GOOD MANNERS

Evening Star, Issue 20059, 27 December 1928, Page 10

GOOD MANNERS

It is a curious thing, and rather interesting, that, given an assemblage of equal social standing selected at ran# dom, quite different standards ol good manners will be found. What one set condemns as vulgar another will do with complete sell-satisiactiou. What is the determining factor? asks Lady Theodora Davidson, in the London'‘Daily Mail.’ in many cases nationality. Certain it is that a scrutiny of the. 'guests in a fashionable restaurant will enable one to determine fairly accurately the portion of the civilised globe whence they come. In Rome one day i watched with some curiosity the movements of a, charming woman who sat at the table nearest to, me. She was well dressed; her manner to the waiter was courteous. 1 could not hear what language she spoke, hut the handbook at her side revealed that it must he the same as mv own. She cut up her food in the ordinary way, hut laid jilowu her kmle, transferred flic lork to her right hand, and raised it to her month. It was not till I. went to America the following year that i discovered that it ,is thought extremely vulgar there to cat with the left hand. ,i Again, Iho I’Tench will ladle soup into their mouths Iroin the tip of the spoon held in front of the lips—we look askance at such manners, and sip from the side. Wo can all manag'd spaghetti with propriety—when it is stiffened with parmesan and tomato. But try ia cooked simply in butter or oil. Li Italy 1 have seen princes prod a fork into a huge mess of it, and with a few quick turns heap up a parcel that one would have thought no mouth could contain. They would then sit back and smilingly watch my unavailing ellorts to twine two or three helpless worms round mine. There are three or four methods of placing the spoon and fork on the plate at the end of a course, cadi approved by different schools. Travelling farther afield or entertaining Eastern guests at home, we must* nerve ourselves to listen to the species of throat sounds for which we punish our small children. They betoken a complimentary gratitude. The idea of put ring one’s fingers' into the dish and tearing the meat from the ,joint is repulsive until one has soon it done. But the ext raordinary tenderness of a young lamb that is to bo treated thus, the dignity of the movement, the immediate attention of a servant for L each guest with rose water in precious receptacles, make it all proper and natural.

Taking for granted, therefore, that each and all of the diners above mentioned are of the best social caste and are acting' up to Hie code of manners in which they have been trained, tho moral to bo drawn from the very different results probably is that everything is right if viewed from the right standpoint.