Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-06-10
PAYS EVEN IN PIRATES.
Value of Politeness When on Robbery
Bent and In Ordinary Life.


"As a general proposition. said Mr..
Biinkinton, Il should say that pirate
could get away with 1t easy. IL he would
observe good manners. To be robbed rudeIy
is distressing to most people-it Is the fa-
miliar adding insult to Injury. and that is
something that always rankIes.
1T has always seemed to me that II ever
should have taken up the piracy game in
any form. 1 should go about it with the
greatest possible consideration for the per-
sonal feelings ofsthe people robbed. for peo-
pie will stand for almost anything as long
as they are decensly treated, and SO with
polite treatment piracy is easy and profit
able. at least for a long time.
ut is not alone in piracy that good man
ners count for profit; good manners give
great dividends to the practitioner in the
pleasure that arises from giving other peo-
pie pleasure and sparing other people dis
tress.
81 don't find in my experience that any
one sort of people has monopoly of good
manners or that any one sort Is mere than
another guilty Of Ill manners should say
that prosperity begets thoughtlessness. but
thoughtiessness is not necessarily Ill man.
ners. and It may be harmless. unless 1t de-
yelops into indifference, in which form 1t
may hurt US some.
Generally speaking, don't find myself
any more likely to be disturbed by arro-
sance on the part OF the rich than by rude
nesS on the part of the poor, which is to
say that / am as likely to meet i'll manners
from enc as from the other. The man
whom l encountered in an elevated car
sitting Slowed around so that he occupies
q seat and half and who declines to
straighten around for me may be COM
fortably circumstanced and well dressed or
he may be poor and poorly dressed. In
either case the lack OF courtesy might pro-
coed from precisely the same cause-from
bOOrIShnhSS iIi-rna n
neredneSs.
1T is fear that we may impose upon,
ands further. that the other fellow Will
think that in giving way we are knlIckliug
TO him, that is responsible for many and
many an exhibition of all manners. We
meet man coming along the sidewalk on
a rainy day carrying an umbrella while
We are doing the same 1t would be an
easy thing for either of US to elevate MS
umbrella little SO that it would clear the
other mans as we passed. or 1t would be
easy Tor either of us to tilt his umbrella
a little. with the same result
I'VE hesitate to do either for fear the
cther man Will think we are knuckIinp TO
hln And precisely the same thing holds
though in a somewhat more acuteiy fell
1orm' as to turning out, as between two
men meeting in a path wide enough only
Tor one, beaten down In new-faIIen snow
I used to know a man UP in Turner s
Falls, Mass. who tried habituaIly to prac-
tics GOOD manners, and he has told me that
cited he invariably raises his umbrella or
Tits IT, as invariably to find the other ma n
returning his courtesy In manner CORE
spending. He tells me that when he meets
man IN narrow snow path he always
steps out with one foot, so giving the other
man half the path, and he tells me that
rarely does this courtesy fail of return IN
the manner ofered-fhat he has seen com
ing along the path toward him bulI-hea ded
and determined men who were. evidentIy
bent on hoggfng the whole path. but who
when they saw him do this, stepped out
with one foot themselves. yielding TO him
what he conceded to them.
And he tells me that it is his common
experience that people treat him as he
treats them-that If he shows good man
ners to them they show good manners to
him. that good manners bring good man
ners In return.
'As 1 remarked at the outset. we will
stand to be pirated II the person Is polite
to US; but II Is in the innumerable little en-
counters of our daily life. in our meetings
here and there with various people and
over little things that good manners count.
In these things they count for much.
: Blessed be the man who first invented
good manners; and thrice blest Is he who
makes 1t the code of his daily life