The Portland daily press., 1880-05-10
Boston Advertiser.l
Trifling COurteSieS.

In small country towns, such as still exist
away from the great railway centres, clustered
around the smaller stations or connected with
them by stage routes, life retains an individu-
ality which is lost in the crowded streets of
cities. Everybody knows everybody else. The
affairs of each one are common property, and
the hopes and fears, successes and failures of
each are shared by the common sympathy. or
curiosity, or minglng of both. The typca
good old lady sits in her window to ''see the
passing" Mr.. So-and-So is going down the
street, and she knows that he is on the way to
the station to get his daughter, coming home
for the holidays. They pass by on their re-
turn, and she mods and smiles at them to show
that she sees it is all right, anxiously watching
late to see if ''the fly follows with the right
number of trunks. People know all about
new horse or new bonnet long before it
makes its appearance,-its cost, its quality and
its raiSon d 6tre. Such surveillance has its an
noying side compensated for by the friendly
sense it brings of common humanity.
In the cities this common interest is of me-
cessity lost The men who iostle each other
in the streets are not the same from day to
day. New faces are so much the rule that we
passengers in street-car with that blank ex-
preston on their features, caused either by the
sideways motion or by the very absence of in
terest we are speaking of, refuses to separate
itself into individual existences, as if it had
been painted with broad brush by the same
artist who decorated the spaces on the win
dows. Surrounded on all sides, in streets. in
shops, in the passages of the theatres, by
moving mass, the citizen regards it with indif-
ference, and forgets that, as he himself is an
into n1Nff of do
beings. Cordiality of manner vanishes, COM
mon politeneSs becomes mechanical "Thank
you" or II beg your pardon" are going to
be obsolete phrases in the streets, as well as
the attractive continental fashion of saving
| GOOD morning on leaving a shop.
And yet good manners must always be the
oil which makes the wheels of society run
smoothly; good manners to be eflicacious must
be sincere and to be sincere must take root in
mutual interest. Men and women must regard
each other as human beings, and not as ma
: chimes placed along the road to obstruct or
promote the progress Of their own affairs. The
man who is driving his spirited horse through
q crowded street must remember that it is diff
ficult for the foot-passengers to keep out of the
way the man crossing the street must remem-
ber how hard it is to restrain spirited horse.
HIS who sets foot upon woman's train should
consider that she was not the individual fool
who invented the fashion of long skirts.
Nay more, that she may be following it upon
the deepest considerations of reason and pro-
priety; while the woman who hears and feels
the tread, and feels and hears the ominous
sound of rending at her waist, must suppress
the wild rage which inevitably surges in her
breast, and turning upon the monster who still
| pins her to the earth say, smiling, mo conse-
agepce, thank you"
ine stieAt car passenger, impatient to alight
at MS own doot, INST bear in mind that the
conductor has not eyes A. the back of his head:
and the conductor who is offeGSS a ~ fYe'doiiar
bill for change, while the car is waIes-C in n
crowded street, need not reply, as one latos.,
did, eff that was all the money you've got you
better not have got in The woman who
shops should know her own mind ON approach
ing a counter, remembering that there is hui
man being behind it, and not waste the time
and temper of her fellow creature by a whim-
sical delay of choice On the other hand the
lady at the counter should bear in mind that
customers are not born with knowledge of
the fine distinctions made by manufacturers in
the names of braids and ribbons, and that by
projecting herself into the interests of her sis
ter she will make the tedious task of shopping
mutually lighter.
These trifiing courteses appear inadequate
to demand the sublime sell control and sacri-
| fee they require; yet, since ife is made up of
| tri1es, and as one is not houIly called upon by
motives of the highest order, it would be well
TO keep in practice, beginning with the recog-
I milton of a common humanity.