Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1896-11-28
LEAVING ROYALTY.
Origin OF . Peculiar Custom Discussed by
Sew eral English Writers.

ICNVliNo nv Al 7.
Origin OF . Peculiar Custom Discussed BY
Several English Writers.
If Mr.. I.abouchere continues with
his average assiduity to search for
the origin of customs that have
come down to these days from pre-
historic times, his successors in that
interesting line of inquiry will have
nothing to do but to pore over the
pages of his unique publication,
London Truth. Whence came this
custom of walking backward before
royalty is one of the questions to
the solution of which Truth has re-
Gently addressed itself with charac-
teristic energy. We do not know
that the prosperity or happiness of
mankind or the advancement of civ
ilization is involved in this inquiry.
We could imagine the nations Of the
earth going on for ages to come,
growing wiser and better in the flu
ture, as they have done in the past,
and not caring Il continental where
or when or how that old habit got
its start. Indeed it requires no great
stretch of the imagination OF of the
probabilities to picture time when
all royalties shall have walked or
been walked off the stage, backward
or forward, never to return. HUI
mainly has but to go on as it has
been going on for some centuries in
order to arrive at the end of the
monarchical institutions. But in
asmuch as Truth considers this
query worthy of serious considera-
ton, we must conclude that it pos
sesses some Importance, some claim
to human interest, even though that
claim is not within our visual range.
One of Truths correspondents
gravely suggested not long ago that
the custom of walking backward be-
fore royalty was due to an instinct
in man implanted by Providence.
In other words, nature is response
BILE for the habit. In certain sense
this is true. Nature endowed the
earliest specimens of the human
race with power to walk, and it
must have given them that venera-
ton for supcriors which prompted
them to amble backward before
kings and queens. .--.--------------
We suppose nature is to some en-
tent responsible for toadyism in all
countries. 1t Is nature that makes
the English people clearly love a
lord and nature causes a great
many Americans to make fools of
themselves and burlesque their own
democratic government whenever
they get Il chance to pay homage to
titled aristocrat, real or bogus,
from the old world. But it is per-
verified nature, and the growing
democratic spirit of the age is get
ting the better of it.
Another correspondent of Truth,
writing from the far east, where he
is supposed to have seen much of
savage life, makes philosophical
suggestion that seems to us to throw
a great flood of light on this ques-
ton. His notion is that the custom
of always turning the face toward
royalty originated in the stern ne
cessities of rude and poor people
who had little skill in tailoring. He
says the first kings were rulers of
savage tribes, whose clothing was
extremely limited and rarely con-
sisted of more than q scanty gar
ment modelled on the primitive fig
leaf. He respectfully submits that
when a subject thus appareled had
to present himself before royalty,
courtesy, not to say decency. would
suggest that he should present to
the sovereign only that portion of
his anatomy which was concealed
by clothing. He therefore kept his
back averted in approaching and re-
firing.
This explanation is highly cred
table to the rough and simple peo-
pie from whom modern notions
have descended. Thatnecessity long
since ceased to exist, but the custom
of walking backward survives be-
cause etiquette now demands what
decency called for when the world
was younger.-Washington Post