American Notes

The other sight of the evening was a horror. The little tragedy played itself out at a neighboring table where two very young men and two very young women were sitting. It did not strike me till far into the evening that the pimply young reprobates were making the girls drunk. They gave them red wine and then white, and the voices rose slightly with the maidens’ cheek flushes. I watched, wishing to stay, and the youths drank till their speech thickened and their eye-balls grew watery. It was sickening to see, because I knew what was going to happen. My friend eyed the group, and said: – “Maybe they’re children of respectable people. I hardly think, though, they’d be allowed out without any better escort than these boys. And yet the place is a place where every one comes, as you see. They may be Little Immoralities – in which case they wouldn’t be so hopelessly overcome with two glasses of wine. They may be – ”

Whatever they were they got indubitably drunk – there in that lovely hall, surrounded by the best of Buffalo society. One could do nothing except invoke the judgment of Heaven on the two boys, themselves half sick with liquor. At the close of the performance the quieter maiden laughed vacantly and protested she couldn’t keep her feet. The four linked arms, and staggering, flickered out into the street – drunk, gentlemen and ladies, as Davy’s swine, drunk as lords! They disappeared down a side avenue, but I could hear their laughter long after they were out of sight.

And they were all four children of sixteen and seventeen. Then, recanting previous opinions, I became a prohibitionist. Better it is that a man should go without his beer in public places, and content himself with swearing at the narrow-mindedness of the majority; better it is to poison the inside with very vile temperance drinks, and to buy lager furtively at back-doors, than to bring temptation to the lips of young fools such as the four I had seen. I understand now why the preachers rage against drink. I have said: “There is no harm in it, taken moderately;” and yet my own demand for beer helped directly to send those two girls reeling down the dark street to – God alone knows what end.

If liquor is worth drinking, it is worth taking a little trouble to come at – such trouble as a man will undergo to compass his own desires. It is not good that we should let it lie before the eyes of children, and I have been a fool in writing to the contrary. Very sorry for myself, I sought a hotel, and found in the hall a reporter who wished to know what I thought of the country. Him I lured into conversation about his own profession, and from him gained much that confirmed me in my views of the grinding tyranny of that thing which they call the Press here. Thus: – I – But you talk about interviewing people whether they like it or not. Have you no bounds beyond which even your indecent curiosity must not go?

HE – I haven’t struck ‘em yet. What do you think of interviewing a widow two hours after her husband’s death, to get her version of his life?

I – I think that is the work of a ghoul. Must the people have no privacy?

HE – There is no domestic privacy in America. If there was, what the deuce would the papers do? See here. Some time ago I had an assignment to write up the floral tributes when a prominent citizen had died.

I – Translate, please; I do not understand your pagan rites and ceremonies.

HE – I was ordered by the office to describe the flowers, and wreaths, and so on, that had been sent to a dead man’s funeral. Well, I went to the house. There was no one there to stop me, so I yanked the tinkler – pulled the bell – and drifted into the room where the corpse lay all among the roses and smilax. I whipped out my note-book and pawed around among the floral tributes, turn-ing up the tickets on the wreaths and seeing who had sent them. In the middle of this I heard some one saying: “Please, oh, please!” behind me, and there stood the daughter of the house, just bathed in tears – I – You unmitigated brute!

HE – Pretty much what I felt myself. “I’m very sorry, miss,” I said, “to intrude on the privacy of your grief. Trust me, I shall make it as little painful as possible.”

I – But by what conceivable right did you outrage – HE – Hold your horses. I’m telling you. Well, she didn’t want me in the house at all, and between her sobs fairly waved me away. I had half the tributes described, though, and the balance I did partly on the steps when the stiff ‘un came out, and partly in the church. The preacher gave the sermon. That wasn’t my assignment. I skipped about among the floral tributes while he was talking. I could have made no excuse if I had gone back to the office and said that a pretty girl’s sobs had stopped me obeying orders. I had to do it. What do you think of it all?

I (slowly) – Do you want to know?

HE (with his note-book ready) – Of course. How do you regard it?

I – It makes me regard your interesting nation with the same shuddering curiosity that I should bestow on a Pappan cannibal chewing the scalp off his mother’s skull. Does that convey any idea to your mind? It makes me regard the whole pack of you as heathens – real heathens – not the sort you send missions to – creatures of another flesh and blood. You ought to have been shot, not dead, but through the stomach, for your share in the scandalous business, and the thing you call your newspaper ought to have been sacked by the mob, and the managing proprietor hanged.

HE – From which, I suppose you have nothing of that kind in your country?

Oh! “Pioneer,” venerable “Pioneer,” and you not less honest press of India, who are occasionally dull but never blackguardly, what could I say? A mere “No,” shouted never so loudly, would not have met the needs of the case. I said no word.

The reporter went away, and I took a train for Niagara Falls, which are twenty-two miles distant from this bad town, where girls get drunk of nights and reporters trample on corpses in the drawing-rooms of the brave and the free!