From agonizing over the lot of my Chinese fellow men, I fell into a state of hysterical disgust with hardly a pause. “Why do they all have to spit so much?” I cried. “You can’t put your foot down without stepping on a big slimy glob! And everything stinks of sweat and good old night-soil!” The answer of course could be that spitting was due to endemic tuberculosis, and as for the stink, I had seen where and how the people lived. I knew I was being contemptible.
