Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1896-09-01
MANNERS AND FASHIONS.
Philosophy Of the Constant Cry o
Dec adence.

Dec adence.
The fact remains that mankind
has always believed it's manners to
be decaying. and this fact has in
some way or other got to be ac-
counted for. Unless there was some
reason for 1t, men in every age and
IN every place would not have
thought the same thought and made
the same complaint. When people
have been saying the same thing,
from China to Peru, from India to
the Nile, from Norway to Naples,
ever since the dawn of history, there
must be something in it. The no
ton of a universal and immemorial,
and yet wholly fortuitous and gratui-
tous, piece Of plague is absurd
Where, then, is the necessary sub
stantial resting place for the belief
that our manners are disappearing2
We believe that it is to be found in
the fact that manners change like
the fashions-are, in fact, as much
the sport of fashion as bonnets,
skirts, mantles or collars.
But it is notorious that oldish
people cannot keep up with the
fashions One Of the first signs of
that mental indurati0n which comes
to almost all men and women some
time after 40, is that they become
unable to seq that the new style of
collar or way of doing the hair is on
/ Improvement. There is no moro
certain sign that a person is aging
than his or her declarations that the
new fashions arc hideous and dis
Gusting. But mari; the declarations
that our manners ere disappearing
never come from TIE young, but al
ways from persons past 40 The
truth is, their minds have become
indurated They have become in
capable of following the fashions in
manners. But the fashions in man
ners are not influenced by these ex-
prcssions of blind Indignation.
Driven on by that necessity
for evolution ard change which
we cannot ignore though we
cannot explain, our manners
i. e., our codes of social behavior
are in perpetual state of flux.
There is no sudden revolution, Of
course, but in ten years time there
has been sufficient alteration to
make the way we flirt now, or the
way we talk to the ladies in the
drawing-room after dinner, seem
strange and outrageously indie
corous to the man who has stood
still and not moved with the times.
After all, manners are only con-
ventions-rules as to the pitch of
the voice, the turn of the head, the
form of words to be used. But it is
the nature OF conventions to seem
good only to those who know them
and can appreciate their exact value.
An unsympathetic convention is
necessarily q monstrosity. II the
recognized convention of the genera
ton is for q man who wishes to be
polite to girl at ball to say: "You
might give us q dance" then there
is no real decay of manners in the
use of the phrase. 1t sounds indeed
to the generation who have de-
veloped it and use it the only really
polite thing to say, and far better
manners, ''in the true sense" than
the ridiculously formal and dancing
mastery May have the honor of
n dance?" They who use it are, in
fact, not the least conscious of any
decay of manners. Men accustomed
to the May | have the honor?' for
mula are, however, utterly shocked
by the "You might give US a dance"
convention, and the moment when
they begin to realize its development
they declare that the old courtesy,
etc, has died out. 1t is the same
with q hundred other little matters
of form. A new fashion in giving
an arm or holding open, or even not
holding open, a door seems boorish
to the older generation who knew
the proper way of doing the thing
in 1860, and since then have used no