h he wrote them is embraced in the ten years from
1892 to 1902.

HENRY PEARSON GRATTON.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA,
May 10th, 1904.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE AMERICAN, WHO HE IS 1

II. THE AMERICAN MAN 16

III. AMERICAN CUSTOMS 40

IV. THE AMERICAN WOMAN 63

V. THE SUPERSTITIONS OF THE AMERICAN 92

VI. THE AMERICAN PRESS 99

VII. THE AMERICAN DOCTOR 106

VIII. PECULIARITIES AND MANNERISMS 118

IX. LIFE IN WASHINGTON 131

X. THE AMERICAN IN LITERATURE 164

XI. THE POLITICAL BOSS 185

XII. EDUCATION IN AMERICA 200

XIII. THE ARMY AND NAVY 212

XIV. ART IN AMERICA 229

XV. THE DARK SIDE OF REPUBLICANISM 237

XVI. SPORTS AND PASTIMES 261

XVII. THE CHINAMAN IN AMERICA 279

XVIII. THE RELIGIONS OF THE AMERICANS 303

AS A CHINAMAN SAW US

CHAPTER I

THE AMERICAN--WHO HE IS

Many of the great powers believe themselves to be passing through an
evolutionary period leading to civic and national perfection. America,
or the United States, has already reached this state; it is complete and
finished. I have this from the Americans themselves, so there can be no
question about it; hence it requires no little temerity to discuss, let
alone criticize, them.

Yet I am going to ask you to behold the American as he is, as I honestly
found him--great, small, good, bad, self-glorious, egotistical,
intellectual, supercilious, ignorant, superstitious, vain, and
bombastic. In truth, so very remarkable, so contradictory, so
incongruous have I found the American that I hesitate. Shall I give you
a satire; shall I devote myself to eulogy; shall I tear what they call
the "whitewash" aside and expose them to the winds of excoriation; or
shall I devote myself to an introspective, analytical _divertissement_?
But I do not wish to educate you on the Americans, but