The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1880-04-14
Familiarity.
lScribner's Monthly.l

loCiipheto houtuAy.l
OF all the sources of bad manners, we know
of none so prolific and pernicious the Ii
cense of familiarity. There is no one among
our readers, we presume, who has not known
q village or neighborhood in which all the
people called one another by their first or
Christian names. The "Jim, or "Charley,"
or .'Mollie,r or Fanny" of the young days
of school life, remain the same until they
totier into the grave from old age. Nov,
there may be certain amount of good fell
loyrship and homely friendliness in this kind
Of familiar address, but there is not parti-
clei of politeness in it 1t is all very well,
within family or a circle of relatives, but
when it is carried outsid, il is intolerable.
The courtesies of life are carried on at
arms length, and not in a familiar
embrace. Every gentleman has q right to
tho title at least, of Mister" and every
lady to that of "Miss,' or Mistress" even
wbren the Christian name is used, For an
ordinary friend to address q married woman
as "Dolly," or "Mary," is to take with her
an objectionable liberty. 1t lie neither
courteous nor honorable; in other words, it
is most unmannerly. We have known re-
markable men. living for years under the
blis ht of their Familiarity used first names
men whose fortunes would have been made
OF greatly mended, by removing tosome place
where they could have been addressed with
the courtesy due TO their worth, and been rid
forever of the cheapening process of iamili-
arty. How can man lift his head under
the degradation of being called Sam by
every man, young and old, whom be may
meet in the street? How can a strong
character be carried when the man who
bears it has to bow decently to the name of
"Billy."
This is not a matter that we have taken
up to sport with. We approach it and re-
gard it with all seriousness, tor this feeling
and exhibition of familiarity lie at the basis
of the worst manners of the American peo-
pie We are not asking especially for reyer-
ence for age or high position, but for man
hood and womanhood. The man and woman
who have arrived at their majority have
arrived to q courteous form of address, and
he who withohlds it from them, or, presuming
upon the intimacies of boyhood, continues to
speak to them as still boy and girl, is a
boor, and practically foe TO good man
ners We suppose the Friends would object
to this statement, but we do not intend to
embrace them in this condemnation. They
look at this matter from different stand
point, and base their practice upon certain
considerations which have no recognition in
the world around them. We think they are
mistaken, but their courteous way of using the
whole of the first name is very different
from the familiar use of names and nick
names of which we complain. There is no
use in denying that the free and general use
of first names among men and women, in
towns and neighborhoods, is to the last de
gree vulgar. Gentleman and ladies do not
do it. 1t is not habit of polite society, any
where.
There is undoubtedly great deal of bad
manners in families, growing out of the
license engendered by familiarity-bad man
ners between husband and wife, and between
parents and children Parents are much to
blame for permitting familiarity to go so far
that they do not uniformly receive in courte-
Gus forms the respect due to them from their
children as gentlemen and ladies.
Of the degrading familiarity assumed by
conscious interiors, it is hardly necessary to
speak Nothing cures such a thing rs this
but the snub direct, in the most pointed and
hearty form in which it can be rendered
''The man that halls you Tom or Jack
And proves by thumps upon your bcsk
How he esteems your merit,
Is such friend that oDe had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon OF to bear It,"