Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1890-06-04
FINGERS AND FORKS.
THE STRUGGLE OF THE LATTER TO
OBTAIN RECOGNITION.

Everybody Used to Eat with Their Fin
gers, but Strict Rules of Etiquette We're
Observed by the Refned-The Fork
Originated in italy and Spread Slowly.
Did you know that Queen Elizabeth ate
with her fin9ers9 You may have known
that she loved show and style, that she was
SO fond of fine clothes that when she died
she left 5000 dresses and any quantity OF
Jewels; but did you ever imagine that such
a great lady could be so inelegant as to eat
with her fingerss But she did, and so did
Shakespeare, and Chaucer, and William
the Conqueror, and King Alfred, and
everybody else who lived before her time.
These last were more excusable than she
they had no forks; but even she was not
without excuse, for though she had sew
eral, they had been given her as curiosities,
which, suppose, nobody expected her to
use. There was one of crystal garnished
with gold and sparks of garnet, another OF
gold with two little rubies and two pend.
emit pearls, and still another of coral.
Why didn't she use them? you ask. Well,
because she had never seen or known any
body that used one, and they were some
thing new; and, besides, there was a pre-.
judice against this invention just from
Italy. But you must not think because
there were no forks that the old fashioned
dinner made no pretensions to elegance OF
refinement.
The guests had knives and they had
fingers, and with these two implements
they managed nicely. From their old
books of etiquette we learn how they did
- T H. q, ~, Ahaa A. l.
publicly washed before beginning the meal
even if this had just been done privately
it must be repeated at the table, that no
one might feel uneasy in eating after his
neighbors' fingers had been in the dish
To aid further, the meat was prepared as
far as possible before it was brought on the
table. If in a stew, as was usually the
case it was in bits; if roasted, it was cut
by a carver, and passed in large plates
with knife.
AS to the way of helping himself, each
guest must choose and keep a particular
part of the dish for his own. He must HELP
himself daintily from this place, using only
three fingers; afterward, in carrying the
food to the mouth, which, of course, was
done with the hand, these same three must
be used, taking care, however, not to touch
the nose with them, to do which was ex
tremely ineegant, and showed a lack Of
good breeding.
OF course all this soiled the hands. and
in refined households at various intervals
bowls of perfumed water and different nap
kins were passed, and no one must refuse
to wash. This old fashion of handing
round a silver bowl or dish of rose water is
still sometimes seen in Europe.
After a while man found out that he
needed forks, or, rather, woman did, for ii
was she who first used them. Great danes
kept them in their rooms to eat comfits
with and to toast bread; and, in course OF
time, they brought them to the table.
AS l have said, there was q prejudice
against them, and the first few persons
who were brave enough to use them were
laughed at and called effeminate; a preacher
even went so far as to say that for any one
to refuse to touch his meat with his fingers
was an insult to Providence.
Nevertheless they spread; in England
slowly, even after Italy, the home Of theii
birth, was full of them. Those who knew
their value, however, found them so con
venient that up to $50 years ago-sincC
which it has been no longer necessary
gentlemen travelling from place to place
and knowing how poorly supplied were the
inns, carried one with them in a case with
knife. Since that time the old two
pronged fork. or fourchette Qittle pitch
fork, as the French called it-and really
they were only tiny pitchforks-has giver
way to the more convenient three and foul
pronged forks in use in our own homes
Mary NJ Winston in Harper's Young PEG