Children “Make Their Manners”

We children all turned out in the snow on the sides of the road, the boys in a row on one side, and the girls on the other, for we were always taught to turn out and ‘make our manners’ when teams passed us; and if a scholar went to school and told the teacher that Moses or Hannah did not make their manners when the gentlemen passed the night before, the teacher would call them up and punish them.

          Of Boys and Girls Bows and Curtsies

“There you are with another bag of candy, I declare! What with chocolate and kisses, caramels and lemon-balls, and I don't know what all! You children nowadays can hardly know where to begin eating candy, nor when to stop.” “Didn't folks always have candy, same as they do now, grandma?” “Why, no, indeed! I can remember the first candy I ever saw; I didn't know what it was.” "Oh! oh! How funny! Do tell us about it.” “Well, it was as much as seventy years ago, for I wasn’t more than 5 or 6 years old. It was way down in New Hampshire, in the winter, and I went to school. One night when we were going home from school, a whole roadful of us, the stage-coach came along, that was before cars or depots were ever thought of. Folks traveled by stage in those days. We children all turned out in the snow on the sides of the road, the boys in a row on one side, and the girls on the other, for we were always taught to turn out and ‘make our manners’ when teams passed us; and if a scholar went to school and told the teacher that Moses or Hannah did not make their manners when the gentlemen passed the night before, the teacher would call them up and punish them.

“We all stood there in two rows, and as the stage passed us, the boys made their bows, and we girls our courtesies. The load of passengers smiled and bowed to us, and one very pretty lady tossed out a paper of something. Someone picked it up, and inside were perhaps half a dozen  long, round, white things. ‘Candles.’ we said. They did look like that. There was a house close by, and we all trooped in there with our treasure. ‘I know what that is,’ said the woman, as soon as she unrolled the paper. ‘It's candy. I saw lots of it in the stores when I was to Boston last summer,’ “What’s it good for? we asked.  ‘Good to eat,’ she said. ‘It’s sweet and nice, but they do say it hurts the teeth. Let me divide it among you all.’ That's what the lady meant to have done. I s'pose, so she broke up the sticks of candy and gave as each a little piece. I don't suppose mine was more than an inch or two long, but I thought it was the nicest thing I ever tasted.” “I'm glad I didn't live in those days, grandma.'” “I dare say you are. One thing's sure. We had less candy and more manners, and may be it was just as well for us, after all.”—Youth's Companion, 1898

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

Dinner Seating Etiquette, 1895

Dinner tables of society hostesses, in the latter part of the Victorian Era, featured unique and ornate silver patterns. The more silver laid on a dining table, the better. Silver reflected candlelight, illuminating dining rooms that were not yet fitted with electric lights.

A New Dinner Table Fashion!

The new heraldry, or rather etiquette, for large public dinners, annual​ dinners and the like—to which more and more​ frequently ladies are invited—places the wife at the table by her husband's side. She has for some years sat side by side with bim on the box seat when he drives his four-in-hand, and now it is the recognized thing, even in London,where innovations come slowly, to have this arrangement at dinner. 

"It seems very odd," writes an English woman, describing the annual dinner of the Newsvendors Benevolent and Provident Institution at the Grand Hotel, "very odd to go down with Richard, this being one of the particulars in which the public banquet differs from the private dinner. Opposite us were a husband and wife, to the left of us another couple, and a little further off another married pair. None of us quarreled with each other. 

Richard talked to his friend, who occasionally threw me a crumb of the conversation, and I made friends with my other neighbor, admired the lovely tulips on the table and made energetic efforts to see what Lady E_____ looked like. She sat beside the chairman, her husband, her father, the Earl of Arran, supporting her on the right. So you see it was intensely British​, a family arrangement of the most pronounced kind." 

The first time that such an arrangement was tried in Philadelphia was at the dinner given to Dr. James Mac Allister by Mr. Edward T. Steel and a number of other friends. There, husbands sat by their wives, and the novelty and ease of this arrangement was very much enjoyed. Since then the arrangement has become quite a general one for public functions, when other placing of the body of guests would be awkward or impossible. — Philadelphia Public Ledger, 1895

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

Ladies' Street Etiquette

In large cities, street etiquette is well understood by ladies.

A Word to the Ladies

In large cities, street etiquette is well understood by ladies. In Santa Rosa there is a lamentable lack of knowledge on that subject. For instance, it is not considered ladylike for two ladies walking abreast to occupy both parallel walks on a street crossing and force a gentleman to take the mud. When by following one after the other, a person coming from the opposite direction has also the privilege of crossing dry shod. For this reason two parallel walks are provided. Keep to the right ladies and go single file over street crossings. — Sonoma Democrat, 1874

 

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