Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-04-15
THE DECLINE OF PoLITENEss.
Deplorable Change Going On in the Man
ners of English Society.

Deplorable Change Going On in the Man.
ners of English Society.
The signal deterioration Of manners that
has for some time been going on in what is
called good society is every year becoming
more glaring and more deplorable. The deli
cate and subtle Difference which every gem
tAeman used to pay to every woman, because
she was woman and for no other reason
whatever, is already old fashioned, and
promises shortly to become obsolete. No
woman now thinks OF expecting from any
man the polite homage which once on time
was the privilege of one sex and the honor of
the other. Men come into & room full Of
ladies with as much Indifference and sans
faeon as though they were entering the morn
ing room Of their club, and quit it with pre-
cisely the same want of ceremony and self
constraint. While in the society Of women
they loll, lean, and almost lie at their ease, as
though they were in the bosom of their own
family-indeed, with free and easy grace
Iessness that generation ago no gentleman
would have permitted himself among his
most intimate relatives. In the first ap-
breaches of members of one sex 10 members
of the other, there Is no longer any suavity,
any hesitation, any well bred reserve; men
and women who scarcely know each other
act as though they were hail-fellowweil-met,
had been in the playground together, and
been acquainted all their lives.
The demeanor of women, nowadays, to
men is on a par with the male behavior we
have described. Far from resenting the I'M
ceremoniousness with which they are treated
by men who are in reality utter strangers to
them, they go TO meet it half way, and per
NIT themselves 10 be on foot of familiarity
as far as manner is concerned-with the
fl st conner, provided he seems 10 be one of
their ''own Set that could not be greater if
their acquaintance had existed for years.
The same "don't-care-a-hang" conduct is per-
ceptible in the conduct OF visitors and guests
TO their host and hostess.
The notion that people are to be specially
honored in their own houses has gone quite
out Of fashion. No one nowadays is SO an
tiquated in his ideas as to suppose that hos
pitality is TO be regarded asa favor conferred
on the person to whom it Is extended. On
the contrary, it IS the guest who confers an
obligation by paying & call, accepting en- in
vitation to dinner, or paying a country visit,
and who has a perfect right to indulge in
frank and free censure to his neighbcrs in
case he does not find everything to his liking
N the establishment he condescends TO dis
tinguish by his presence. In a word, guests
nowadays treat hosts and hostesses as men
treat women-that is to say, as persons whom
It is very good and amiable of them to no
uce at all and where people really know
each other Intimately, the behavior OF men
70 women, and vice versa, IS such as would
have appalled, the least ceremonious Of our
: fathers. Women call men by their surname,
without the prefix Of Mr., or even by their
Christian names, abbreviated to suit the cur
rent taste for slang. And it is not shop girls
or grocers' young men who do this, but Ia
dies and gentlemen in good society.-London
Standard