The DeLamar nugget. [volume] (DeLamar, Idaho) 1891-1900, 1894-06-09
SOCIAL PRIVILEGES.
What Gentlemen" Are Permit
ted to Do In Europe.
Thoy Need Not Pay Tradesmen's Bills,
But They Must Play Cards Fairly
Dome Queer Notions of Honor
Among the Bioods."

There are many things which it APP
pears gentleman may do nowadays
in Europe without mourning the loss of
his right to that designation by society
or FORGETTING what the latter regards as
his honor says a writer in the New
York Tribune. Thus he may avoid
paying his creditors, provided they are
tradespeople or friends, who, instead of
being content with his plighted word,
have accepted the additional security of
q pronissory note. Indeed, the passing
of any paper between creditor and
debtor is held to remove the obligation
from the list of debts of honor and
places it among the so-called trades
mems debts, the nonpayment of which
involves no loss of 'gentilhommerie'
or of shonor.." Debts of honor, that
is to say, loans based merely upon YER
bal obligations and bets, must be paid
at all cost, according to the ethics gov
erning the 'scode of honor" even if
the debtor has to obtain the money by
means of methods which verge not
only upon the dishonorable, but even
ON the criminal 1t is for this reason
that we sometimes hear of young men
going to the length of stealing their
mothers jewels or forging the name of
their nearest and dearest relatives, as
did the eldest son of an English peer
the other day, for the sake of paying
their debts of honor, failing which.
they can no longer hope to retain the
social status of a gentleman. One has
heard of men committing suicide, like
young Count Alloys Hardegg few
weeks since at Vienna, and the last
marquis of Hastings, years ago in Lon
don, because they were unable to pay |
their ''debts of honor" but one has
never heard of gentleman taking
his own life because he could not pay
his tailor.
Connection with a divorce suit, far |
from detracting from the 'sstatus of a
gentleman is, on the contrary, rather
a feather in his cap, excepting in
cases where the correspondent pre-
fers to speak the truth and acknowl-
edge his guilt rather than perjnre him
self in the witness box like a gentle
man." The most mortal of all sins in
the eyes of society, the one that en-
tails above everything else the forfeit
ure of the title of gentleman and of
all honor is unfair play at cards; and
it is no secret that the majority of the
great families in Europe would inf
nitely prefer to have murderer among
their relatives than a man convicted of
the offense which resulted in the So
cial ostracism of Sir William Gordon
Cumming, of the duke of Roxeburghe's
George Russell, and of
Maj or, Hon. Walter Harbord, brother
IF Lord Suffjeld. These perhaps are
5he principal things which gentle
nan" and "a man of honor may and
nay not do according to the tenets of
I'D world society. The latter NAV be
Up in brief as the payment of
lebts of honor, reticence with regard
% all affairs de coeurn and playing
airly at cards. Provided a man does
lot break these three commandments
lie may commit every other sin with
and if only he be of gentle
firth his shortcomings will DC regard
d merely in the light of venal eccen-