ACROSS THE LAND OF THE HUSTLER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2715, 28 March 1906, Page 15

ACROSS THE LAND OF THE HUSTLER.

X— THE HUSTLER HIMSELF.

Bx "William Hewitson. {

' "In returning from Britain at the end of last year I 6pent cix weeks in America, and saw something of Americans in their own '4»nd. I also frequently met Americans abroad—some working as missionaries, Jothers travelling for pleasure and business, lit has occurred to me that some readere jof the Oatgo Daily Times might- find pleasure in reading the impression produced (upon me by contact with Americans. They Stand nearer to us in blood and language >than any of the other nations of the world, ibut it not infrequently happens that we .tinderetand and appreciate the stranger better than our own kinsman. The American will Slave a great hand in determining the future pf the world, and on this and on other grounds it seem* desirable that we should jput ourselves in a sympathetic, attitude towards him, and thus .come to know him truly. I write with no other object ' in

Tiew.

i AMERICAN MISSIONARIES.

My first experience of Americans " on my travels was in Madura, Southern India, Inhere we were entertained by the missionaries of the American Board (Congregational). There is no heartier hospitality outside of Dunedin than that we received *t the hande of these American missionaries, and I question if there ie a better equipped mission station anywhere in heathendom than the Madura Mission. Mr John R. Mott, who ie "known in student - circles throughout the world, told me that ho had visited all the great mission stations of the Amercan Board in Asia, and that he iiras prepared to say that the board has not a weak team in the whole of that great j land. Some of the American missionaries j ' an India — Dv Jones, for example, the author | of " Krishna or Christ,"— are known throughout Christendom to all taking interest in missionary activities. The connection of some of the Madura workers with missions in India goes back for several generations. In liuoknow we visited a Hindu girls' college, conducted by the Methodist Episcopal Church of America. The head of tho institution was a charming American lady, a graduate of one of the American universities. On the staff there was a Hindu lady, a Master of Arts, who, at the time we entered the classroom, was engaged in teaching philosophy, and using as text-books some of the books well known to student* of the Otago University. One of the students of this col- | lege in a recent examination had beaten all competitors — men and women. At Beirut I saw the Syrian Protestant College, an American institution with the finest educational buildings I saw anywhere outside of Christendom. The buildings are of stone, and they stand on a site of nearly 40 acres, overlooking the Mediterranean, ■with the Lebanon Range rising in the background to a height of 8000 ft. How well equipped the college is may be judged ] by the following list of its buildings: — Medical Hall, containing amphitheatres, recitation rooms, museums, etc. ; George E. Post. Science Hall (museums, laboratories, X-ray room) ; chemical laboratory /containing also the college pharmacy); \ Assembly Hall (chapel, Bible school rooms, etc.) ; Administration Building (treasurer's J office, reception rooms, faculty room) ; Collesre Hall (library, - recitation rooms, V.M.C.A. dormitories) ; Ada Dodge Memo- j rial Hall (commercial department, college infirmary, refectory, bookroom, reception rooms, president's office) : Marquand House (president's residence) ; Jesup Hall (medical dormitory) ; observatory : Pliny JTisk Hall (dormitories) ; Daniel Bliss Hall (preparatory department) : the Marie de Witt Jesup Foundation (woman's hospital, children's ward, training school for nurses). There are six departments in the college — tlie preparatory department, the collegiate department (a course of four years leading to. the deerree of Bachelor of Arts), the School of Commerce (a three years' course), the '.School -of Medicine (four years' course), the School of Pharmacy (four years' course), and the School of Biblical Archaeology and Philology. The staff of administrators and instructors numbers 55. of whom 29 are American, 15 are Syrian, 3 are English, 2 are German, 2 Italian. 2 Greek. 1 is Swiss, and 1 Armenian. The venerable expresident. a gentle-mannered, beautiful-look-ing old man of 80 years, who has don« so much for the college, and induced so many of his rich countrymen to make such munificent gifts to it. is still able to take a clas> of student" every day in New Testament execesis. The ex-president has been succeeded by his son. a man of overflowing energy and contagious enthusiasm.

