Etiquette and Society’s Evils

Depiction of a Victorian Era lounge lizard, flirting with two young women. – “These gross breaches of decorum and violations of the rules of decency, cannot be taken notice of by those who are subjected to the inconvenience and mortification arising from such reprehensible acts.” 

Evil Society

It has been a subject for complaint, and very justly too, from those who have brought their families here, of the many occasions on which virtuous females are unwittingly insulted or placed in disagreeable and unpleasant predicaments by the rudeness and ill manners of the many loafers and unworthy characters who now infest our community. The many men who openly indulge in acts of licentiousness, publicly violate the rules and usages of decent society, and who are palpably guilty of the most inexcusable breaches of decorum and good behavior, must eventually hide their diminished heads, cover their deeds with darkness, or conform to a system of morals that now governs our most worthy and refined communities. 

There are, very unfortunately, many persons among us who apparently have nothing else to do but to idle away their time in hanging around bar-rooms or standing on street corners and public places, whistling for want of thought, and vulgarly staring into the face of every female who passes by. We have heard numberless complaints from our most respectable and worthy citizens, whose families in walking through our streets are subjected to the impudent stare, licentious criticism or ribald jest of some loafer whose daily haunts are the card table and the rum shop. And again, many whose families visit places of amusement or popular assemblages, are to be thrown in company with brazen-faced harridans and depraved characters whose presence, pollutes the atmosphere of all public places in the city. 

The habits contracted by many persons who were here at an early day, have not been corrected by the better influences now prevailing and many are so lost to shame and so far forgetful of self-respect as to form associations which their early education would have taught them to shun with the greatest care. The most charitable supposition would lead us to believe that a residence here of a few years without the benefits to be derived from refined and moral associations might have had sufficient influence to make one forget the duties he owes to himself and society. 

These gross breaches of decorum and violations of the rules of decency, cannot be taken notice of by those who are subjected to the inconvenience and mortification arising from such reprehensible acts. As evil they will naturally grow, small by degrees, and beautifully less as our country grows older and will eventually disappear before the irresistible force of public opinion. The rudeness of society, the unsettled condition of the country, or the long absence from domestic comforts nnd restraints, by conventional rules of civilised communities, should never for a moment make a gentleman forget what is becoming of himself and due to those around him. – Daily Alta, 1852

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

Victorian “Mashers” Lacked Manners

Old family photos show that dressing in drag for fun is nothing new. But to dress as the opposite sex, simply to shock, “go slumming” or to get away with rude behavior, is unacceptable.

Rudeness and Victorian Female “Mashers”

The well-bred young woman, shedding good manners and decorum for “fun.” 

Saving her petticoats, retained apparently out of respect for the law that prohibits interchange of costume by the sexes, the female masher is a little man. She is stiff and starch, well set up, and all over buttons. Her hat is made at a man's shop, so is her trim little jacket, so are her innumerable waistcoats, so apparently are her boots. She is essentially tailor-made from head to foot. When the weather is gusty, she covers all over with a tailor-made tight-fitting coat, to which a certain swagger is imparted by the use of the now preposterous and most hideous swaying crinolette. If manners oft proclaim the man, costume certainly advertises the woman ; so the female masher does not assume masculine attire without imitating parrot-like the affectation of her evident model. 

On the pier and promenade of to-day, the man is not in it. It is the woman who laughs loudly, talks at the top of her voice, takes the pavement, and elbows the crowd to the right and to the left. The female masher is neither polite in her manners nor select in her conversation. As a very slight acquaintance she will communicate suspicious stories to a perfect stranger, and there is no slang or popular vulgarity with which she is not acquainted. In a dogcart at the station, she takes the reins ; in the yacht she handles the tiller. She whistles as she walks along the pier, and hitches up her clothes as if she were a sailor. At a dance in the assembly rooms at night she evidently finds the opposite sex so insipid that she seizes upon the first girl she comes across, and whirls her around the room. The ordinary, well-behaved and courteous man finds the "female masher" the most difficult person to contend with, for when she is rude — as she very frequently is — there is necessarily no reply. She can insult and injure without any chance of a "setting down" from any one, unless he be old enough to be her father. 

Such a rebuff one of these impudent minxes received in my hearing the other day at a seaside railway station. A female masher of a pronounced type, after swaggering about a railway station, walking like a dragon, and flourishing a stick instead of a parasol, was anxious to enter a train from which an elderly gentleman was handing his gray-haired wife with her innumerable impediments. The process was too tedious for Miss Masher, who observed far too audibly to her companion, “Well, I suppose when these people have got out we shall be allowed to get in.” There was a malicious sneer in the delivery of this sarcasm which would have frightened a younger man. But the old gentleman was equal to the occasion. “My dear young lady,” said he, “a little patience will do you no harm. In fact, if you practice patience it is possible that some day you may get a husband, though I should venture to consider that it was no desirable event.” Then taking off his hat, he retired with his wife and her parcels. But “Miss Masher” was far too pachydermatous even so much as to notice or appreciate the rebuff. 

