Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1911 — ETIQUETTE IN SIAM. [ARTICLE]

ETIQUETTE IN SIAM.

On Hands and Knees Before the King Was Long the Custom There. Perhaps the most revolutionary reform carried out by the late king of Slam was the abolition of the arbitrary rule of etiquette which forbade an inferior In rank to raise his head above that of a superior or even level with it. The inferior must not bven pass over a bridge while a superior was underneath jit, nor must he enter a room in an tipper story while a superior was occupying a room beneath it. Servants approached their masters on hands and knees. This custom is by no means obsolete today in spite of the royal edict, for many of the powerful nobles who live far away from the court still enforce it. In 1874 the king held a large court, at which no one present presumed to appear otherwise than on hands and knees. It was at this audience that the edict forbidding the custom was read to the prostrate. multitude. They there and then rose and stood dike men in the presence of their sovereign for the first time on record. Since then there has been no prostration at the royal audiences. But if a superior stops to speak to an inferior in the street the latter will still bend or lower his head in some way as a mark of respect. London Saturday Review.