MAXIMS ON ETIQUETTE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 147, 24 June 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

MAXIMS ON ETIQUETTE.

A quaint little booklet, dated 1844, and entitled "Eighty maxims on Dress, Manners and Accomplishments," contains much that will amuse and interest. The first tells mothers of children "Never to insist 011 showing off their precocity before company," as, "in nine cases out of ten . . . people look upon such exhibitions as a bore!" Another runs: "When a gentleman offers to dance with you, do not, unless for any special reason, refuse." The third informs us that: "The headdress should always bear some relation to the style of features and stature of the wearer." Whilst in the third maxim mentioned the writer says: "Every lady of proper feeling, however fascinating she may deem her personal charms, will carefully eschew that scanty longitude of dress which is allowed to opera dancers and theatrical 'figurantes' only." With regard to dress, however, two others may be mentioned. "Ladies with long, thin arms may remove their unpleasant effect by wearing over them sleeves of gauze, crepe, or lace"; whilst the other tells us that: "If you wear ornaments they should always be of the best description. Paste beads . . . must be carefully eschewed!" So far as table manners go, it would appear that we have progressed in these respects from early Victorian and former days. In the first-named the writer tells her "fair readers" that they are: "Never to reach past anyone at table in order to lay hold of an article," and in the second she gets sarcastic when she says: "If you want to be thoroughly vulgar and distinguished, make your knife do duty in the treble capacity of knife, fork and spoon!" A quotation from a book on etiquette of the seventeenth century, shows that progress had been made since these words were penned: "A gentlewoman must not by ravenous gesture discover a voracious appetite," after which the writer says: "You must not talk with meat in your mouth, nor smack like a pig, nor venture to eat food so hot that the tears stand iu vour eyes!" We are told that in 1544: "The* custom of sending bride-cake (and gloves) along with the cards of a newly-married couple, has long since fallen into disuse. . . . The caids alone arc all that are now considered necessary." f