those
holy places, visions of which tortured the women from the western
hemisphere and prevented their taking any pleasure in other victories. To
be received into those inner circles became their chief ambition. With
this end in view they dressed themselves in expensive costumes, took the
trouble to learn the "lingo" spoken in the country, went to the extremity
of copying the ways of the native women by painting their faces, and in
one or two cases imitated the laxity of their morals.

In spite of these concessions, our women were not received with
enthusiasm. On the contrary, the very name of an American became a
byword and an abomination in every continental city. This prejudice
against us abroad is hardly to be wondered at on reflecting what we have
done to acquire it. The agents chosen by our government to treat
diplomatically with the conquered nations, owe their selection to
political motives rather than to their tact or fitness. In the large
majority of cases men are sent over who know little either of the habits
or languages prevailing in Europe.

The worst elements always follow in the wake of discovery. Our
settlements abroad gradually became the abode of the compromised, the
divorced, the socially and financially bankrupt.

Within the last decade we have found a way to revenge the slights put
upon us, especially those offered to Americans in the capital of Gaul.
Having for the moment no playwrights of our own, the men who concoct
dramas, comedies, and burlesques for our stage find, instead of wearying
themselves in trying to produce original matter, that it is much simpler
to adapt from French writers. This has been carried to such a length
that entire French plays are now produced in New York signed by American
names.

The great French playwrights can protect themselves by taking out
American copyright, but if one of them omits this formality, the
"conquerors" immediately seize upon his work and translate it, omitting
intentionally all mention of the real author on their programmes. This
season a play was produced of which the first act was taken from Guy de
Maupassant, the second and third "adapted" from Sardou, with episodes
introduced from other authors to brighten the mixture. The piece thus
patched together is signed by a well-known Anglo-Saxon name, and accepted
by our moral public, although the original of the first act was stopped
by the Parisian police as too immoral for that gay capi