INTRODUCTIONS.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 91, 2 August 1895, Page 3

INTRODUCTIONS.

In Boston (says a correspondent), our “best people” are billing the b.;n of their displeasure against the custom of introducing people to other people. The cocial lines, including guests who may be introduced to other guests, are very tightly drawn, and an invitation to peop’e in good society to visit them does not, by any means, involve tbe probability of your becoming known to the other guests. This is not taken to mean that you are not at liberty to ‘-scrape acquaintance ” with any of tbe lordly guests, if you choose to make tbe attempt, but simply that the hostess considers it no part of her duty to impose your acquaintanceship upon her other friends. There are some old families here, •he bearers of pre-revolutionary names and pedigrees, who carry the absurd new notion to a ridiculous extreme. Many of these families are as poor as church mice, and have no little trouble to scrape along in their shabby gentility, but the way they bold up their social superiority is something truly agonising. I beard a bright and cultivated young lady telling of her experience under one of ancestral roof-trees the other evening, and as she is sensible enough to enjoy the absurdity of the whole pretentious custom, it gives her friends no little healthy amusement. At private musicals a few evenings since, one of the young lady guests, who is a social favourite, as well as a remarkable fine amateur pianiste, was approached at the close of a brilliant performance by one of the grand and unapproachab l e dames, who condescended to say; “You play very well. You really must ask some one to introduce you to me!” Needless to say, the presentation has nob yet been made.