Amador ledger. (Jackson, Amador County, Calif.) 1875-19??, 1907-06-28
GOOD TABLE MANNERS
Art In Which the English Claim
to Be Supreme.
SHEER AT OTHER NATIONS.
Germany, France and America, Say the
Britons, Cannot Compare With Them
In Good Form at MeaIs-Use of the
Knife, Fork, Spoon and Napkin.


Britons, Cannot Compare With Them
In Good Form at MeaIs-Use of the
Knife, Fork, Spoon and Napkin.
Let it be admitted that our army is
a failure, has never won victory and
never will; admitted that our navy
would have difficulty in sweeping six
combined great powers off the sea; ad-
mitted that we cannot act up to the
French standard or trade up to the
German or hustle up to the American
or cheat up to the Greek. But we cher
ish our little pride and prejudice. The
Englishman regards himself and is
generally regarded as the best dressed
man in the world. He also plumes
himself on having the best table man
ners. To the Frenchman may be con-
ceded the supremacy in the prepara-
ton of food, while the production Of
it owing to the decay of our agricul-
ture may be left to such outlying
places as Siberia and Chicago.
But when it comes to the eating of
food the Englishman asserts his suprem-
acy, for If the highest art be to con-
ceal art the highest etiquette of eating
should be the triumphant pretense that
one is not eating at all. And here the
Englishman wins. He can eat his
way through a seven course meal
quite unobtrusively. 1t was not al
ways so.
Lord Chesterfield, as 1 have been re-
minded by Mr.. Philip Wellby's edition
Of the "Advice to His Son." sketches
the awkward man who "holds his
knife, fork and spoon differently from
other people, eats with his knife to the
great danger Of his mouth, picks his
teeth with his fork and puts his spoon,
which has been in his throat twenty
times, into the dishes again. If he is to
carve, he never hits the joint, but in
his vain efforts to cut through the bone
scatters the sauce in everybody's face.
He generally daubs himself with soup
and grease, though his napkin is COM
monty stuck through buttonhole."
That napkin is a test of table man
ners, and the nice conduct of the nap
kin caught the attention recently of the
German emperor, who saw one Of his
guests tucking the napkin under a
chin. do you want to be shaved"
was the imperial question. England's
supremacy-in the matter of soup-lies
in the spoon. An Englishman is taught
to take soup from the side of the spoon.
And he is the only man on earth who
energies from soup with the white shirt
front of a blameless dinner and with
out the aid of a tucked napkin. He
lays the napkin across his knees and
uses it when necessary without osten-
tation.
That discreet conduct Of the knife Is
the Englishman's pride and prejudice
at table. There is no nation which lin
its upper middle classes reaches the
English standard of the nice conduct
of the knife, though we are assured
that in the highest circles-among
ameers, shahs, sultans, dukes and mil
honaires-there is beautiful uniform
ity Of department. Our insular instinct
Is to make the knife as inconspicuous
as possible, for there is some sugges-
ton of brutality in the slicing Of bits
of corpses that are doomed to keep our
vile bodies alive.
No such feeling restraints the Ger
man eater, and the French diner is
scarcely less sensitive. The German
who feeds in the average restaurant
will shovel his food into his mouth
with the blade of his knife and Ehen
in difficulty will cram it down with
the handle, nor has he the least scru-
pie about depositing the rejected resi-
due upon the floor. Moreover, with
the continental eater the knife enters
into conversation. 1t is retained in the
gesticulating hand, it is raised implor-
ingly to the ceiling, and-heavenl-it is
brought into strange circles of argu-
ment. 1t is used to point the conclu-
sion at the very breast of the fellow
diner
When you see a man waving his
knife at table, you may be sure he is
an alien. 1--WE wear no swords here"
as Sir Lucius O'Trigger says, nor do
we argue with knives at table.
The English knife, with all its blood
thirsty suggestions, is reduced to the
lowest and least obtrusive Office. 1t is
not even dug into the saltcellar, for
England has reached the delicacy of
salt spoons, and only in a Soho res
taurant will she give you the real SAVIOR
of the continent by providing saltcel-
lars without spoons. You shove your
knife into the salt and dream of Paris,
Bohemia, the gypsy life in which "you
dip your fingers in the pot"
England has suppressed the knife at
table. The Englishman does not use it
for argument or menace or persuasion
or even for the taking of salt. His table
manners enjoin that the knife shall
never be raised. The properly con-
Quoted knife at table never reaches
forty-five degrees above the horizontal.
Unfortunately the American goes a
little too far in the desire to avoid the
obtrusive use Of the knife and takes
refuge in obtrusive concealment. Many
Americans will slice their meat with
the knife, lay the knife by the side Of
the plate and put the pieces into the
mouth with the fork held in the right
hand. Now, this is injustice to the
knife, which has its modest function
London Chronicle