The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-29

the speech of the same class is much
better; his occasionally lose themselves or
find themselves in unwarranted situa-
tons; my" is pronounced "me," "here,"
"yere" and other local peculiarities as in
America; while the language of the peas
antry is almost past finding out. His pro-
nouns are inextricably mixed, and the
neuter entirely ignored. always speaking
of tree or plant as Neutrality-suspicious. a
surviving tradition of the French-ahd of
a man very likely as cher" while the
nominatives in either number do duty for
the objective, and vice versa, as one
hears, ''her''-meaning q man-"always
comes to see We"
English table customs quite differ from
ours, four meals being the universal num-
Der, while IN America only the few have
introduced "five o'clock tea" In London
late dinners are en- regte, but in the coun-
try the midday dinner prevails This is
preceded by breakfast of bread and but
ter, or a crack" of toast from which the
heat has so perceptibly departed that one
questions if it were not made the night
jam or syrup with tea or coffee. In
some families bread and butter, with
"rasher" of bacon, constitute the uni
versal breakfast. Perhaps the American
taste for variety at that meal is
degenerate one and may merit the ridicule
heaped upon it by the English press, but
certainly it is very pleasant degeneracy.
Napkins for breakfast and tea are consid-
cred superhuous, and journal of the day
gave as bit of news that the queen was
said to use napkins at breakfast; an ex-
ample of foolish extravaganza, when it
came to demand following. and provoca-
ton of comment somewhat similar to that
Elizabeth must have occasioned when she
began to use fork. American knives of
oil IzAx H., ~
of Hamilton Aide and others who have
done US the honor to write upon
our customs, and granted one were
as much q knife as the other, the
verdict would be for that of steel,
but when long years of contact
with the grindstone have reduced tito
somewhat exaggerated toothpick one is
willing to exercise little more muscle in
the manipulation of the silver. Individ-
ual butter plates are not used in England,
but platter of the SIN allest size is always
placed beside the larger one to contain
bread and butter. For pudding or "tart,"
synonym for pie, both of which are called
''sweets," only fruits constituting dessert,
a plate, nearly the size of dinner plate,
is provided, upon which you are most
generally helped. Tea" consists of thin
slices of bread and butter, served spread,
a jam of some sort, usually a kind of cake,
stiff like bread and containing fruit, with
tea; while the supper, served at 8 o'clock,
is more substantial repast of cold meat,
with bread, always cheese, and usually
beer and Spirits"
The variety of vegetables is limited in
England, consisting mostly of the cab.
bage and squash families, the latter of in
finite variety. rejoicing in the name of
marrow" while as a sort of exotic have
seen pumpkin exhibited for sale and
labeled "melon-gourd ;" peas and beans of
delicious varieties are, however, abundant.
Apples are of an inferior sort, but the
plums of England are something to make
ones mouth water forever after par
finer than in America, though goose
berries are the staple small fruit and
enter largely into the composition of jams
and 'tarts." What we call canned
fruits, the English cell "tinned" or ''bot-
tied" as tin or glass are made use of, and
"bottled" they are in truth, as 1 discov-
cred my good hostess in the kitchen la
boriously enclosing gooseberries in bot
ties, over the large mouths of which she
tied bladders, never having heard of air
tight cans, the boon of the American
housewife. When room is swept" it is
said to be 'turned out" perhaps not al
ways literally true.
In England cards of the nature of those
for Christmas and birthdays, with appro-
acquaintance to the bride, and cards
deeply bordered with black announce the
death and place of burial of friend;
while all shades of relations clothe them
selves to proportionate degree in habili-
ments of grief, and l heard of even a 8
months old baby b,ing CARRIED in black.
Seemingly most OF the men and small
boys one meets have band of black upon
their sleeves-a p"rmissable equivalent
with masculine humanity. At funerals
the black horses of the mourning car
rages are shrouded in black pals, while
the drivers wear a veil about their tall
hats which falls behind in long black
folds.
Not day passes in England but you OBJ
serve the differences of customs there and
in America; they are always novel, and
many times appeal to yOu more than those
with which you are familiar. Continually
are you haunted by the question, how
came these differences? Not simply the
trivial ones of social life, few of which
we have noticed, but the more important
functions of church and state are all per-
for med in manner at variance with our
own. Tradition has ever been sacred
to the English; our iconoclas-
tic forefathere were the excep-
tional few who survived its TYRANNY,
and so sought freedom from it in the west
ern wilderness: and to minds revolving
from ecclesiastical despotlSm 1t was easy
to slip away from all tradition and mark
out for themselves new paths, not only re-
ligious, but political and social. Nor is it
difficult to comprehend how language
which three centuries ago made one great
stream, in dividing its channel. the one
still flowing through the quiet of its native
glades, the other forcing its impetuous
way through the rocky and unexplored
depths of a wilderness, should have LETT
behind different debris, and have re-
ceived attrition of another quality in its
onward progress. At the divining angle
was the language of Shakespeare, and
there still flows with the American branch
some words, which the English of today
have forgotten ever belonged to them. so
long ago have they sluiced them off into
neglected channels. Others, equally
primitive. have held their own in the
English branch, though left behind by the
American; while the new and vigorous
civilization has demanded new words in
which to express its redundant excess of
vitality. That in America the pronuncia-
ton of proper names has remained uncpr-
rupted, is doubtless due to the fact that
the English peasant element has never had
footing there; for when an ignorant
class has imposed itself, or been imposed,
upon more educated. as the negro at the
South the speech of the uneducated more
or less modiles that of the educated.
\. W. METCALF.
Scandal Over Louis HnlIer's Estate.