become targets for these chewers. This is a national
habit, extraordinary in so enlightened a people. So ridiculous has it
made the Americans, so much has been written about it by such visitors
as Charles Dickens, that the State governments have determined to take
up the "spitting" question, and now there is a fine of from $10 to $100
for any one spitting in a car or on a hotel floor. Nearly all the
"up-to-date" towns have passed anti-spitting laws. Up to this time, or
even during my college days in America, this habit made walking on the
sidewalk a most disagreeable function, and the interior of cars was a
horror. Is not this remarkable in a people who claim so much? In the
South certain white men and women chew snuff--a gross habit.

In the North they also have a strange custom, called chewing gum. This
gum is the exudation from certain trees, and is manufactured into plates
and sold in an attractive form, merely to chew like tobacco, and young
and old may be seen chewing with great velocity. The children forget
themselves and chew with great force, their jaws working like those of a
cow chewing her cud, only more rapidly; and to see a party of three or
four chewing frantically is one of the "sights" in America, which
astonishes the Heathen Chinee and convinces him that, in the slang of
the country, "_there are others_" who are peculiar. There are many
manufactories of this stuff, which is harmless, though such constant
chewing can but affect the size of the muscles of the jaw if the theory
of evolution is to be believed; at least there will be no atrophy of
these parts.

In New England, the northeastern portion of the country, this habit
appeared to be more prevalent, and I asked several scientific persons if
they had made any attempt to trace the history of the habit or to find
anything to attribute it to. One learned man told me that he had made a
special study of the habit, and believed that it was merely the modern
expression in human beings of the cud chewing of ruminating mammals, as
cows, goats, etc. In a word, the gum-chewing Americans are trying to
chew their cud as did their ancestors. Any habit like this is seized
upon by manufacturers for their personal profit, and every expedient is
employed to induce people to chew. The gum is mixed with perfumes, and
sold as a breath purifier; others mix it with pepsin, to aid the
digestion; some with something else, which is sold on ships and
excursion-boats as a cur