Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1893 — Human Nature in Eating. [ARTICLE]

Human Nature in Eating.

“If I can see a man handle his fork.” said the clerk, “I can tell you the part of the country he halls from. “The hotel dining-room is the best place in the world to study human nature and the manners and breeding of our fellows. It seems odd that people in-this enlightened and advanced age will still feed themselves with their knives, especially in a first-class hotel. Yet instances of this habit are very frequent. In my opinion a man who feeds himself with his knifq should be boiled alive in oil. “As a rule guests from Boston and New York are the most correct in their table deportment. They are very exacting as to service and all manipulate their knives and forks in one way. It may seem a trifle strange to form a basis for a judgment of a man’s character in the manner in which he holds his fork, but it is a correct one. Some stick it between their first and second Angers, others between the middle and third fingers, while others grasp it as you would grasp a pineapple cheese scoop. “so it is with the spoons in eating soup. If a man has a mustache which falls down over his mouth he may be pardoned for putting the point of the spoon to his lips. But when you see well-dressed men, and women, too, raise their elbow and pour their soup down their throats from the point of a spoon as you would feed a suckling babe, you regret that they cannot be given a year’s coutse in a school of deportment. It is the same with a napkin. It is utterly inexcusable for a man to put his napkin in the top of his vestT and whan incomes to sticking it in his collar lil|e a bib, as a great many dp, it‘ls all but repulsive to one of refined taste*. It is a great relaxation for roe to escape the confining duties 'of the desk and watch people feed themselves.”—-Washington Star.