.
Society introduced the automobile, and we have the same thing--more magazines, the spending of millions, the building of the _garage_, and the appearance of the _chaufeur_ or driver. Then came the etiquette of the auto--a German navy cap, rubber coat, and Chinese goggles. This peculiar uniform is of course only to be worn when racing, but you see the American going out for a slow ride solemnly attired in rubber coat and goggles. The moment the auto comes within reach of the poor man it will be given up; but it is now the fad and a most expensive one, the best machines costing ten thousand dollars or more, and I have seen races where the speed exceeded a mile a minute.
All sports have their ethics and rules and their correct costuming.
Baseball men are in uniform, generally white, with various-colored stockings. The golfer wears a red coat and has a servant or valet, who carries his bag of clubs, designed for every possible expediency. To hear a group of golfers discuss the merits of these tools is one of the extraordinary experiences one has in America. I have been made fairly ”giddy,” as the Englishmen say, by this anemic conversation at country clubs. The ”high-ball” was the saving clause--a remarkable invention this. Have I explained it? You take a very tall gla.s.s, made for the purpose, and into it pour the contents of a small cut-gla.s.s bottle or decanter of whisky, which must be Scotch, tasting of smoke. On this you pour seltzer or soda-water, filling up the gla.s.s, and if you take enough you are ”high” and feel like a rolling ball. It is the thing to take a ”high-ball” after every nine holes in golf. Then after the game you bathe, and sit and drink as many as your skin will hold. I got this from a professional golf-teacher in charge of the ---- links, and hence it is official.
The avidity with which the Americans seize upon a sport and the suddenness with which they drop it, ill.u.s.trating what I have said about the lack of a national sporting taste, is well shown by the coming of a game called ”ping pong,” a parlor tennis, with our battledores for rackets. What great mind invented this game, or where it came from, no one seems to know, but as a wag remarked, ”When in doubt lay it to China.” Some suppose it is Chinese, the name suggesting it. So extraordinary was the early demand for it that it appeared as though everybody in America was determined to own and play ping pong. The dealers could not produce it fast enough. Factories were established all over the country, and the tools were ground out by the ten thousands.
Books were written on the ethics of the game; experts came to the front; ping pong weeklies and monthlies were founded, to dumfound the ma.s.ses, and the very air vibrated with the ”ping” and the ”pong.”
The old and young, rich and poor, feeble and herculean, all played it.
Doctors advised it, children cried for it, and a fas.h.i.+onable journal devised the correct ping-pong costume for players. Great matches were played between the experts of various sections, and this sport, a game really for small children, after the fas.h.i.+on of battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k, ran its course among young and old. Pictures of adult ping-pong champions were blazoned in the public print; even churchmen took it up. Public gardens had special ping-pong tables to relieve the stress. At last the people seized upon ping pong, and it became common.
Then it was dropped like a dead fish. If some cyclonic disturbance had swept all the ping-pong b.a.l.l.s into s.p.a.ce, the disappearance could not have been more complete. Ping pong was put out of fas.h.i.+on. All this to the alien suggests something, a want of balance, a ”youngness” perhaps.
At the present time the old game of croquet is being revived under another name, and tennis is the vogue among many. Among the fas.h.i.+onable and wealthy men polo is the vogue, but among a few everything goes by fads for a few years. Every one will rush to see or play some game; but this interest soon dies out, and something new starts up. Such games as baseball and football, tennis and polo are, in a sense, in a cla.s.s by themselves, but among the pastimes of the people a wide vogue belongs to fis.h.i.+ng, and shooting wild fowl and large game. The former is universal, and the Americans are the most skilled anglers with artificial lures in the world, due to the abundance of game-fish, trout, and others, and the perfect Government care exercised to perfect the supply.
As an ill.u.s.tration, each State considers hunting and fis.h.i.+ng a valuable a.s.set to attract those who will come and spend money. I was told by a Government official that the State of Maine reckoned its game at five million dollars per annum, which means that the sport is so good that sportsmen spend that amount there every year; but I fancy the amount is overestimated. The Government has perfect fish hatcheries, constantly supplying young fish to streams, while the business in anglers' supplies is immense. There are thousands of duck-shooting clubs in the United States. Men, or a body of men, rent or buy marshes, and keep the poor man out. Rich men acquire hundreds of acres, and make preserves.
Possibly the sport of hunting wild fowl is the most characteristic of American sports. This also has its etiquette, its costumes, its club-houses, and its poker and high-b.a.l.l.s. I know of one such club in which almost all the members are millionaires. A humorous paper stated that they used ”gold shot.”
