PUNCTUALITY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2098, 13 November 1880, Page 3

PUNCTUALITY.

“ Punctuality is the politeness of princes,” wo are often told, and, to do them justice, it is a form of politeness they are Tery seldom wanting in. It is much to be wished that, with other royal and princely fashions, it might descend through the whole social scale, especially the feminine half of it. Men generally. from one cause or another, do not seem so deficient in punctuality ; but with women, in nine cases out of ten, it seems entirely wanting, naturally. This rule is not absolute, but all rules have their exceptions, and it is to be feared that one must admit that a thoroughly and invariably punctual woman belongs more to the exceptions than it may be altogether pleasant to allow. Perhaps this deficiency arises in a great many oases from ignorance. It is strange to see how people can misapprehend it. Some seem to fancy punctuality consists in being half an hour too soon on every occasion, others again plume themselves on arriving “just at the minute” (probably a minute or two late, by the way), but, owing to the hurry they have been in, utterly breathless and useless. Now, this may be keeping your appointment, but s hardly punctually at least, if punctuality means being on the spot unflurried and ready for anything that may have to be done, and with everything that may be required at hand. Now, will any woman think honestly how often she has kept an appointment in this way P I confess, for my own part, that, like Portia, I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than be one of the twenty to follow my own teaching, and that for once I have been punctual in the manner described above I have more times than I care to count either totally missed my appointment or arrived in such a hurry as to bo, for some time at least, practically useless. It is very amusing, and sometimes not a little exasperating, to watch the performances of some people who pride themselves on their punctuality. They arrive generally a little before the time fixed, but with so thorough a conviction of their neighbor’s lateness that they deliberately sit down to some employment, and when warned of the almost instant arrival of their friends, fling at the head of the warner the oft-repeated story of the wise man who wrote a learned book in the time he spent waiting for hie wife to come to dinner. The thing which strikes the looker on usually is, that the sage may

have spent those minutes in this way : but what did the unpunctual wife (to say nothing of the poor cook) do while the husband and master was putting away his belongings, such as pens, ink, and paper, for those ferooiously punctual people are usually as tenacious of their character for tidiness as for exactitude. These people who, on principle, come down dressed half an hour before they are wanted, and then sit down complacently to their letter-writing, &e., almost invariably keep their friends waiting in the end ; for every article used by the punctual (?) must be put by, and in the hurry each separate article gets lost, and has to be hunted for ; and when some strong-minded person insists on a start the whole party is haunted by the laments of the punctual one, whose purse or keys, &0., are pretty sure to have been left behind. Still the apologetic form of overpunctuality is easier to bear than the rampant ; one, whan the culprit utterly fails to see that it is through her the whole party is late, ‘ and keeps enlarging on her favorite virtue until the enraged listeners feel inclined to 1 parody Mme. Boland, and bewail the delays 1 committed under the guise of punctuality. I 1 once knew a lady who prided herself on never 1 missing a train, and, to do her justice, under i the most adverse circumstances, she “ hardly 1 ever ” did ; but oh, the delights of travelling i with her ! One particular start from Paris I 1 shall never forget. We were a large party < travelling together, and, knowing her erratic 1 ways, we insisted on handing over as much as possible of our joint luggage overnight to one j of the porters who undertook to see it con- 1 veyed to the station in time, which promise he ( nobly fulfilled. When morning and the time e for starting came, we wore all ready, except i my friend, who declared we were far too early ( and too fussy; and, as several of our party t were obliged to be in London that night, we c were forced to leave her and start. At the e station we found our faithful gargon with the 1 luggage, and saw it booked, found a carriage, t and made all the necessary arrangements, and t still, though the time was really unpleasantly r close, she and her maid never appeared. Just i as the train was on the point of starting, up a she dashed (her Abigail panting behind her), a saying cheerfully, “ Well, here I am, you c see,” she flung her loose parcels (which were 1 many, very many), and finally her unlucky o maid, into our carriage, not to say our laps, s and jumped in herself (laughing at our dismay) to our great relief, and the evident dis- r may of an elderly couple who, not un- c naturally, looked on her as an escaped lunatic. How she managed to smuggle herself and her E maid through the barrier without passing r through the salle d’attente , is one of those q mysteries which we never cleared up. Oer- a tainly my friend caught her train, but, had it r depended on herself, her luggage could not c have done so; and keeping one’s time in this j. fashion—dashing up just as the train is start- j. ing, to the danger of life and limb ; utterly r upsetting all the rules and the temper of the j. officials, and probably, as my friend did, losing several things in the scrimmage—can scarcely a be, strictly speaking, punctuality ! But bad r enough as these forms of unpunctuality are, t they are mostly the ludicrous side, Now there j, is a serious side to the question, and, conei- ( dering how often great and sad events have s but small origins, very serious this side may j be. Many ladies afflicted with this failing of t unpunctuality are charitable and kind-hearted - to a degree, giving freely time, trouble and ! money to the poor, keen in the support of * their pet good works, and yet manage, by this one fault, to do such an amount of positive harm and unkindness that one cannot believe ; they ever think of the consequences. “ Time is money” is an oft-quoted proverb, but how , many take in the full meaning and act up to it ? It may seem but a trifling offence to fail in some pleasant appointment with friends, and is at any rate easily condoned by an apology, the injury, trifling to an equal, is | often positive cruelty to an inferior. The • poor shop girl kept waiting with the millinery ; or lingerie, and perhaps eventually desired to “ return to-morrow, when mistress will be more at leisure,” pays for the lady’s thoughtlessness with some portion of her short hours of rest; for, as one of your correspondents observed, the same amount of work must be done by these poor girls, whatever the interruptions may be. Again, many ladies will be exact to a day in the payment of their bills, and be punctuality itself in all money matters, no matter how trilling (and this form of punctuality is rare enough to be valuable, though really nothing but simple honesty), and yet will think little or nothing of keeping their laundress and her cart waiting for an hour or more, because they forgot to look over the list of dirty linen before they went out, and the maid dare not give the things till “ missis had counted over the clothesor else had said just before starting, “ Oh! Mary, if I am out when the washerwoman comes just ask her to wait a little, as I want to speak to her.” I only wish some of these ladies could hear the laundress’s opinion, as I once did. She and the maid were talking of one of her employers, and the maid said, ‘ She’s a nice lady, and so charitable.” “Ah, yes,” was the reply, “ she’s charitrble enough with her money, I dare say, but then she’s lots of it. I wish she’d be a little just, though. There, I go to her house week after week, and that linen’s never ready, and I’ve either to keep the van waiting, or else come back for it, and that just makes the difference of halt a day’s van hire to me. If the things was ready, they’d take no time; and the worst is, I know they can do it, for they’ll manage it for them big steam laundries ; but I have to wait, for they know I can’t afford to refuse the work, as the others would do sharp if they was kept waiting.” But it is needless to multiply instances. If they will but think, people will remember cases enough for themselves. Lot us try each of us, while putting our hands fairly to the great work which is far and not so much in our own power, to remember the little grievances which aro close at hand and partly our own fault, and do our best to right them in so far as they lie within our path. There’s an old Scotch saying, “ Many a little maks a i muokle,” and we shall surely find that if we i steadfastly set ourselves to put straight the ■ many small matters we may daily find amiss ; in the common round of our daily lives, the r great wrongs we so sincerely and all but > hopelessly grieve over will daily become easier > to assail and finally to conquer.—" Queen.”

Too Well-informed. —Guest at restaurant to waiter, having complaint to make—“ Say, waiter, where's the proprietor?” Waiter, with a fond and pitying smile — u Do you think he dines here? The boss knows too much for that.”