Reply #2: It certainly disgusted Mark Twain .. that and other practices of the time.

[DemoTex]

I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in Kiao-Chou, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Philippines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking glass.

-- Mark Twain, speech, "A Salutation from the 19th to the 20th Century" (December 31, 1900)