The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1891-09-05
TIE PUBLIC rooTHpIcK.
A Practice which Is NOt Consistent witt
Good Manners.

A Practice Which Is Not Consistent with
Good Manners.
The public toothpicls is public nui-
sance about which there has always
been more or less complaint, but there
seems just now to be a new outbreak OF
the opposition, and in some quarters
pretty lively discussion of toothpicE
proprieties. 1t is evident that If the
obtrusiveness of the toothpick is ever to
be reduced the subject ought to be
freely discussed. TO discuss the public
toothpiclS is to condemn 1t.
The summer is the particular season
of the public toothpick At this period
1t is seen everywhere. 1t is not con-
fined to the cafe or the dining
room, where it can always be found
Iusy, but it is in its glory as well on the
porches of the summer hotels, whether
in the mountains or at the seashore, and
1t is unfortunately sometimes to be
found in the drawing room. But while
the public toothpicl1 is at it's best, or
rather worst, in the summer months, it
can be seen at all seasons Toothpicks
are cheap-as cheap as bad manners
and the law doesn't prevent their use in
almost any way that the free Amer
lean citizen chooses to employ them.
While some people have no use what
ever for toothpicls, and others know
how to use them privately, as they do
their toothbrushes, there are plenty
and the number is apparently not de-
creasing-who have no use for them
except at the table or in the presence
of others elsewhere scarcely less no.
ticeable. People who have good taste
in dress, who would not wear frayed
collar, an ill-fitting shirt, or neglected
shoe, and who in other respects have
fairly good manners, will use tooth
pick with noise and ostentation in a
public dining room and carry it in the
mouth for an hour after eating.
These things are seen everywhere, in
town and out of town-not alone in ho-
tells, but in public conveyances and
even in the street cars after the theatel
lunch at night. How many young mer
have ruined their matrimonial hopes by
the public use of toothpick can never
be known until the girls have been can
vassed on the subject. What is more
the young men are likely never to know
what hurt them, for those who haven't
yet learned better than to use tooth
pick in public can hardly be expected
to understand the penalties that &C
along with such habit They may
have learned that it won't do to faster
napkin under the chin, but they never
earn anything about the vulgarity o.
he public toothpicll.
The suggestion made by cores
ondent that free toothpiclks should moi
De supplied as they are by keepers o
public houses might, if adopted, have
something of tendency to reduce thu
publicity of the toothpick, but woulC
not destroy it altogether The tooth
pick habit is so settled with many peo
pie that if they couldn't get toothpick
one way they would another. The.
would even go to the trouble and eX
pense of buying them in order to main
tain vulgar and ill-mannercd practice
Apparently, the man who uses hi
toothpick in public, who shifts it aroun,
with his tongue and makes loud noise
with it, has nothing dearer to his heart
Nevertheless, the public toothpicl
not one of the refnements of the time
and the man who will invent tooth
pick which can not by any possibility b
used in public will prove himself u benc
factor of mankind. Philadelphia Press