There are in America a class of litterateurs who are rarely heard of by the masses, but to my mind they are among the greatest and most advanced Americans. They are the astronomers, geologists, zoologists, ornithologists, and others, authors of papers and articles in the Government Reports of priceless value. These writers appear to me, an outsider, to be the real safety-valves, the real backbone of the literary productions of the day. With them science is but a synonym of truth; they fling all superstition and ignorance to the winds, and should be better known. Such names as Edison, Cope, Marsh, Hall, Young, Field, Baird, Agassiz, and fifty more might be mentioned, all authors whose books will give them undying fame, men who have devoted a lifetime to research and the accumulation of knowledge; yet the author of the last novel, "My Mule from New Jersey," will, for the day, have more vogue among the people than any of these. But such is fame, at least in America, where erudition is not appreciated as it is in "pagan" China. FOOTNOTES: [3] As a frontispiece to this volume, the cover design used on one of these old Chinese books is shown. [4] Spring and Autumn Annals. [5] Great Learning. [6] Confucian Analects. [7] Doctrine of the Mean. [8] Works of Mencius. CHAPTER XI THE POLITICAL BOSS At an assembly-room in New York I met a famous American political "boss." Many governors in China do not have the same power and influence. I had letters to him from Senators ---- and ----. I expected to meet a man of the highest culture, but what was my surprise to see a huge, overgrown, uneducated Irishman, gross in every particular, who used the local "slang" so fiercely that I had difficulty in understanding him. He had been a police officer, and I understand was a "grafter," but that may have been a report of his enemies, as he commanded attention at the time of the election. This man had a fund of humor, which was displayed in his clapping me on the back and calling me "John," introducing me to a dozen or so of as hard-looking men in the garb of gentlemen as I have ever seen. I heard them described later as "ward beetles," and they looked it, whatever it meant. The "Boss" appeared much interested in me; said he had heard I was no "slouch," and knew I must have a "pull" or I would not be where I am. He wished to know how we run elections on "the Ho-Hang-Ho." When I told him that a candidate for a governmental office never obtained it until he passed one of three very difficult literary examinations in our nine classics, and that there were thousands competing for the office, he was "paralyzed"--that is, he said he was, and volunteered the information that "he would not be 'in it' in China." I thought so myself, but did not say so.