The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-04-22
PAYS EVEN IN PIRATES.
Value OF PolitenesS When on Robbery Bent
and in Ordinary Life.

"As a general proposition said Mr..
Blinkinton, II should say that a pirate
could get away with it easy, II he would
rudely is distressing to most people-it Is
the familiar adding insult to injury. and
that is something that always rankles.
at has always seemed to me that If ever
I should taken up the piracy game in any
form, I should go about it with the greatest
possible consideration for the personal
feelings of the people robbed, for people
will stand for almost anything as long as
they are decently treated; and 80 with
polite treatment piracy is easy and profit
able, at least for a long time.
1T is not alone in piracy that good
manners count for profit; good n
give great dividends to the practitioner
in the pleasure that arises from giving
other people pleasure and sparing other
people distress.
Il don't find, in my experience, that any
one sort Of people has a monopoly Of good
manners or that any one sort lie more than
another guilty of i'll manner I should
say that prosperity begets thoughtlessness,
but thoughtlessness is not necessarily I'll
manners, and it may be harmless, unless
it develops into Indifference, in which form
it may hurt liz some.
Generally speaking, I don't find myself
any more likely to be disturbed by AFRO
ganoe on the part Of the rich than by rude
ness on the part of the poor; which is to
say that I am as likely to meet i'll manners
from one as from the other. The man
whom I encounter in an elevated car
sitting slowed around 30 that he occupies
a seat and a half and who declines to
straighten around for me may be COM
fortably circumstanced and we'll dressed
or he may be poor and poorly dressed.
In either case the lack Of courtesy might
proceed from precisely the same cause,
from simple boorishnese and natural i'll
mannerednese
at is fear that we may be imp oeed upon,
and further, that the other fellow will think
| that in giving way we are knuckling to him,
that is responsible for many and many an
exhibition of ill manners. We meet a
man coming along the sidewalk on a rainy
day carrying an umbrella, while we are
for either OF us to elevate his umbrella a
little so hat it would clcar the other mans
as we passed, or it would be easy for either
of US to tilt his umbrella a little, with the
same result.
1 lHC Iudl WIN ilillh VIC u Wv I'LL "
him. And precisely the same thing holds
though in a somewhat more acutely felt
form, as to turning ont, rs between two
men meeting in a path wild enough only
for one, beaten dow in new fallen snow,
Il used to know a man up in Turner'S
Falls, Mass, who tried habitually to practice
good manners. and he has told me that In
rainy dav encounters such as I-have cited
he invariably raises his umbrella OF tits 1t
as inv ariably to find the other man return
ing his courtesy in ann corresponding
He tells me that VIII en- he meets q man In
a narrow snow path he always steJs on,
with one foot, so giving the other man hall
the Path, and he tells me that rarely does
this courtesy fail Of return in the manner
ofTered-that he has seen coming along The
path toward him bull headed and deter
mined men who were evidently bent or
hogging the whole Faith, but who, wher
they raw him do this, stepped out with one
foot themselves, yielding to him what hi
conceded to them.
And he tells me that 1t is his common
experience that people treat him as ht
treats them-that II he shows good mannen
to them they show good manners to him
that good n bring good manners ir
return. .
AS 1 remarked at the outset, we viii
stand to be pirated n the person is polite
10 us; but it is in the innumerable little en-
counters Of our daily life, in our meetings
here and there with various people ant
over little things that good manners oun
In these things they count for much.
BLESSED be the man who first invented
good manners: and thrice blest lie he who
makes it the code Of his daily life"