CODE OF ETIQUETTE.

295

case of an objectionable applicant, the managers could give no offence by extending to him only their own civility. They would exercise their discretion as to introductions, and as, of course, they would present no stranger to a lady without first asking permission of herself or her proper guardian, they could incur no special responsibility by so doing.

The managers might be addressed simply as "Mr. Manager," and applied to, for introductions of one gentleman to another, or for any service of ordinary courtesy. Ladies might request them to find partners for their daughters or their friends.

They should, themselves, be at liberty to speak to any gentleman or lady, unintroduced. It should be their duty to keep a general supervision over the happiness of visitors, to bring forward the diffident, relieve embarrassment or annoyance, promote amusement, and preserve harmony.

Perhaps one or two influential ladies might be invited to share in the council duties of the committee of management.

The managers might select a sub-committee of young men to manage the Balls and Hops. Especially they should be empowered to "put into Coventry" any offensive visitor, refuse such an one the tickets to balls, and sustain the landlord in expelling him from the house if necessary. In cases of personal dispute, they should be sovereign umpires, and a man should forfeit his position as a gentleman if he did not abide by their decision.

Young ladies would exercise their discretion, of course, as to accepting introductions through any channel; but it should be voted better taste to receive new acquaintances only through parents or managers.

It might be well, perhaps, to consider a manager's introduction, or a watering-place acquaintance, as in a manner probationary—

296

WATERING-PLACE INTRODUCTIONS.

to be dropped afterwards, if advisable, without conventional offence.

It should be good taste for any gentleman to ask an introduction to another, at a watering-place, and proper to present all persons to each other who happen to mingle in groups.

Now we can conceive our multitudinous American resorts for the summer, delightfully harmonized, liberalized and enlivened by the adoption of a code of which this would be an outline. What say, dear reader?

"

OPERA MANNERS,

AND DEMEANOR OF GENTLEMEN IN AMERICA.

"All this beheard a little foot-page,

By his ladye's coach as he ran;

Quoth he, though I am my ladye's page,

Yet I'm my lord Bernard's man.

BALLAD OF LITTLE MUSGRavb.

POLITENESS to women is an impulse of nature, and Americans are, to women, the politest nation on earth. Politeness of gentlemen to each other is the result of refinement and good breeding, and American gentlemen, toward their own sex, are the least polite people in the world.

As close as possible upon the heels of so disagreeable a truth, let us mention an influence or two which has helped to increase or confirm the bad manners of American men.

In the national principle of GET ON-with or without means— but any how, GET ON! the art of persuasion has been pressed into the service of business. It was long ago found out, in Wall street, that politeness would help get a note discounted, sometimes procure a credit, frequently stave off a dun. Being used more by those who had such occasion for it, than by those who

298

CAUSES OF RUDENESS.

effected their ends with good endorsements and more substantial backing, politeness has gradually grown to be a sign of a man in want of money. A gentlemanly bow and cordial smile given to a man in Wall street, will induce him to step round the corner and inquire of some friend as to your credit-taking your bow and smile to be the forerunner of a demand for a loan.

Politeness, again, has been discredited in this country by the class of foreigners who have served as examples of it. All Frenchmen are admirably polite, but, few of the higher class coming to this country, French politeness has passed into a usual sign of a barber, a cook, or a dancing master.

Much American rudeness, too, grows out of the republican fact that, personal consequence being entirely a matter of opinion— (regulated by no Court precedence, entailed fortune or heraldic. record)—every man fights his own castle of dignity, and looks defiance, of course, into every unfamiliar face that approaches. Politeness without previous parley or some disarming of reserve, is tacitly understood to be the deference of respectful admiration or implied inferiority.

One other, though perhaps a less distinct influence acting upon American manners, is the peculiar uncertainty of men's fortunes and positions in this country, and the natural suspiciousness and caution which are the inevitable consequence. In such a boiling pot of competition, with bubbles continually rising and bursting, the natural instinct of self-preservation makes men careful in whose rising they seem to take an interest. Too much openness of manner and too free a use of the kind expressions of politeness, would result in a man's being too often singled out for desperate applications by friends in need. A character for sympathy and

FOREIGNER'S JUDGMENT.

299

generosity is well known, in American valuation, to be one of the most expensive of luxuries.

It is true that these causes of our bad manners are temporary, and will cease to act as the country refines and grows older; but is it not a question worth asking, meantime, whether the ultimate standard, for the manners of American gentlemen, is not, thus, permanently affected? We simply drop this pearl of precaution into the vinegar of our fault-finding.

To catalogue all the American variations from foreign goodbreeding, would be to write a work on manners in general—(a subject upon which we are very far from setting up our opinions as authority, and for which a book, and not a newspaper article, would offer the proper space)—these variations extending throughout all manners, as the general discouragement of courtesy lessens its degree in every kind of manifestation. We wish, just here, to comment on a point or two only.

At the Opera, if anywhere in a capital like this, one looks to find gentlemen, and such good manners as are conventional all over the world. It is the one public amusement which has been selected as the centre for a Dress Exchange-a substitute for a general Drawing-room-a refined attraction which the ill-mannered would not be likely to frequent, and around which the higher classes might gather, for the easier interchange of courtesies, and for that closer view which aids the candidacy of acquaintance. To the main object of an Opera, music is, in a certain sense, secondary; and should be considered as but a lesser part of the value received for the price of an Opera ticket.

A foreigner standing against the stair-railing of the Astor Place Opera lobby, between the acts, and looking coolly around upon the male crowd, would imagine that the men were either most