Gilded Age Dining Room “Pigs”

“There is a poser for ‘society’: If a man with a mustache cannot drink soup sensibly and decently, he should be sent to the trough in the back yard to keep company with the man who tucks a napkin in his collar. It is all right for a woman to drink soup from the side of her spoon, or for a man with a shaven upper lip; but men with mustaches have some rights that ‘society’ is bound for its own sense of decency to respect, especially as ‘society’ decrees that every man should wear a mustache!”

A Woman’s 1886 Take on “Pigs” 

The Various Society Pigs — The Pig with a Chin Bib, the Pig Who Sucks Soup from His Mustache and the Fork Used as a Comb

There is one practice that is becoming altogether too common with men and one that ought to be abandoned as soon as possible. It is their habit of tucking a napkin under their chins at table. In my younger days, such a thing would have been considered coarse and vulgar and no gentleman would have thought of doing it. A napkin so used, takes the place of a bib, but is not nearly so neat or effectual as a bib. Yet what gentleman is there who would be willing to acknowledge himself so much of a baby, or a pet pig, as to require a bib? If the napkin is so worn to keep the food from falling on the clothes, it is an acknowledgment that the wearer is entirely out of place in a public dining-room or in the company of ladies and gentlemen. If he is such a hog as to let food slip out of his mouth and trickle down his breast, he should be made to feed out of a trough in the backyard.

Not long ago I sat opposite an evidently refined young lady at a public table, and near both of us sat a man with a napkin tucked under his chin. When I am eating I avoid looking at such men, as they are more than apt to be piggish and disgusting while they feed. I noticed that the young lady sitting opposite me glanced at the man with the napkin under his chin, and then turned pale and lay down her knife and fork. In another moment she had left the table, and the poor waiter thought she was offended at his service. But she was not. She had caught the bibbed lout doing a very disgusting thing and it made her sick. I looked to see what it was. He was combing his mustache with his fork!

And then, we all know the man who with a loud hissing sound, sucks the soup from his mustache. Everybody in the dining room hears it, and many appetites are spoiled. Now, “society” tells us that it is vulgar to take soup from the point of the spoon, and insists that it must be taken from the side. Allow me to say that in this particular society is a fool. A man with a mustache cannot take soup from the side of a spoon without soaking his mustache, and then he drips, slobbers and sucks. It is fair to ask, “Which is better— drinking from the point of the spoon and keeping the mustache clean, or drinking from the side and producing a soaked, dripping spectacle that turns the stomach of an ordinary beholder upside down? 

There is a poser for “society”: If a man with a mustache cannot drink soup sensibly and decently, he should be sent to the trough in the back yard to keep company with the man who tucks a napkin in his collar. It is all right for a woman to drink soup from the side of her spoon, or for a man with a shaven upper lip; but men with mustaches have some rights that “society” is bound for its own sense of decency to respect, especially as “society” decrees that every man should wear a mustache. — “Jeannette“ in the San Jose Herald, 1886

Even though gilded age society decried the practice of wearing one’s napkin as an adult bib, there were plenty of patented “napkin holders“ and “napkin supporters” out on the market for men and women alike. Some were quite imaginative, but they were still placing napkins upon the breasts of diners, which remained quite the public faux pas.

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