The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1889-01-24
NUMBER /.
"DINNER TIME,o

| ANNhh AhN D'
What is "diuner time r. asks Youth
Companion. The hour depends altogeth.
er upon where one lives, in this age
and 1t has depended everywhere upoI
the epoch Of the world. In this country
dinner time with the great majority oil
people, those who live upon the farms
and in the smaller towns is between L
and o'clock. Their dinner hour is al
most exactly that of Princes and noble
men in Shakespeare's time. Many lines
in his works prove that all the world
dined at that epoch in the middle of the
day.
But in many of the larger towns and
cities of this country. and especially in
New England, the ordinary hour is rath.
er nearer o'clock than any other hour.
The regulation hour in Boston is sup
posed to be 2 o'clock, though many bus
iness men dine little earlier, and many
others, including the more fashionable,
do not dine until o'clock.
In New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia
and other great cities, still larger pro
portion of the people do not dine until 6
o'clock or afterward and in Washing
ton the 6 o'clock dinner Is so universal
that a few years ago public man who
went from the country, and who wished
to retain his custom of dining in the
middle of the day, could find but one
restaurant in the city, and that one not
at all TO his mind, where he could get a
dinner at or o'clock.
In Europe the dinner hour in the cit
iea and towns is always late in the day
for though in many of the country dis
tricts the common people still eat their
chief meal in the middle of the day, the
dinner hour of society never comes be-
fore 6 o'clock. And in England the
fashionable dinner hour is s o'clock in
the evening.
The more artificial and elegant" life
becomes, the later the meal hours tend
to be fixed. The French breakfast
their word dejeuner means to break fast
comes at noon their dinner at 6
o'clock or little later, and their supper
at 0 or 10 o'clock in the evening.
But as they do not all remain in bed
until noon, slight meal is needed early
in the morning. and they usually take
their coffee" upon rising-a sort of
lunch with cup Of coffee with roll or
few cakes.
The changes which the French dinner
hour has undergone prove the tendency
to make meal hour later as society be-
comes more artificial.
1t is related that in the reign of Louis
XII, in the simple epoch at the begin.
ming of the sixteenth century, the King
went to bed at o'clock in the evening,
rose at daylight or before it, and dined
at s o'clock in the morning But these
hours did not last long, Francis L.,
Louis successor, moved the dinner hour
along little, He dined at 10 o'clock in
the forenoon, and supped at 6.
From the reign of King Henry ~ to
the year 1927, it was the custom at the
French court to dine at II o'clock, AT
that time it become the usage to dine at
noon, and the supper hour came at Z
O'Clock in the evening.
Louis XIV, the "Great monarch,
dined at l o'clock, and this hour re.
mained customary until we'll into the
eighteenth century, when, with the
elegant people of the French court, din.
ner began to be postponed until 2 o'clock
and presently until 3. And the middle
classes of society followed the fashion al
court.
After the French revolution the din
ner hour became still later, coming at
o'clock, and finally at 6. And Good
society" in the rest of the world has i'm
itated this custom, together with sc
many other French usages.
j