Etiquette and Dignity at U.S. Capital

Newcomer wives at the nation’s capital didn’t know the dress or etiquette required of them, “Before the end of the first session, they learn to get their gowns from Paris and their gloves from-who-ever is the most the mode; while about the etiquette of visits and the place they insist on at table they are as inflexible as if they had been born at the White House and never been out of sight of the Capitol.” – Above, public domain image of high fashion from Europe of 1888.

Originally, it is said in history, the United States senate was a very dignified body; its members were returned for many successive terms; they were men who belonged to the old colonial aristocracy, which held itself aloof from and above the people as distinctly as the landed gentry does to-day in England. 

The tradition of this has descended; much of the dignity, it is true, has evaporated, but the recollection of the personal consideration still lingers, and the women of the family make the most of it. It is amusing to watch some of these ladies. 

Many arrive in Washington knowing nothing of the social usages that prevail there; ignorant of the very meaning of precedence; not aware that people ever go in to dinner in any peculiar order or with any significance. They wear high bodied gowns and unfashionable gloves when they first dine out and make their husbands put on yellow cravats to “look like other men.” But all this changes in single season. 

Before the end of the first session, they learn to get their gowns from Paris and their gloves from-who-ever is the most the mode; while about the etiquette of visits and the place they insist on at table they are as inflexible as if they had been born at the White House and never been out of sight of the Capitol. –Adam Badeau in New York World, 1888

 🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette and Sport Shooting

“Sport enters into polities, it colors literature, it controls society. It affects dress, manners, etiquette and entertainments, the relations of master and servant, man and wife, father and son —the characteristics of whole classes in the state. It is one of the principal causes and results of aristocracy to-day.” – Image of Downton Abbey hunt shooting party scene source, Pinterest 

“Let's Go Out and Kill Something”? – Devotion to Sport Not Elevating

One-third of the soil of England is devoted to the pleasures of the aristocracy, the principle of which is sport. The story is old of the foreigner who stayed at a country house where every morning the men of the party exclaimed: “Tis a fine day! Let’s go out and kill something.” The picture is not exaggerated. 

Many Englishmen of fortune seem to suppose they are sent into this world to hunt foxes and shoot grouse and deer. This is the purpose of their existence and the occupation of their lives. Among the aristocracy the man who does not shoot is an anomaly, almost a monstrosity. There must be something wrong about him.

All the engagements of the upper classes, political or social, in town or country, are made with reference to sport. The fashionable season and the parliamentary season are determined by the game laws. Country house parties in winter, and tours to the continent in summer depend upon what is called “close times.” 

Courtships are carried on, marriages postponed to suit the convenience of sportsmen. Great political revolutions are precipitated or deferred, questions of peace or war are taken up or let alone because ministers want to go to Scotland, because grouse shooting begins in August, and fox hunting is not over till February. 

The gravest crisis in the history of a government is neglected when legislators are anxious to be off to the moors, and the sessions of parliament can not be held till the frost is out of the ground and the foxes begin to breed.

Estates are purchased and houses built because of the proximity of the covers; properties are valuable for the same reason. Scores of fortunes are lost through the excessive love of sport. Every circumstance and event of English high life revolves around this point, and the results are as visible as those of religion. 

Sport enters into polities, it colors literature, it controls society. It affects dress, manners, etiquette and entertainments, the relations of master and servant, man and wife, father and son —the characteristics of whole classes in the state. It is one of the principal causes and results of aristocracy to-day.

More often, however, society is combined with sport. At a great house the party is usually large. The men sally out each morning “to kill something,” and sometimes the ladies accompany them. Of late years, a few of these are shooters themselves. This is, of course, when the game is driven to the guns; at such times the bags made are enormous, hundreds of birds often falling to a single sportsman. The labor is less, and the glory; but the boasting is prodigious.

The devotion to sport that characterizes the English aristocracy is not elevating. It not only makes them indifferent to more serious occupations, taking the hereditary legislators from the affairs of state to which they are supposed to apply themselves, and often distracting them from their own more important interests, but the incessant practice is brutalizing. 

To be forever planning and inflicting death and pain even on animals cannot be refining. The English nature is coarse in itself, but sport renders it still more so. Like everything else in England this pleasure is a matter of privilege. Game is strictly preserved for the great. The unprivileged may not carry a gun. 

Every Englishman loves sport, the peasant as well as the peer, but poaching is a criminal offense, and the poor man is sent for two months, six months, or even a year, to jail for doing what gives the rich man his keenest satisfaction. Five thousand committals for poaching are made every year in England alone,-Adam Badeau's Letter, 1886

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

“Nobody Shall Have a Napkin?”

 

                                  

Adam Badeau was and American Diplomat, Author and a Union Army officer of the American Civil War. – “Sometimes governesses and tutors are seen at this hour, the latter often very accomplished and agreeable people; but I never knew them to appear at dinner, as they do in novels, and make love to the young ladies.”

– Public domain image of Adam Badeau with Ulysses S. Grant

Meals in England

 

The morning lasts till 2 o’clock, and lunch is as informal as is breakfast. The men are still in the covers, or if some have returned, they come to table in their shooting boots, and boast of their achievements. 

The meal is a plain dinner; all the dishes are set on the table at once, and it is a rigid and intolerable etiquette that nobody shall have a napkin. The children of the family are often allowed to be present, and if the party is not very large, they sometimes carve for the guests, that they may learn betimes the hospitable accomplishments of after life. 

Sometimes governesses and tutors are seen at this hour, the latter often very accomplished and agreeable people; but I never knew them to appear at dinner, as they do in novels, and make love to the young ladies. — Adam Badeau’s Letter, 1886

 

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