AMERICAN TOURISTS.

Tt was not until we got to Jerusalem that ■we met the American tourist. Americans are great travellers, and thousands tif them go abroad during the summer to Europe. Efiypt, and the western part of Asia. Just after we reached Palestine there was an invasion of the country by a party of over 600 Americans. They overflowed the hotels and hospices of Jerusalem ; they thronged the shops, and, I fear, put up the pricee.; they hired almost ever? vehicle that had a wheel and every animal that bad four legs. On our way down to Jericho we pasaed a score of carriages laden with Americans making the return journey, and when we went through the country north■wards we passed several small parties thafc Jiad landed at Beirut and were making their way up to Jerusalem. I do not Enow what motive prompted some of these tourists to visit the Holy Land, and I cannot imagine that they carried away from i/heir visit, any impression other than that it is better to live under the President of ;the Republic than under the Sultan of Turkey. In epeaking about his trip to one member of this company, a gentleman who ■had evidently not studied sacred geography in hijr youth, I was informed that their ship had put in at Samaria. I suggested that Samaria, was in the- oentre of th© cwxattj, and that he perhaps meant Smyrna.

" Smyrna?" Ec queried ; " Smyrna? I guess it was Smyrna." How little shackled by fact that traveller's tales will be can bereadily imagined, and the value of his impressions, whioh I have no doubt will be freely and dogmatically expressed, can be as readily estimated. The character of travellers and their stories has been rather discredited, owing to the somewhat doubtful reputation for truthfulness of a great early traveller who went to and fro in the and wandered up and down it. and 1 am afraid that the observations and reflections of my American acquaintance are not likely to restore public confidence. This is a little awkward for those of us who e.eek to tell a true story of what we have seen and heard, and as the subject seems acaroely appropriate to the occasion of my present writing, I shall have no more of it.

All American tourists, I should say. are- not like the gentleman to whom I have referred. In the little hotel at Jericho we met a small party of Americans— a gentleman and two ladies — whose well-in-formed and reverent conversation _ made it «asy to understand why they had visited the land of Old Testament and New Testament story. These people were representative of many other American tourists whom we met as we went on our way. We encountered ' Americans all through Italy and Switzerland, but when we got to Lcndon we expected that they would be absorbed among the millions of that great city and so become unrecognisable, but such was not the case. Americans were everywhere— in the hotels, on the busses, in tho churches, at the places of amusement and of historical interest.

AMERICAN SPEECH.

