Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1897 — Spanish Courtesy. [ARTICLE]

Spanish Courtesy.

“Oh, we cannot stand on ceremony ! The world goes too fast for that.” The excuse is the modern apology for that lack of courteous kindness that everybody feels and few people enjoy. Courtesy, however, has not quite died out of the earth. Mr. H. C, Chatfield-Tay-lor, in “The Land of the Castanet,” says that in Spain tru£~ courtesy yet survives. It must be so when Spaniards will go to great pains to pay the smallest attention to a stranger tramping from church to church, and from gallery to gallery to show him the sights, taking him shopping, calling at his hotel twice in a day to offer their services, and doing a thousand things that neither an American nor an Englishman would dream of doing. A Spaniard will send the stranger flowers, take him to drive each day of his visit, and bestow countless little attentions that show a real interest in his welfare, and an earnest desire to please. When he parts from his visitor, the Spaniard will make him feel that he Is losing a friend. The little courtesies of every-day occurrence in Spain contrast forcibly with the offhand manner of more West--ern people; —No oue eulets a Spanish railway carriage without bowing to every occupant, or leaves it except with the same polite acknowledgment. On taking a seat at a hotel table It is customary to salute each of the guests, and it is bad manners in Spain to go into a shop and ask for what you want before you have greeted the shopkeeper. On his part the “God be with you,” or “May all be well with you,” will not be wanting when the wouldbe customer leaves, though he may have failed to make a purchase. It is only in commercial Barcelona that anything comparable to Incivility is apparent, and Barcelona is the home of socialism and anarchy; its society io composed of the class of people the French call bourgeoisie.