re. She should close her seaports to these aliens for ten years,
allow the people here to assimilate; but they can not do it. The foreign
transportation lines under foreign flags are in the business to load up
America with the dregs of Europe. I know of one family of Jews, four
brothers, who wished to come to America, but found that they would have
to show that they were not paupers. They mustered about one thousand
dollars. One came over, and sent back the money by draft. The second
brought it back as his fortune, then immediately sent it back for
another brother to bring over, and so on until they all arrived, each
proving that he was not a pauper. Yet these same brothers, each with
several children, became an expense to the Government before they were
earners. The children were sent to industrial homes, and later entered
the sweat-shops. In America there is not a Chinaman to-day in a
workhouse, or a pauper[13] at the expense of the Government; yet the
Chinese are not wanted here.

FOOTNOTE:

[13] This is doubtful.--EDITOR.

CHAPTER XVI

SPORTS AND PASTIMES

I had not been in Washington a month before I received invitations to a
"country club golf" tournament, to a "rowing club," to a "pink tea," to
a "polo game," to a private "boxing" bout between two light-weight
professionals, given in Senator ----'s stable, to a private "cock-fight"
by the brother of ----'s wife, to a gun club "shoot," not to speak of
invitations to several "poker games." From this you may infer that
Americans are fond of sport. The official sport--that is, the game I
heard of most among Government officials, senators, and others--was
"poker," and the sums played for at times I am assured are beyond
belief. There are rules and etiquette for poker, and one of the most
distinguished of American diplomatists of a past generation, General
Schenck, emulated the Marquis of Queensberry in boxing by writing a book
on the national game, that has all the charm claimed for it. It is
seductive, and doubtless has had its influence on the people who employ
the "bluff" in diplomacy, war, business, or poker, with equal tact and
cleverness.

Middle-class 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 fashion, 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