On one occasion,
arriving at the railroad station in one of those states,
I noticed there were two waiting-rooms, one labelled "For the White",
and the other "For the Colored". The railway porter took my portmanteau
to the room for the white, but my conscience soon whispered
I had come to the wrong place, as neither of the two rooms was intended
for people of my complexion. The street-cars are more democratic;
there is no division of classes; all people, high or low,
sit in the same car without distinction of race, color or sex.
It is a common thing to see a workman, dressed in shabby clothes full of dirt,
sitting next to a millionaire or a fashionable lady gorgeously clothed.
Cabinet officers and their wives do not think it beneath their dignity
to sit beside a laborer, or a coolie, as he is called in China.
Foreign Ministers and Ambassadors coming to Washington soon learn to follow
these local customs. In a European country they ride in coronated carriages,
with two liverymen; but in Washington they usually go about on foot,
or travel by the street-cars. I frequently saw the late Lord Pauncefote,
the celebrated British Ambassador to Washington, ride to the State Department
in the street-car. My adoption of this democratic way of travelling
during the time I was in America was the cause of a complaint
being made against me at Peking. The complainants were certain
Chinese high officials who had had occasion to visit the States;
one of them had had a foreign education, and ought to have known better
than to have joined in the accusation that my unpretentious manner of living
was not becoming the dignity of a representative of China.
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