ller disregarding the fact
that it was an impertinence.

A distinguished New York judge told the following: Two tenement
harridans look out of their windows simultaneously. "Good-morning, Mrs.
Moriarity," says one. "Good-morning, Mrs. Gilfillan," says the other,
adding, "not that I care a d----, but just to make conversation." This
was considered wit of the sharpest kind, and was received with applause.
In their stories the Americans spare neither age, sex, nor relatives.
The following was related by a general of the army. He said he took a
friend home to spend the night with him, the guest occupying the best
room. When he came down in the morning he turned to the hostess and
said, "Mrs. ----, that was excellent tooth-powder you placed at my
disposal; can you give me the name of the maker?" The hostess fairly
screamed. "What," she exclaimed, "the powder in the urn?" "Yes," replied
the officer, startled; "was it poison?" "Worse, worse," said she; "you
swallowed Aunt Jane!" Conceive of this wretched taste. The guest had
actually cleaned his teeth with the cremated dust of the general's aunt;
yet he told the story before a dinner assemblage, and it was received
with shouts of laughter.

I did not hear the intellectual conversation at dinner I had expected.
Art, science, literature, were rarely touched upon, although I
invariably met artists, litterateurs, and scientific men at these
dinners. They all talked small talk or "told stories." I was informed
that if I wished to hear the weighty questions of the day discussed I
must go to the women's clubs, or to Madam ----'s Current Topics Society.
The latter is an extraordinary affair, where society women who have no
time to read the news of the day listen to short lectures on the news of
the preceding week, discussed pro and con, giving these women in a
nutshell material for intelligent conversation when they meet senators
and other men at the various receptions before which they wish to make
an agreeable impression.

The American has many clubs, but is not entirely at home in them. He
uses them as places in which to play poker or whist, to dine his men
friends, and in a great measure because it is the "proper thing." At
many a room is set apart for the national game of poker--a fascinating
game to the player who wins. Poker was never mentioned in my presence
that some did not make a joke on a supposed Chinaman named Ah Sin; but
the obscurity of the joke and my lack of knowl