The record-union., 1896-11-08
MANNERS AND FASHIONS.
A Sign of Aging When Person Does
Not Follow Them.

| The fact remains that mankind mas
always believed it's manners to be de-
caying, and this fact has in some way
or other got to be accounted for. I'm
| less there was some reason for 1t, men
in every age and in every place would
rot 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 notion of a
universal and immemorial. and yet
wholly fortuitous and gratuitous, piece
of plague is absurd Where, then, is
the necessary substantial resting place
disappearing? 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 bon
nets, 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 indura-
| ton which comes to almost all men
and women some time after forty, is
| that they become unable to see that the
new style of collar or way of doing
the hair is an Improvement. There is
I no more certain sign that person is
aging than his or her declarations that
the new fashions are hideous and dis
gusting. But mark the declarations
| that our manners are disappearing
never come from the young, but always
| from persons past forty. The truth is,
They have become incapable of follow
| ing the fashions in manners. But the
| fashions in manners are not influenced
by these expressions Of blind indigna-
| ton. Driven on by that necessity for
| evolution and change which we cannot
| ignore though We cannot explain, our
manners. e., our codes of social be-
| havior-are in perpetual state of flux.
| There is no sudden revolution of course.
but in ten years time there has been
sucient alteration to make the way we
| flirt now, or the way we talk to ladies
| III the drawing room after dinner, seem
strange and outrageously indecorous to
the man who has stood still and not
moved with the times.
After all, manners are only conven-
| tions-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 con-
ventions to seem good only to those
who know them and can appreciate
their exact value. An unsympathetic
convention is necessarily a monstrositv.
If the recognized convention of the gen
Grafton is for man who wishes to be
polite to a girl at a ball to say, you
might give us a dance" then there is
no real decay of manners in the use of
the phrase. 1t sounds indeed to the GEN
Grafton who have developed it and use
it, the only polite thing to say, and far
better manners, lin the true sense
than the ridiculously formal dancing
mastery, May I have the honor of a
dance?" They who use it are, in fact
not the least conscious of any decay
Of manners. Men accustomed to the
May l have the honor formula 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 a hundred other
little matters of form. A new fashion
ir 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
Other-IIOndOnS of SDectafOr