Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 June 1875 — German Ceremonials. [ARTICLE]

German Ceremonials.

Of customs we can only speak very generally as regards a country where every province has its own peculiar traditions, an dwhere a conservative affection has preserved these with an almost religious exactitude. Very unpleasant, according to our ideas, is the rule that strangers must make the first advance. Thus, when you arrive in a town where you propose to remain for any length of time, you will provide yourself with an introduction or two, you will procure a list of the .Benoratioren, or honorabilities, of the place, and you will drive from door to door leaving cards. These cards will presently be returned, and shortly afterward a footman or laquait ds place will call, ask to see the Hersehaften , and will then in due form deliver his master’s message, requesting the honor of your company at dinner on such a day, at three, four or five o’clock, as the case may be. When you arrive on the festive scene it will be your duty to request the hostess to introduce you to all the ladies present. This she will do, presenting you to the excellencies and distinguished persons first, the tour being made according to the nicest gradation of etiquette, so that beginning with an Embassadress you will end with a Lieutenant’s wife, and then in turn have to receive your court, namely, the husbands of all those ladies to whom you have been doing reverence* The courtesyings, the obeisances, the compliments, at once embarrass, annoy and tickle you. Your stiff backbone doesn’t take kindly to the prostrations; your knees resent the genuflections; you scorn to grovel, yet you fear to offend; you feel ridiculous in your unwonted antics, and are afraid of'falling; and yet a sense*of humor would make „it difficult, were you more at ease, to abstain from shouts of laughter at the bobbing, sliding, gliding and grimacing in which you are playing such an unwilling pari You feel that these ladies who dip and wriggle as to the manner born are criticising your want of grace, your rustic air, your woodenjointed reverences, and yet you swear to yourself by all your gods that no inch lower than is consistent with your ideas of personal dignity will you sink before these your fellow-creatures. The blood rushes to your face, partly in pride, partly in embarrassment, and you wish yourself well out of this gal&re; yet you are angry with yourself with an unreasoning anger for your want of philosophy and your unpliable spine. Experience, it is true, will make these scenes familiar and indifferent to you; you will gather courage to preserve your natural gait, to grant your limbs the freedom to which they have been accustomed, to be polite and pleasant, and to go your own way without attempting to ape manners that went out of fashion in your own country a century ago. It is only the first step that costs; but it costs a great deal; and it is not easy for a very young woman to preserve the juste milieu between a modest desire to conform to the customs of./ the country and a sense of mortification at aping manners which she does not admire, ana cannot cordially desire to successfully imitate. The absurdity of a German courtesy would be ridiculous if it were not sublime. In all the sociable little Reidem towns the ministers, being allowed a certain yearly sum for Tafelgeld (table money), are bound to give a proportionate number of balls and dinners; and to these (if you are of the Gesellschafl) you are certain to be bidden. To leave you out because you give neither balls nor dinners in return would be to insult your class; and this liberal view of social obligations produces a most pleasant result. How many charming young married women there are among us who would be glad to amuse themselves, happy to dance in muslin, if Mechlin be denied them; how many that would adorn society, make drawing-rooms that are dull with dowagers and diamonds gay with bright youth and pleasant laughter; yet they are not asked, because they give no dinners in return, because the rich man’s wife, who is blazing with diamonds of the Golconda and the gold of Ophir, would wonder at the simplicity displayed in the cheap gown of the “ young person” opposite, and marvel at the “ queer people” you had got about you. In Germany there is no snobbishness; there it class prejudice; but let it only be known that you are a lady, your welcome will be just as warm, though you come in cloth of frieze instead of in cloth of gold. Yon are asked toamose and to be amused; yon can enjoy yourself quite as well, though you be only a Lieutenant’s wife, as though you were a Countess from before the deluge; and the consequence of this liberal view of things is that youth and gayety and fresh toilets and bright faces are generally to be found at German balls, thongh there may not he so much jewelry and pomp and circumstance as your prejudiced mind may deem desirable on such festive occasions. What you are, not what you have, is the only matter to be considered, and to insure your welcome.—Berlin Lettei in N. T. Paper. Charles O’ Conor doesn’t encourage tailors muchly, and his hat is probably the worst hat exhibited on a good head on Broadway. There is a tradition among the New York lawyers that Mr. O’Conor’s hat was presented to him on the day of his admission to the bar, and that he has been wearing it and sitting on it alternately ever since. The story is rather tough, but they say that the hat is fearfully and wonderfully mellow. ’ —Gen. Sherman lately told the St. Louis woman suffragists to ask for all they were entitled to and grtttnble for the felt, the way the *ojer boys do.