Etiquette and Hypocrisy

Manners are more than just knowing the rules. It is living them that counts. Pictured above — Dinner from the movie Titanic with a group of supposed ladies and gentlemen. Yet few at this table in the movie, have really earned the titles, or live up to them, in their truest forms. 

Of Methods and Manners

Different persons have entirely different opinions in regard to taste and etiquette. Some are stricklers for certain manifestations, of good breeding, while others lay stress upon other and quite dissimilar rules of behavior. For instance: 

• There are men who would be ashamed to eat with their knives, even in private, but who will talk at the top of their voices in the public reading-room.
• And men who, though they would scorn to remain seated in a horse car while a pretty girl is standing, will throw a banana skin on the sidewalk, regardless of the inevitable consequence. 
• And women who are scrupulously neat as to hands and fingers, but who will, nevertheless, persist in wearing the biggest hat at the theater that they can possibly get hold of. 
• And women who sing like seraphs, and yet will they keep the rear window wide open, though they know that it means pneumonia to one-half of their fellow passengers, and catarrh and sore throat to the other half. 
• And men who never forget to lift their hats to a lady, but who cannot be trusted with impunity for a dollar. 
• And women who would die rather than eat their soup from the end of their spoon, but who will lie like Ananias upon the slightest provocation.
• And women whose conversation is a liberal education and perennial delight to the listener, and yet their hair presents firstclass presumptive evidence that it hasn't had the acquaintance with comb and brush for a month, at least.  
• And men who are scrupulously careful to give a lady the inside of the walk, and yet think nothing of calling upon you at your busiest hour and boring you until you until you wish you were dead. 
• And boys who never forget to say "Yes, sir," and "Yes, ma'am," but who are taken with sudden sickness the moment they are asked to do an errand for their mothers. 
• And girls who do not have to be coaxed to play upon the piano before company, but who will turn around and giggle when a strange man makes remarks about them in the street. 
• And men who would not clean their nails in public, but who will shove a pewter quarter on to a blind man about them in the street. 
• And men who would never interrupt another while he is speaking, but who will advise their best friend to invest in a worthless stock, simply because they have some of that slock which they wish to dispose of. 
• And men who are too polite to look over your shoulder when you are writing, who think nothing of registering false oaths at the Custom-house almost daily. 

Many more instances might be adduced, but the above will suffice to show that we do not all think alike upon these little matters of etiquette. — Boston Transcript, 1885

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia