The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-07-16
ATALK WITH KIPLING
The Poets Estimate Of America
and its People.
OUR GIRLS ARE CHARMING
But the Young Men are Tough-Chau-
tauqua q Lawn Tennis Academy
The Air OF Chicago Is Dirt.
London Special in New York world.

Little more tnan year ago young man
landed IN San Francisco from an Indian
steamship. and almost Immediately began
to write letters to the most important news
paper in India, giving his impressions of
our country. He blazed away at us with q
ferocity that throws far into the shade
Mrs. Trollope, Dickens and Max 0'Rsll
combined. After stopping four months in
the United States, during which time he
experienced variety of sensations, from
prayer-meeting at Chautauqua to an in
teryiew with Mark Twain, Rudyard Kip
ling came to London. He was compare
lively unknown, though few of his writ
ings in India had been republished on this
side of the water and had attracted atten-
ton. Today his books are piled deep on
all the railway news stands. Rudyard
Kipling has ieaped at bound to the top of
the literary ladder. For time he threat
ened to eclipse even the ubiquitous Stanley
as the lion OF the London season.
Mr.. Kipling was found at his elegant
quarters yesterday and interviewed on va
rious American topics. Being asked what
he thought of the American girl, he re-
ferred to letter in which he had said:
THE American girls are pretty-very
much so-with piquancy, all their own,
impossible TO describe as to resist. Sweet
and comely are the maidens of Devon
shire; delicate and OF precious seeming
those who live in the pieasantest place of
London; fascinating the damsels of France,
clinging closely to their mothers, and with
large eyes wondering at the wicked world.
Excellent in her own place and to those
who understand her is the Anglo-Indian
spin in her second season; but the girls
of America are above and beyond
them all. They are clever; they can
talk yea, it is said they can think. Ger
tainly they have an appearance of so doing
which is delightfully."- deceptive. They are
original, and regard you with unabashed
eyes, as sister might look at her brother.
hey possess, moreover, a life among Them
selves, independent of any masculine asso-
Citations. They have societies and clubs,
and unlimited tea fights where all the
guests are girls. They are self-possessed,
without parting with any tenderness that
is their sex right. They understand.
They can take care of themselves. They
are superbly independent When you ask
them what makes them so charming, they
say: 1t is because we are better edu-
Gated than your girls, and we are more
sensible III regard to men. We have good
times all around. but are not taught to re-
gard every man as possible husband, nor
Is he expected to marry the first girl he
calls on
Of the young men of America Mr.. Kip
ling said: The young men of America
rejoice in the days of their youth. They
gamble, race with yachts, enjoy prize
fights and cock fights, the one openly, the
other in secret; they establish luxurious
clubs; they break themselves over horse
flesh and other things, and they are instant
IN quarrel. At 20 they are experienced in
business; embark on vast enterprises; take
partners as experienced as themselves. and
go to pieces with as much splendor as
their neighbors. incidentally may men,
ton that nine American youths out of ten
are heavily handicapped by the abnormal
weakness of their heads. Phlegmatic and
spiritual, however, they manage to get
flushed, affable, and drunk on astonish-
ingly small quantities of liquor. The
American nation gets drunk by easy
stages. A man takes nip here and nip
there in the morning until by luncheon
time, while not really drunk, he is in con-
dition that no business man ought to be I'M
I'll after dinner. / don't object to almost
continuous beer-drinking, as we see it in
America. A man will die of dropsy rather
than drunkenness if he drinks too much
beer. But the American habit of taking
mixed drinks at all hours of the day is
very bad one. In your climate man can
keep it up for long time, till he suddenly
drops off. f"
Mr.. Kipling then spoke in most disre-
spectful way of Chautauqaa, and dubbed it
sort of lawn-tennis academy of the arts
and sciences.
II remember that during a short visit
there nearly got into trouble by remark
ing TO friend that the women's voices
gave me the impression that they should
be shut up and fed on oil for year. / had
good opportunity to study the average
American woman out of doors, and found
myself wondering whether it was true, as
the East taught me, that women have no
souls. The motions of their minds were
like unto the jumpings of grasshoppers in
bait box. They managed to
invest everything they touched or
talked about with a distressed air
OF unreality-these persons with ideas.
whose names were in the newspapers l
do not think much. as you say in America,
of Chautauqua. People do not get an edu-
cation that way. They must dig for it, and
when they have got it they must call it by
another name or the struggle is of no
avail"
Among the letters which Mr.. Kipling
wrote to india on his American impress
sions after four months visit was one de-
voted to Chicago alone. The first few lines
are sufficient 10 give general idea of his
II have struck a citv-a real city-and
they call it Chicago. Having seen it, /
urgently desire never to see it again. 1t is
inhabited by savages. It's water is the
water of the sewers and its air is dirt.
Also it says that it is the "boss" town of
America. do not believe that it has any
thing TO do with this country. l spent ten
hours in that huge wilderness, wandering
through miles of those terrible streets and
jostling some few hundred thousand of these
terrible people, who talked through their
noses
He did not take kindly to the criticisms
on England in American journals and says
in one of his letters:
Were the expressions of dislike genuine
and prompted, let US say, by the I'M
quenched hate of a hurr1red years, they
would be laudable enough, though hardly
wise. But both those who write and those
who read are at pains To assure you that
the outpouring Is nothing more than q
daily performance gone through for the
purpose of catching the Irish eye."
THE COMING OF