The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1913-10-03
HOW TO Be GENTLE
VuIuar Familiarity Never in
Good Form.
Old ensilshmsn's Advice and Warning
Against Calling Men and Women
BY Christian Names on Short
Acquaintance.

I. Acquaintance.
When our forefathers spoke OF q
mans address" they meant his whole
social bearing Nor was il by mere
freak or accident of language that the
word thus exchanged a narrower for
wider significance. A mans way OF
accosting a stranger, or even an ac-
auaintance or even a friend, reveals
a good deal OF his character and goes
a long way toward distinguishing
gentleman from boor. Good man
ners are easy and free, but free ana
easy" manner Is an abomination. MY
attention, says a writer in the Man
chester (England) Guardian, is invited
to the subject by one Of those young
inuuirers who writes as follows:
II attached no particular Importance
to the questions until few weeks ago.
And now would ask what eX-
perience has taught you. Is one 10
call every Tom, Dick and Harry by ms
Christian name. or plain Brown. Jones
and Robinson, prefiXed with MT. &C.
cording TO age? Is one to call every
Joan, Jane and Betsy by her Christian
name. or merely Miss So-and-So?"
I must not indicate my correspond
ent by the name Of the place IN which
ne dwells, so for the nonce he shall
be Tom Fyttoh.f pamsed after a very
ATTRACTIVE hero who suffered from rath'
or similar ADVERTISEMENTS; and to my
friend Tom would at the outset I'M.
part a salutsry warning which / re-
ceived very early in life.
T. When yel 2gce are on terms TO call
Christian names, you are on terms 10
quarrel" This somber truth. even II it
stood alone. should be a deterrent from
premature and needless intimacies.
fancy that Cowper. who had the double
sensitiveness of the gentleman and the
poet. must have been smarting from
some experiences OF this sort when he
wrote his stanzas on Friendship:
The man who halls you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumps upon your BACK
How ne esteems your merit,
Is such a friend that one had need
To pardon or to bear 1t.
And the odd thing IL that the men
.~Ao are thus extensively friendly al
ways seem to imagine that they are
spaking themselves extremely pleas
ant: they are too blind to see the an
,noyance which they cause and too
thick headed to feel that their clumsi-
.mess 10 resented. Warned by their ex-
ample, let Tom Fytton confine him
self to surnames until he is really sure
q his ground; and then, when ac-
.enAintance has led to intimacy. he VIII
Aad that the Christian name slips In
Iseasibly and inevitably, into Its place
There is no greater error than to
mistake vulgar familiarity for gentle
a>anlike ease" but there Is familiar
aty which is not the least vulgar, and
';gentiemanly" has no necessary con-
nection with social rank. Some OF the
.truest gentlemen have ever known
have been miners, and / have seen ag-
rtcultural laborers whose manners no
instruction could have mended.
IL Tom to call Joan, Jane and Betsy
By their Christian names? No. can
not say 1t too often or too plainly. To
"a man, every woman should be a d.
,yinity; and the slightest touch of IA
miliarity or free and easiness Is in
consistent with that reverence which
should be his instructive attitude. IL
Ia true that my favorite heroine, Die
E>rapk OShaldiSOn
to set convention at defiance. call
me Tom Vernon, if you have mind,
but speak to me as you would friend
and companion" But then Die, with
all her charms, was bit OF holden
and had learnt her manners from her
brutal cousins. Frank, who was gen
ltieman. as we'll as good fellow, de-
.clined to take her at her word, and at
their final parting las il seemed) she
was still to him Miss Vernon"
II forward or conceited youth pre-.
.sumes to be free and easy" with what
he will probably call a CURL" he Is
likely to receive a snub which will
abide with him, to his great advantage,
all his life long. So direct familiarity
70 dificult and dangerous and the
'bounder generally has sense enough
to avoid it. But he compensates him
self Indirectly by speaking OF girls,
behind their backs, by their Christian
names. though he knows full well that
he dare not so call them to their faces.
There he shows himself a coward as
we'll as a cad. and Tom Fytton will
perhaps find an opportunity of telling
him SO.