The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1884-01-04
NO. 756.
OSCAR WILDE ON AMERICA,
A Few Extracts From the Lecture He is De
liyerinG to His Countrymen.
Dublin Irish Times, Dec .

| Dublin Irish Times, Dec ..
Oscar Wilde, in the course of lecture
delivered last night in the Gaiety Theatre
said II he were asked what most struck him
on hrst landing he would say it was this
that If the Americans were not the mos,
well-dressed people in the world-and he
was afraid they were no.--still they were
the most comfortably dressed. There, were
no rags to be seen anywhere. No American
ever saunters or strolls, or even walks
walking was one of the fine arts unknown
In America. They are always rushing in a
hurry to catch trains, and the fact of their
always being in hurry would make people
here think they were not a romantic race.
Really romantic people were never IN time
for anything, and did not care whether they
caught their trains or not. Hear, hear. !
Bat In America catching trains was a Ma
tional amusement. Their romance was
different from ours. 1t was not the romance
of Shakespeare-.lt was the romance of com.
merce.
VI course, when one weRt to see America
he was brought to see Niagara. Every
young American when married went and
spent part of his honeymoon at Niagara, and
he thought the great waterfall must prove
the first disappointment In American married
life. [Laughter.l Niagara was dissppoint-
Ing, whether 1t was that the surroundings
were so abominably vulgar, got up like a tea
garden, filled with melancholy tourists, all
trying to get up that feeling of enthusiasm
which the guide-books assured them they
might have without any extra charge
llaughterl-he did not know. In order to
stand underneath the water fail to prevent
ones getting drenched, he had TO wear suit
OF yellow oil-skins of the most unbecoming
texture, almost as bad as that terrible mack.
intosh, which he hoped none of his audience
ever thought Of wearing, [Laughterl. One
OF the most charming women of modern
times, Nine. Bernhard, had, however, got
photographed in it-with Niagara as q sort
Of unpretentious background. .
California, the ioveliest part of America,
was beautiful as the Riviera In spring. There
and there only did he see really artistic
city-not San Francisco, with its steep
streets and glariEg white houses, but the city
built by the Chinese, who come over either
to build railways or dig In the mines. These
were looked on as very common people, and
great many bricks were thrown at them
[laughterl but they came from race so
artistic, and educated In such traditions OF
beauty, that they built for themselves a
beautiful little city, with narrow winding
streets, lit with painted paper lanterns.
Whatever they did was beautiful, aud what
ever beautiful thing they had they used.
American children seemed to be pale and
precocious, and that might be owing to the
fact that the only National game OF America
was the game of euchre, which could hardly,
ii industriously practiced, tend to create and
develop a fine or manly physique. These
however, grew up into very charm
ing people, the American girl being one of |
the most charming despots that 1t would be |
thought possible to find living in a country |
with free republican institutions. She was
often most delightful oasis of unreasona.
Oleness In the desert of common sense. The
only we'll dressed men in America were the
miners. The men in America had very lit
lie childhood; they left school at ID, had
'wo or three successful bankruptcies by the
lime they were 20, and at 81 were million
aires.