THE ARMY AND NAVY

Among the most delightful people I have met in America are the army and
navy officers, graduates of West Point and Annapolis, well-bred,
cultivated men, patriotic, open-hearted, and chivalrous. They are like
our own class of men who answer to the American term of gentlemen. I am
not going to tell you of their splendid ships, their training or
uniform, but of a few of their idiosyncrasies. There is no dueling in
the army. If two men have trouble at the academies they fight it out
with bare fists, and in the army settle it in some other way, dueling
being forbidden. Owing to the fact that all men are equal in America,
the attitude of the officer to the civilian is entirely different. If a
civilian strikes an officer in Germany the latter will cut him down with
his saber and be protected in it, but here the man would be arrested and
treated as any other criminal; in a word, the officer is a servant of
the people, and stands with them. He has been trained to treat his men
well, and they respect him. But while the officer is the people's
servant and his salary in some part is paid by the humblest grocer's
clerk, laborer, or artisan, the officer has a social position which, in
the eyes of himself and the Government, makes him the social equal of
kings and emperors; and here we see a strange fact in American life.

When a garrison is ordered to a town or city, people call to pay their
respects. The grocer, who in being taxed aids in paying the officer's
salary, is _persona non grata_. The grocer, milk dealer, shoe dealer,
and retail dealers in general might call, but would not be received on
cordial terms. The wife of the colonel might return the call of the
grocer's wife if she made a good appearance, but the latter would under
no circumstances be invited to a function at the camp or post. The
undertaker, the dentist, the ice-man, the retail shoe man are under the
ban. Certain kinds of business appear to have certain social rights.
Thus a dentist would not be received, but the man who manufactures
dentists' tools may be a leader among the "Four Hundred."

Strange complications arise. A young officer fell in love with a
sergeant's daughter, and married her, as I learned from a well-known
officer at the Army and Navy Club. This was serious enough, as there
could be no intimacy between a commissioned and non-commissioned
officer. The young man and his bride were ordered to a distant post,
where the story