Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1883 — Good Manners. [ARTICLE]

Good Manners.

The London Spectator contained the vehement protests of an English traveler against the want of polish in the manners of the Germans. He declared that the wisest of men and fairest of women were to be found among them, but that they all ate with their knives and sipped their sonp noisily. He had seen, he said, a whole family eating soft-boiled eggs with knives and forks, and that, say what you would, speak to whom you might, the universal answer was a stupid, staring “ Was ?” (What ?) “The English ‘ I beg your pardon?’ and the French ‘ Plaitil ?’ which indicate that you are not understood, were trying enough to a foreigner, but this blunt ‘ Was ?’ is intolerable. No wisdom, no. domestic virtues, will atone for it. It meets you everywhere, like a slap in the face. ” Thus for the Englishman. Now hear the German. Herr C., a savant, who visited London a year ago, and was ', admitted into the highest circles, waxes indignant at the coarseness of English manners.

, “It is the habit in the clubs for gentlemen to ‘ chaff’ each other; a vulgar, school-boyish trick. The Englishman is arrogant even in his hospitality. He patronizes you, if he is your equal, or is sycophantic if an inferior.” An American in Paris complains that the French eat untidily, cfyunp their food and leer at women whom they pass on the street. Each nation criticises other nations sharply to an exaggerated degree, to be itself in~tum condemned.

The lesson which our young American readers may learn from these remarks is that a man or woman is usually judged by strangers not from his real worth, knowledge, piety or wit, but by those unoonscions small habits at the table or in the drawing-room that are acquired in childhood, and which probably seem to him insignificant. The manners of well-bred people are easily acquired in youth, and will serve us as a letter of introduction to snoh people through life. But, if neglected by the boy or girl, the man or woman will find it almost impossible to gain them. — Youth's Companion.