Gilded Age Seaside Chivalry

 

If one has no donkey or other mode of conveyance at the beach, a gallant young man may be a welcome sight when slippers start to fill with sand!

Etiquette at the Beach 

A seasonable bit of gallant etiquette is offering to empty a lady's slipper of the sand gathered during a stroll on the beach. The lady hops on one foot while her cavalier, very much in the same way he would pick a stone from a horse’s hoof, deftly extracts the gritty particles which have made the fair one “go lame.” Fashionable slippers were not made for country walking, but they are a “boon,” as Artemus Ward once said of the Tower of London, to idle youngsters, who pose as gallants of the deepest dye at summer resorts.— Boston Beacon, 1886

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