CHARACTERISTIOS OF SOUTH AMERICANS 585 
The conversation of a group of young South Americans is not such 
as appeals to our taste. There is usually too much running criticism 
on the personal qualities and attractions of their women acquaintances. 
To them it seems doubtless most gallant. At all events, it is not sordid, 
as was that conversation which Dickens describes as “summed up 10 
one word—dollars.” 
When Dickens visited America, he remarked the frequency of the 
expression, “ Yes, sir,’ and made a great deal of fun of us for our use 
of it. Singularly enough, the Spanish “ Yes sir”—‘“Si senor” is so 
extremely common throughout South America as to attract one’s atten- 
tion continually. 
Another thing that Dickens notices was our tendency to postpone 
and put off from day to day things that did not have to be done. Yet 
there is no more common criticism of Spanish-Americans than that 
known as the “ Majiana” habit. You will hear almost any one who 
pretends to know anything at all about Spanish-America say that the 
great difficulty is the ease with which the Spanish-American says 
“Manana.” Personally, I do not agree with this criticism, for I have 
heard the expression very seldom in South America. It is true that it 
is hard to get things done as quickly as one would wish, but I believe 
that the criticism has been much overworked. Dickens was undoubt- 
edly honest in reporting that the habit of postponing one’s work was 
characteristic of the “middle west” as he saw it, but such remarks 
would be greatly resented to-day and would not be true. 
In many South American cities one is annoyed by the continual 
handshaking. No matter how many times a day you meet a man, he 
expects you to solemnly shake hands with him just as did those western 
Americans who annoyed “ Martin Chuzzlewit.” 
So also with “spitting.” With others, I have been repeatedly an- 
noyed, not only in the provinces, but also in the very highest circles 
of the most advanced republics, by the carelessness of South Americans 
in this particular, even at dinner parties. But how many years is it 
since “The Last American” was prophetically depicted by J. A. 
Mitchell as sitting amid the ruins of the national capitol with his feet 
on the marble rail, spitting tobacco juice? One can hardly ride in our 
street cars to-day without being reminded that only recently have the 
majority of Americans put the ban on spitting. The fact that there 
are already printed notices in some of the principal South American 
cathedrals begging people, in the name of the local “ Anti-Tuberculosis 
Association,” not to spit on the floor, shows that this unpleasant habit 
will undoubtedly be eradicated in considerably less than fifty years after 
we have ceased to offend. 
We also dislike intensely the South American habit of staring at 
strangers and of making audible comments on ladies who happen to be 
passing. Unfortunately, this is a Latin habit which will be hard to 
VOL. LXxvi11.—40. 
