Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1883-12-13
RURAL ENGLAND.
Hearty Old Fashioned Politeress
and Fresh Unaffected Country
Girls.

London Letter in New York Sun.
Almost the first thing you are told when
you take up your temporary residence in
Blankshire is that your comments must be
guarded and your conversation diplomatic,
as all the families within visiting radius of
twenty miles are related to each other. And
SO they are, for a death puts all the country
side in mourning, while wedding calls out
universal sympathy. Along the route Of the
bridal cortege, every cottage or farm house
hangs out its little decoration, and in the
town every tradesman has his flag, his bunch
Of flowers, or his bit of bunting, for has he
hot catered for the wants of the young couple
from thor christening upward:
Visitors and invitations promptly flow in
upon the new conner with n hearty old-fash-
ioned poiteness Dinner parties are not pop
ular. In the summer other gatherings are
preferred; and in winter or autumn the malo
portion of the community, the mon who have
been shooting and hunting for seven or eight
hours, refuse to don the tail coat and white
tie and drive ten miles for a ceremonious
meal. Moreover, coachmen and grooms,
hard worked by their attendance on the ex-
acting hunter meaning the quadruped), turn
crllsty at being kept out TIL the small hours
for social duties, although they are ever
ready to turn out at | a. m. when it is he
cessary to ride eighteen miles to be at a meet
for club hunting at ) in the morning.
The girls the strong fresh, healthy, I'M
affected girls of Blankshire- to exist
ON lawn tennis, with an occasional trial at
cricket, in which manly sport they are no
mean adepts. But tennis is the inevitable,
the universal, the all-engrossing game. In
nf bn
crecpergrown houses of the gentry, spread
the welkept lawns, smooth as carpets, soft
and springy as moss, and across their green
expanse are stretched as many nets as tho
accurate measurement Of the courts will
allow. There from morning till sunset the
balls fly, sent over by strong, supple wrists,
while the air echoes to reiterations of tho
tennis slang The men of all ages and de-
nominations are clad in their iiannels, and,
like the girls, wear the fiat India rubber
scled shoe, for on no account must the adj
miraby kept turf he cut up. While the
game progresses the strangers and the non-
players are piled with tea and the thinnest Of
bread and butter.
at no hour between and 6 can you pay
visit in the country without the neat silver
service being brought in, and the rites OF
O'CLOCK Tea COmpIieu Win, lHel you aio
shown over the house by the kind hostess,
and gladden. her soul by genuine admiration
of the rare bits of china, the quaint-carvod
balustcrs of oaken staircases, odd rccessrs,
curious old cngravings, Older and moro
curious books in gigantic bindings and
colossal type. Among these, in strange dis
sonance and yet unnlistakably the index to
the keynote of courtly minds, shines the red
binding of all the peerages and volumes ded-
icated by Burke, Deb.et and others to the
nobility and gentry. Some are i'll three
volumes, others fat and voluminous like
commercial directory, Others only pocket
elitions Of the same. Each family knows its
own lineage and descent of everf other
What the Now Testament was to the old Gov
enantcrs, the printed record of his anccstors
is to the British landownor-hSs wade mccum,
his guide, his fundamental dogma. Sonc-
times of two brothers one only figures in the
Landed Gentry The other has lost his
claims to appear in the "Llvrc dor, for lie
has embraced trade and become broker or
brewer.