As a nation the Americans are fond of athletics, which are taught in the schools. There are splendid gymnasiums, and boys and girls are trained in athletic exercises. Athletics are all in vogue. It is fas.h.i.+onable to be a good ”fencer.” All the young dance. I believe the Americans stand high as a nation in all-around athletics; at least they are far ahead of China in this respect.
I have reserved for mention last the most popular fas.h.i.+on of the people in sport, which is prize-fighting. Here again you see a strange contradiction. The people are preeminently religious, and prize-fighting and football are the sports of brutes; yet the two are most popular. No public event attracts more attention in America than a gladiatorial fight to the finish between the champion and some aspirant.
For months the papers are filled with it, and on the day of the event the streets are thronged with people crowding about the billboards to receive the news. No national event, save the killing of a President, attracted more universal attention than the beating of Sullivan by Corbett and the beating of Corbett by Fitzsimmons, and ”Fitz” in turn by Jeffries. I might add that I joined with the Americans in this, as the modern prize-fighter is a fine animal. If all boys were taught to believe that their fists are their natural weapons, there would be fewer murders and sudden deaths in America. I have seen several of these prize-fights and many private bouts, all with gloves. They are governed by rules. Such a combat is by no means as dangerous as football, where the obvious intention seems to be to break ribs and crush the opponent.
Rowing is much indulged in, and yachting is a great national maritime sport, in which the Americans lead and challenge the world. In no sport is the wealth of the nation so well shown. Every seaside town has its yacht or boat club, and in this the interest is perpetual. Even in winter the yacht is rigged into an ”ice-boat.” I have often wondered that fas.h.i.+onable people do not take up the romantic sport of falconry, as they have the birds and every facility. I suggested this to a lady, who replied, ”Ah, that is too barbaric for us.” ”More barbaric than c.o.c.k-fighting?” I asked, knowing that her brother owned the finest game-c.o.c.ks in the District of Columbia. Among the Americans there is a distinct love for fair play, and such sports as ”bull-baiting,”
”bull-fights,” ”dog-fights,” and ”c.o.c.k-fights” have never attained any degree of popularity. There are spasmodic instances of such indulgences, but in no sense can they be included, as in England and Spain, among the national sports, which leads me to the conclusion that, aside from the many peculiarities, as taking up and dropping sports, America, all in all, is the greatest sporting nation of the world. It leads in fist-fighting, rifle-shooting, in skilful angling, in yachting, in rowing, in running, in six-day walking, in auto-racing, in trotting and running horses, and in trap-shooting, and if its champions in all fields could be lined up it would make a surprising showing. I am free to confess and quite agree with a vivacious young woman who at the country club told me that it was very nice of me to uphold my country, but that we were ”not in it” with American sports.
The Presidents are often sportsmen. President Cleveland and President Harrison both have been famous, the former as a fisherman, the latter as well as the former as a duck-shooter. President McKinley has no taste for sport, but the Vice-President is a promoter of sport of each and every kind. He is at home in polo or hurdle racing, with the rifle or revolver. This calls to mind the national weapon--the revolver.
Nine-tenths of all the shooting is done with this weapon, that is carried in a special pocket on the hips, and I venture to say that a pair of ”trousers” was never made without the pistol pocket. Even the clergymen have one. I asked an Episcopal clergyman why he had a pistol pocket. He replied that he carried his prayer-book there. The Southern people use a long curved knife, called a bowie, after its inventor. Many people have been cut by this weapon. The negro, for some strange reason, carries a razor, and in a fight ”whips out” this awful weapon and slashes his enemy. I have asked many negroes to explain this habit or selection. One replied that it was ”none of my d---- business.” Nearly all the others said they did not know why they carried it.
CHAPTER XVII
THE CHINAMAN IN AMERICA
The average Irishman whom one meets in America, and he is legion, is a very different person from the polished gentleman I have met in Belfast, Dublin, and other cities in Ireland; but I never heard that the American Irishman, the product of an ignorant peasantry crowded out of Ireland, had been accepted as a type of the race. Peculiar discrimination is made in America against the Chinese. Our lower cla.s.ses, ”coolies” from the Cantonese districts, have flocked to America. Americans ”lump” all Chinese under this head, and can not conceive that in China there are cultivated men, just as there are cultivated men in Ireland, the antipodes of the grotesque Irish types seen in America.