for people of my complexion. The street-cars are more democratic;
there is no division of classes; all people, high or low,
sit in the same car without distinction of race, color or sex.
It is a common thing to see a workman, dressed in shabby clothes full of dirt,
sitting next to a millionaire or a fashionable lady gorgeously clothed.
Cabinet officers and their wives do not think it beneath their dignity
to sit beside a laborer, or a coolie, as he is called in China.

Foreign Ministers and Ambassadors coming to Washington soon learn to follow
these local customs. In a European country they ride in coronated carriages,
with two liverymen; but in Washington they usually go about on foot,
or travel by the street-cars. I frequently saw the late Lord Pauncefote,
the celebrated British Ambassador to Washington, ride to the State Department
in the street-car. My adoption of this democratic way of travelling
during the time I was in America was the cause of a complaint
being made against me at Peking. The complainants were certain
Chinese high officials who had had occasion to visit the States;
one of them had had a foreign education, and ought to have known better
than to have joined in the accusation that my unpretentious manner of living
was not becoming the dignity of a representative of China.
They forgot that when in Rome you must do as the Romans do,
and that to ride in a sumptuous carriage, with uniformed footmen,
is in America not only an unnecessary expense, but a habit which,
among such a democratic people as the Americans, would detract from,
rather than add to, one's dignity. An envoy residing in a foreign country
should be in touch with the people among whom he is sojourning.
If he put on unnecessary airs, there will be a coldness and lack of cordiality
between him and the community; his sphere of usefulness will be curtailed,
and his knowledge of the people and their country limited.
Of course, in a European Capital, where every diplomat drives in a carriage,