EVERY-DAY ETIQUETTE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10103, 31 July 1893, Page 6

EVERY-DAY ETIQUETTE.

(Harper’s Bazaar.) Husbands and wives, in speaking of osch other to friends and acquaintances, should observe a certain formality. Vulgarity touches bottom when tho personal pronoun “be” or “sbo” is need without the name for which these scond, and this usage, to bo sure, being* confined to out-of-the-way and primitive portions of the country, is never general enough to be worth noticing. You will bear the suuhoanetad woman with the straight skirt reaching to her stout caU'ek'S shoes and the marks of life-long toil and exposure in her hardened hands allude to her backwoods partner as “be,” or as “Tim,” never as “my husband,” or as “Mr Gmilb.” But in more refined circle?, where people know and observe the requirements of etiquette, a woman does not use her husband’s Christian name, much leas any abbreviation of it, outside the narrow confines of their common kindred. He is “John” or “Jack” only among his brothers nnd sisters or to very intimate Mends. When his wife has occasion to speak of him to others, she says “my husband” or "Mr Jones,” doing the very thing as a matter of course which the person who is economical of nouns and lavish of pronouns fails to do. A wife who values her husband’s dignity will not regard it as of little moment whether she upholds this by scrupulously speaking of him with respect, as well as addressing him with courtesy, his position in the social world being helped or hindered by her practice in this regard. If the man have an official title, as colonel, judge, or governor, doctor or professor, his wife will use that title in mentioning him in places and on occasions and in t,ho presence of persons whenever or to whom this usage will be in good taste. .Equally, a husband invariably speaks of “my wife,” or “Mis Brown,” when quoting hie better half, as good husbands so frequently do. She is not Mary or Jennie or Margaret to anybody except her own people, and it is bad form to make the outside world familiar with her sacred home name. To children a father naturally speaks of Ilia wife «e your “ mother,” and in affectionate families it it*. quite common and by no means improper for parents to address one another in the hearing of the little ones as “mamma” and “papa.” Every-day etiquette is trampled under foot in grim and'undemonstrative households, where tbo pleasant custom of daily greetings is unfortunately much of the time iu abeyance. Where a grunt does duty lor a genial good-morning, or an inaudible murmur is ail that is heard when there < liuuid bo a lender good-night, politeness is a plant of slow growth.