The American Credo Part 4

--37

That in no town in America where it has played has "Uncle Tom's Cabin"

ever failed to make money.

--38

That the tenement districts are the unhealthy places they are because the dwellers hang their bed-clothing out on the fire-escapes.

--39

That, in small town hotels, the tap marked "hot water" always gives forth cold water and that the tap marked "cold" always gives forth hot.

--40

That every lieutenant in the American army who went to France had an affair with a French comtesse.

--41

That when cousins marry, their children are born blind, deformed, or imbecile.

--42

That a cat falling from the twentieth story of the Singer Building will land upon the pavement below on its feet, uninjured and as frisky as ever.

--43

That the acc.u.mulation of great wealth always brings with it great unhappiness.

--44

That it is unlucky to count the carriages in a funeral.

--45

That the roulette wheel at Monte Carlo is controlled by a wire as thin as a hair which is controlled in turn by a b.u.t.ton hidden beneath the rug near the operator's great toe.

--46

That Polish women are so little human that one of them can have a baby at 8 A.M. and cook her husband's dinner at noon.

--47

That Henry James never wrote a short sentence.

--48

That it is bad luck to kill a spider.

--49

That German peasants are possessed of a profound knowledge of music.

--50

That every coloured cook has a lover who never works, and that she feeds him by stealing the best part of every dish she cooks.

--51

That George Bernard Shaw doesn't really believe anything he writes.

--52

That the music of Richard Wagner is all played _fortissimo_, and by cornets.

--53

That the Masonic order goes back to the days of King Solomon.

--54

That swearing is forbidden by the Bible.

--55

That all newspaper reporters carry notebooks.

--56

That whiskey is good for snake-bite.