You know the American at once by his speech, and soon learn to recognise him by his appearance, and still sooner to recognise the American lady. The only American I heard whose speech did not betray him was Professor Charles Cuthbert Hall, the president of the - Union Theological Seminary. In the American voice there is something almost aggressive. When we were in the States I saw an article by an American educationalist who evidently shared Shakespeare's opinion that a soft, gentle, and low voice is an excellent thing in woman. He recommended American women teachers to cultivate greater softness of voice, and said that the American teacher might be detected in a room full of workers by a certain sharpness of tcne. The pace of American speaking is, in general, either slow and somewhat drawling, or very rapid. The short, sharp speech gives one the impression at times of curtness, and yet I found that among the most obliging public servants I met were some whose sharply-spoken answers to my first questions had made me feel that the speakers were ill-mannered. The rapid speech and abrupt manner are often, I believe, the accompaniments of a courteous and obliging spirit. We hear a good deal about the nasality of American speech. Spurgeon on one occasion informed his students that it was not in vain that it is mentioned in the Scriptures: "He opened his mouth and spake." Most authorities are agreed, according to the great preacher, that the nose is not the organ of speech. There is a general impression that the American has missed this point. My own judgment is that the nasal quality does exist in American speech, but that it is not nearly so common as British people make out; and, further, that it is not the most characteristic thing in American speech. I was more impressed by the American use of inflection, which is much greater than with us, and I observe that a professor of elocution in one of the colleges, in a book that has just been published this year, writes of " the recent and growing overuse of the rising inflection." There is also a great difference between the way in which even educated American and educated English people pronounce many, of the vowel sounds. Those that struck me most were the "o " sound in " stop," which the American pronounces "ah "—" — "sfap," — and the "v" in avenue, which he pronounces "oo "—" avenoo." Americans, too, often accentuate syllables in a different way from that in which we do. They speak of "address" with the accent on the first syllable. Such words as "oratory" and "seminary," with the accent on the last syllable, are heard everywhere. I met constantly the man that "guesses," but not the man that " calc'lates," and I also met the man that says and does things " right here," and the man that "hustles." Some of the terms I heard fixed themselves in my memory because they were vividly descriptive, others because they were' strange. I was strongly recommended to see a certain gentleman who was described as a " live wire." I had not the good fortune to see this gentleman, but I concluded from the description of him that he was a man contact with whom would certainly keep one awake. In a country where " phones " are in every house and electric lights and cars are in every street, the phrase is very suggestive. In a hotel where we put up a well-dressed lady took up her glass of iced water, and. noticing some sediment in the bottom of the glass, she remarked to her neighbour, " I guess there's bugs in that water." On the Atlantic liner I had heard an American divine, a professor in a Methodist College, say during his sermon that science had made a man almost afraid to kiss his wife for fear of bugs. Josh Billings in his Natural History has an essay on bugs, and I infer from his statement that he uses the word in the restricted sense in which we do. We generally regard the name as vulgar, and its owner as especially so ; while " microbes," on the other hand, are quite fit for the drawing room, and at j times are on everybody's lips. It would | appear that in current American speech '"bugs" are now equivalent to "microbes," and are quite as respectable, fit for a dining room table and a ship pulpit. I conclude from these differencps that polite speech and good manners are not in\ariably the same in all lands.

THE AMERICAN FACE.

I should say something before I close about the matter I mentioned earlier in this paper— viz., that an American, and especially an American lady, may be recognised by appearance. The American generally shaves clean, or at most wears only a moustache; a bearded American is rarely seen. ' I don't know if this is an effort to cheat time, but I have no doubt it often ch«ats the bystander and gives the American credit for a -vouthfulness that he has long since lost. If you see a man clean shaven, with a strong, rather severe, type of face, and wearing- glasses without frames, you can begin to "guess" what State he comes from. The American lady, I think, is recognised very readily by her dress, and more readily by that thaa by her personal appearance*

WAISTS AND SKIRTS.

15W me to make any attempt at describing the American women would be to venture on rather thin ioe, and so I shall keep off the subject. I shall say, however, that the dress of the American ladies appeared to me good, very simple, and so very sensible. On beautiful sunny mornings, in Twenty-third street New York, I used to find great pleasure in observing them as they came out to do their shopping. In the course of several fine mornings I must (have seen some hundreds of silk gowns, neatly and simply made, well adapted for walking in the warm " fall " weather. I find here lam being tempted on to the thin ice, and the danger is apt to make one unduly venturesome, but I shall not yield to the temptation of further detail. The steady climate , of San Francisco encourages the ladies to go in for more elaborate costumes than they do in the Eastern and Central States. A Kansas lady I met at Stanford University, California, asked me if I had not been struck by the dress of the San Francisco ladies; she thought their hats were positively "giddy." I had noticed these creations, ana one lady in .particular liaid greatly impressed me. She was most beautifully and delicately dressed in blue, with a hat to match. It was not so much the beauty of the equipment that impressed me. although that was very great; neither w"a6 it the cost, although I am sure that was not trifling; but the thought that came home to me was. " How you would spoil in a north-east drizzle ooming up our harbour."' I suppose a London foer would be equally destructive, and I judge from the remarks I heard some American ladies makp that they did not regard London weather as equal to their own. While in i London they evidently took this fact into account, and dressed to suit the climate and their purpose of travel. So familiar did that straight skirt, plain "waist," hat turned Up off the face, with its bit of veil, become that if I saw mine own familiar friend wearing them I would swear she was an American woman, and wait to hear her "guess."