She entered the carriage in which I happened to be sitting, and proceeded as follows : She first took up the newspapers which happened to be there and flung them into another seat, occupying, why I cannot conceive, the seat opposite to me.  “I don't know what these papers are, or whose they are, and I don't care,” was her first remark, although as I was the only other occupant of the carriage, it would not have been difficult to solve that problem. The conversation she indulged in with her friend was the reverse of edifying, being a coarse mixture of slang and somewhat vulgar repartee. I am not naturally over-scrupulous or over-modest, but I was obliged to stare out of the window in order to pretend not to appreciate the brazen conduct that, had it been recognized and laughed at, would have been rewarded with a sneer or a scowl, for “Miss Masher,” although she takes enough liberties herself, never allows one. 

During the remainder of the journey my edifying companion employed herself by whistling popular airs and by ruching up her dress in order to pull up her stockings — an occupation harmless in itself, but scarcely in accordance with the decorum of a public conveyance. Now, I was curious to ascertain the habitat of this young lady. Who could she be?! To what class of society could she belong? She was evidently a lady born, if not a lady bred. She was no frequenter of the music halls, where such manners are applauded as something vastly witty. Judge of my surprise when she stopped at a railway station close to the abode of a popular nobleman, and was driven off in the private omnibus attached to the mansion. If, then, such young ladies set so unenviable an example, it is small wonder that the masherdom of society in its most pronounced form should be imitated by other girls and women equally arrogant and equally vain. “Miss Masher,” of Folkestone and Eastbourne, is reproduced in a still more masculine fashion at Margate and Yarmouth. – London Truth, 1883

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

Etiquette, Naturally

"No ripple mast be permitted to ruffle the smooth equilibrium and indifference of your feelings. You must greet him politely, but without emotion. So the false etiquette of which we speak teaches..."

Be Natural — Act Naturally 

One of the fashionable follies of the day is the affectation of great coolness. It is considered vulgar to be demonstrative. You meet an old friend; it is a blessing to your eyes to behold him once more. Your heart leaps up at sight of him—your impulse is to grasp him warmly by the hand. You feel almost like embracing him. You must do nothing of the kind. No ripple mast be permitted to ruffle the smooth equilibrium and indifference of your feelings. You must greet him politely, but without emotion. So the false etiquette of which we speak teaches. 

Self-possession is a strong quality, but we do not believe in this kind of self-possession. And people who school themselves in this are not apt to have the other and better kind. They are not apt to manifest self-possession on such as really call for it—occasions of difficulty and danger, and of great trials. Touch their self-love, make an unusual demand upon them for self-denial, and their assumed and superficial self-possession vanishes in an instant. For ourselves, we like naturalness of manner. Seem as you feel. Let the heart speak out, or what is the use in having a heart? There are crops which grow only on light soils, and the school of philosophy —miscalled philosophy—of which we speak must have originated in shallow brains. — Red Bluff Independent, 1874

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

Etiquette at Victoria's Table

Above ~ One of the few, rare photos of Queen Victoria dining with family members. Queen Victoria ate a great deal of food (mostly meat and fowl) and she ate extremely fast. According to Kate Hubbard, in her book, “Serving Victoria: Life in the Royal Household” Victoria, “loved her food. She was greedy and she gobbled. She liked her dinners to last no more than half an hour. Guests would quite often find their plates whisked away while they were still eating because once she had finished, all the plates were removed. She was a hearty eater and she was a fast eater.” And as for courtly conversation" at the table? She did not like politics to be brought up, and, oddly, “She didn't like marriage being discussed in front of her youngest daughter, Beatrice, before Beatrice married. Anyone who mentioned marriage at dinner was swiftly reprimanded.”

“It's no fun for a hungry person to dine with Queen Victoria. It is not etiquette to eat of anything after she has finished with it, and as her Majesty eats very little the courses are hurried over. After dinner there is hardly time to take even one glass of wine before coffee is brought in.  

The Queen does not put her cup on the table, but sips a little as the servant holds it on the salver. Then Her Majesty rises, and of course the guests all rise and stand back from the table. The Queen then makes the round of the room, stopping to talk for a few minutes to any of the guests whom she may delight to honor.”– News Report from The Daily Alta, 1880

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

Gilded Age Etiquette and Wise Parents

She does not begin with exhaustive attention to the minutia of etiquette, knowing in that way lies the danger of making her boys prigs, and her girls self-conscious society misses, before they are in their teens.

“The Wise Mother”

Your wise mother is not given to worrying over trifles, says Harper's Bazar. She does not expect perfection in a day. And she has put from her, as far as the East is from the West, the ghastly possibility of setting vanity up in the room of love. So she does not begin with exhaustive attention to the minutia of etiquette, knowing in that way lies the danger of making her boys prigs, and her girls self-conscious society misses, before they are in their teens.

She lays down as the law of her household, the broad principles of respect for elders, reverence for women, kindliness for all; and she permeates the home atmosphere with her finest conception of the deference and the sympathy due from soul to soul. Her children very early delight to place a chair for grandmother and to save father steps. They learn to be proud of that restraint, which enables them to keep self in the background, and to defer to brother and sister.

It never enters their heads that servants are less worthy of respect than other people. They are as unabashed in the presence of wealth and power as they are tender toward suffering and poverty. When she teaches them from time to time her code of manners — and she is careful to perfect it according to her best judgment—she teaches it for home use, and it becomes fixed by becoming natural. —From 1891

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