Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-02-09
ANNOUNCING A MEAL
THE DINNER BELL THE OLDEST
METHOD.
Other Ways of Summoning Men to
Partake Of Food-Sounding
the Gong.

From the London Globe.
| Among the curious byways Of social his
/ tory and household custom is that which Is
| concerned with the mode of announcing
that dinner. or any other meal IS or short
| ly will be ready The dinner bell is. Of
| course. the oldest of these modes. In med
| taeval times the monastery or convent bell
! rang out on the quiet country air many
/ times in the course of the day and night;
| and not the least welcome to the inmates of
| the many summonses was that which drew
| them to the refectory. And in later ages,
| linking the middle ages to the present time,
| there are frequent illusions in literature
which show that the bell method was still
In constant favor. notwithstanding the Gus
J toplary use of other modes of summons to
! be mentioned presently. One or two exam
| pies Of such illusions may suffice. In the
| anonymous old play called the Return
| From Parnassus,' which was written and
| represented about January, 1902. page boy
| quotes courter's definition of a scholar
/ as Creature that can strike fire in the
/ morning at his tinderbox. put on a paire of
| lined slippers sit rewming till dinner. and
| then goe to his meate when the bell rings"
Sir Roger de Coverley.
| century later we know that the same
| method prevailed in Sir Roger de Coyerley's
| household, for while the silent gentleman
! and VIII Wimble were talking together the
| bell, we are told. rang to dinner. and Will
| had the pleasure of seeing the huge jack
he had caught served up for the first dish
in most sumptuous manner" And later
| still Edmund Burke gained the sobriquet
| of the dinner bell" on account of his sue
| cess in emptying the house of commons
| when he rose to speak on certain topics.
| There Is, indeed. plenty of evidence that
| the bell has always been. it still Is,
L widely used to meals
| there have been other modes of ANNOUNCE
| Ing the event of the day, and these are not
| a little curious. One seventeenth century
| method. for instance, was after the fashion
| of the three knocks on the stage which her
| aided the rise of the curtain in French the
| aters Sucking. in his famous Ballad
I Upon Wedding" says:
| Just in the nick the cook knock'd thrice
| And all the walters in trice
His summons did obey
| Each serying,man. with dish in hand.
Marchd boldly up, like our traind band
Presented and away.
{ Knocking.
The knocking seems to have become old
fashioned not long after Stockings time.
Steele. in his play of the Conscious Low
| ers, produced in 1922. makes Tom smart
young man servant rallying an old servitor,
say, You talk as If the world was now
| just 1t was when my old master ard
| you were in your youth; when you went to
| dinner because it was SO much O'Clock,
| when the great blow given in the hall
| at the pantry door, and all the family came
] out of their holes In such strange dresses
| and formal faces you in the pictures
| in our long gallery in the country" The
| great blow at the pantry door or the
cooks thrice-repeated summons, was evil
/ IDENTIFY quite out of fashion among smart,
| up-to-date folk. Washington Irving, in his
| effectively and carefully drawn picture of
oid-tlme ways and ohservances at that d.
| lightful mansion. Bracebridge Hall, revives
| the old custom. and the merry party are
| summoned to the Christmas dinner IN the
| great hall by the sound of the rolling pin
banged upon the dresser by the cook.
| Another odd way of announcing the adj
| vent of dinner, which prevailed in one
| family, at least was by beat of drum. In
| Mrs. Charles Bagot's most interesting vol
TIME of "reminiscences called Links With
the Past published a year or two ago.
| there are given some notes by the Rev. F.
| f. Paget, on life in days gone by at Blith-
| field, the Staffordshire seat of the Basot
| family. He mentions that in his time, the
middle of the nineteenth century the Gus
| tom was still maintained of announcing
| meals by sound of drum. and says that ii Is
| related that on one occasion during the
| civil war. when party of royalist officers
| were invited to dinner at Biithfield the
| guests were thrown into a state of great
| CONSERVATION by hearing the drum beat
| and until they were told of the old family
| custom of thus announcing meals mag
| hands of Cromwel's soldiery. But these
| curious old methods of summoning guests
| to the tabe-drum and rolling pin and
| thrice-repeated knock-are now probably al
| together extinct.
| The Dinner Gong.
There remains only one rival to the bell
| the gong. If Sir Walter Scott NAV he
| trusted, the dinner gong came first into
! vogue about the end of the eighteenth CEN
| fury. In the chapter of the "Antiuuary''
| the action of which is supposed to take
| place about the time named, which de-
| scribes the famous dinner party given by
| Monkbarns. we are told that Mr. Oldbucl's
! ungallant abuse of "womanktnd" was IN
| terrupted by the ringing of the bell for
| dinner. Thereupon the antiquary began to
| discourse about the doubt he had been in
| with regard to the dinner call "Gongs."
! he said, now in present use seemed a new
! tangled and heathenish invention and the
| voice of the female womankind | rejected
| as equally shrill and dissonant'-and so he
! had determined to resume the bell The
gong, however, Notwithstanding its thea tn
| enish" origin, has held it's own and is still
| largely used. A story of Tennyson, told
| some time ago in the Century Magazine by
| Mr.. McCabe, shows that gong was the
method employed in the poets beautiful
home at Aldworth on Black Down Mr.
McCabe was strolling with his host on the
| terrace at Aldworth, when the first gong
| sounded for dinner. Il am off," he said.
| ito get into my Clothes" Tennyson stop
| ped him for moment, saying, kindly You
| must excuse my not dressing for dinner:
| never dress for anybody. My old friend
| Argyll was here last week and l said to
! him, Argyll. can't dress for you never
| dress for any one, and if I made an excep-
would set me down snob. We must
keep well with our buffers. you KNOW
|
MOOSE SCENTS DANGER.