British Etiquette Advice of 1900

It is not etiquette to ask a woman’s age, the price of her bonnet, or the name of her dressmaker. It is not etiquette to introduce disagreeable subjects, such as premature burial, vivisection, dissection, mother-in-law, Parliamentary patriotism, and disinterested charity.

Miss Beatrice Knollys, who has many friends in this city, and who is the writer of many of the little dialogues which have been published from time to time in “The London World,” “Black and White,” and other periodicals, has brought out a brochure, with advice on “The Gentle Art of Good Talking.” 

Some of the hints in making conversation can well be taken by many people in society. Here are a few:

• It is not etiquette to talk of the Ten Commandments. It is unpardonably personal.  

• It is not etiquette to talk to a widow or a widower about second marriages, for you only make them fib faithfully over the dear departed. 

• It is not etiquette to ask a woman’s age, the price of her bonnet, or the name of her dressmaker. 

• It is not etiquette to introduce disagreeable subjects, such as premature burial, vivisection, dissection, mother-in-law, Parliamentary patriotism, and disinterested charity. 

• Give a person a higher title than he owns. 

• Mistake a cad for a gentleman, a plain woman for a beauty, a silly man for a celebrity, any woman for a photographed star, any man (especially a clergyman) for a soldier. 

• Talk shop to the young men or the young women who have just entered into their new career. They will be delighted, for no one loves shop conversation so much as those who are only on the doorstep of it.” 

This is a key, possibly, to the average British conversation. – The New York Times, 1900

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