Politeness of French Children.

Otago Witness, Issue 1581, 4 March 1882, Page 27

Politeness of French Children.

Politeness with the French is a matter of education as well as nature. The French child is taught that lesson from the beginning of its existence, and it is made a part of its life. 16 is the. one thing that is never forgotten, and lack of it is never f ©rgiveu. The shipwrecked Frenchman who could not get into a boat, as he was disappearing under the waves, raised his hat, and with Ruch a bow as he could make under the circumstances, said, • Adieu, mesdamea ; adieu, messieurs,' and went to the fishes. , I doubt not- that it really occurred, for I have seen ladies splashed by a cab on a rainy day, smile politely at the driver. A race that has women of that degree of politeness can never be anything but polite. When such exasperation as splashed skirts and stockings will, not ruffle them, nothing will. m . The children are delighted in this particular. French children do not go about clamouring for the best places, and skulking if they do not get them, and talking in a rude, boisterous way., ! They do not take favours and attentions, as a matter of course aud unacknowledged. The i slightest attention shown them is acknow1 ledged by the sweetest kind of a bow— not the i dancing-master's bow, but a genuine one— and ; the invariable ' Merci, monsieur !' or madame, or mademoiselle, as tne case may be. I was in a compartment with a little French boy of 12, the precise age at which Amerioan 1 children, as a rule, deserve killing for their rudeness and general dis»g;r9eiiblenejs. He was dressed faultlessly, but his clothes were not the chiof charm. I sat between him aud the open window, and he wai eatiug pears. Now, .anj American boy of that age would either have dropped the cores upon the fl w, or tossed them onfc of tho window mthout a word to anybody. But ibis small goatleman, evoty time with a 4 Perimt; me, monsieur,' said in the most plwant \.a. , »os ..n-l crime to tb.a wiudov? hud dropped tiie i ■ v. iuid then, f Me/ci, monsieur,' «-i tie q-iiy'iy ink Ms se&t. It was a delight. L amt.-i\' l> ay riiafc »ucit small buys do not ttayol v u Auiwieau riulroads to

any alarming extent. Would they were more frequent. And when in his seat, if an elderly person or Any one eke came in, he was the very first to rise and offer his place if it were in the slightest degree more comfortable than the one vacant, and the good-nature with which he insisted upon the new-comer taking it was something ' altogether too sweet for anything,' as the faro bankeress would say. And this boy was no exception. He was not • show-boy out posing before the great American Republic, or such of it as happened to be in France at the time ; but he was a sample, a type of the regulation French child. I have eeen just as much politeness in the ragged waifs in the Faubourg Sfc, Antoiue, where the child never saw the blue sky more than the little patches that could be seen over the tops of seven-storied houses, as I ever did In the Champs Elys&B. On Sunday, at St. Cloud, where the ragged children of poverty are taken by their mothers for air and light, it was a delight to fill the pocketß with sweets to give them, They had no money to buy, and ttte little human rats looked longingly at the riches of the candy Btands, and a sou's worth made the difference between perfect happiness and half -pleasure. You gave them the sou s worth, and what a glad smile came to the lips, and accompanied with it was the delicious half-bow «nd , half courtesy, and invariable ' Merci, monsieur.' One little tot, who could not speak, filled her tiny mouth with the unheardof delicacies she had received, and too young to aay mrd, put up her lips to be kissed.-From Nsuby's Letters Abroad, in Toledo Blade.