Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1907-12-23
GOOD TABLE MANNERS
Art In yIhicn the Eng.:sh Claim
10 Pe Supreme.
SHEER AT OTHER NATIONS.

Germany, France ed America, Say the |
Britons, Cannot compare With Them |
In Good Form Ct Meais-Use of the |
knife, Fork, Spoon and Napkin.
Let it be admitted that our army Is |
a failure, has never won a victory and |
never will admitted that our navy
would have difficulty in sweeping SIX |
combined great powers of the sea: al
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. Iae
Englishman regards himself ana is
generally regarded as the best dressed
man in the world. He also pluIes
himself on having the best table man
ners To the Frenchman may be con-
coded the supremacy in the prepare
ton Of food, while the production OF
IL 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 MS
! way through a seven course meal
/ quite unobtrusively. It was not al
ways so.
Lord Chesterfield, as I 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
i scatters the sauce in everybody's face.
He generally daubs himself with soup
and grease, though his napkin is COM
monty stuck through q 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 tecking the napkin under i
chin. do you want to be shaved p
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
trent of a blameless dinner and with
out the aid Of tucked napkin. He
laws the napkin across his knees and
uses it when necessary without osten-
tation 5
That discreet conduct of the knife IS
the Englishman's pride and prejudice
at table There is no nation which Tin
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
! lionaires-there is a beautiful uniform
i ity of department. Our insular instinct
! is to make the knife as inconspicu0us
e as possible, for there is some sugges
ton of brutality in the slicing Of bits
of corpses that are doomed to keep oui
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 wheI
in a difficulty will cram it down witt
Is the handle, nor has he the least scru
pie about depositing the rejected resi-
l. due upon the floor. Moreover, witt
the continental eater the knife enter
n into conversation. It Is retained in tn
gesticulating hand, it is raised implor
ingly to the ceiling. and-heaven.-it l
brought into strange circles of argu
ment It is used to point the conclu
81 sion at the very breast of the felloN
diner.
r, When you see man waving hi
or knife at table, you may be sure be
an alien. 1--WE wear no swords here,
be as Sir Lucius O'Trigger says, nor
at we argue with knives at table.
The English knife, with all its bloot
thirsty suggestions, Is reduced to tn
- lowest and least obtrusive Office. 1t
not even dug into the saltcellar, Il
England has reached the delicacy
e., salt spoons, and only in Soho re
rs taurant will she give you the real save
sW of the continent by providing saltce
lars without spoons. You shove yo'
it knife into the salt and dream of Par1
rel Bohemia, the gypsy life in which "yt
in dip your fingers in the pot"
England has suppressed the knife
ma table. The Englishman does not use
a;r for argument or menace or persuaslt
r. or even for the taking of salt. His tai
manners enjoin that the knife sh;
never be raised. The properly co
re- Quoted knife at table never reach
no forty-five degrees above the horiZont
'ay Unfortunately the American goes
re. little too far in the desire to avoid t
ill obtrusive use of the knife and tax
on. refuge in obtrusive concealment. Ma
lay Americans will slice their meat wi
vas the knife, lay the knife by the side