Eight times out of nine the American is a fine specimen of a manly man, but it is the ninth that is such a wonder. We, the obtuse and effete people of Great Britain, now and again wake up suddenly to the circumstance that we have been the victims of an American invasion. Such a ghastly conviction may at any moment overtake the best of us, for no class of society knows whose turn is likely to be next. There was an American invasion of the turf a year or two back, and English sport is sore and poor about it to this day. There have been sundry social invasions which those most directly concerned find it difficult to forget, and at the present moment we are in the thick of a theatrical invasion which is not doing us an appreciable amount of good. The fact of these invasions and of their always unpleasant consequences so far as the invaded are involved is, in my judgment, a fact of the most serious import to Englishmen. I shall for a moment drop the American as he seems to be, and regard him as he actually is. What can one record of him that is to his credit? Imprimus: He has devoted three hundred years more or less to the frantic and bloodthirsty pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. Item: During those three hundred years more or less he has done absolutely nothing but pursue dollars. Item: He is still pursuing them. Item: But he makes the best husband in the world, and places woman in the high place to which she is so amply entitled. I will put so much to the credit side, though I make no doubt that there are people in the world who will find themselves unable to commend me for doing it. Now for the obverse or discredit side. I shall ask you to note: (1) That the Americans are the only nation who are ruled by a bureaucracy of millionaires and at the same time croon themselves into a state of vacuous coma to the touching strains of “vox populi, vox dei!” (2) That they are the originators of the yelling yellow press, the pioneers of the New Humour and the apostles of the New Pathos. (3) That they are the only civilised people who make a point of exporting the finest specimens of their womankind to foreign countries, included in a consignment of cold dollars calculated pro rata with the antiquity, decay and general worthlessness of the name which the former take in exchange. (4) That having inherited, borrowed or stolen a beautiful language, they wilfully and of set purpose degrade, distort and misspell it apparently for the sole purpose of saving money in type-setting. (5) That out of twenty-six Presidents of the United States, three have met death at the hands of the assassin.[1] (6) That having by sheer accident or because of the care and forethought, which Providence has for fools, become possessed of a President who is a man among men and a ninety horse-power statesman with direct drive on all speeds, they allow him to be handicapped by a spectacular gang of undesirable citizens.