cocoon of policemen, have even been known to spend a fortnight in bed,
after giving a decision adverse to the home team!... More evidence that
the United States is not in the full sense a sporting country!

* * * * *

Of the psychology of the great common multitude of baseball "bleachers,"
I learned almost nothing. But as regards the world of success and luxury
(which, of course, held me a willing captive firmly in its soft and
powerful influence throughout my stay), I should say that there was an
appreciable amount of self-hypnotism in its attitude toward baseball. As
if the thriving and preoccupied business man murmured to his soul, when
the proper time came: "By the way, these baseball championships are
approaching. It is right and good for me that I should be boyishly
excited, and I will be excited. I must not let my interest in baseball
die. Let's look at the sporting-page and see how things stand. And I'll
have to get tickets, too!" Hence possibly what seemed to me a
superficiality and factitiousness in the excitement of the more
expensive seats, and a too-rapid effervescence and finish of the
excitement when the game was over.

The high fever of inter-university football struck me as a more
authentic phenomenon. Indeed, a university town in the throes of an
important match offers a psychological panorama whose genuineness can
scarcely be doubted. Here the young men communicate the sacred contagion
to their elders, and they also communicate it to the young women, who,
in turn, communicate it to the said elders--and possibly the indirect
method is the surer! I visited a university town in order to witness a
match of the highest importance. Unfortunately, and yet fortunately, my
whole view of it was affected by a mere nothing--a trifle which the