Good Manners Again Fashionable

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1034, 26 July 1930, Page 18

Good Manners Again Fashionable

, OOD manners have come back into fashion. Fashionable young men and w-omen are now quito polite to one another. I Now, when a girl drops

her glove, no longer does she have to pick it up herself and while doing so receive a playful kick from her beau. Invitations are generally answered now, even if it is "to regret,” and there are many less unexpected'v empty places at the table. So writes Cecil Beaton in an amusing article in the “Daily Mail.” During the last 10 years we lia' O been becoming ruder to one another and more and more casual; this odd behaviour was considered amusing, the birch rod was spared, and there were even sniggers at people who were civil, for they were considered too genteel and elegant—they were “refrained” and uncontemporary figures.

Bustle-hustle, with short skirts and short hair and all the rest of it—people thought they had not the time to be polite; they thought they were being very frank, they said what they thought they meant, and they were often very stupid and generally very rude when they thought they were being magnificently ruthless, and those that were annoyed and hurt were in a minority and had to lump it. Grown-up Children

The precocity of grown-up children was received amid hilarious giggles. “May I introduce you to Mr. So-and-so, who is a great friend of your father’s?” and the brat would answer: “No, you’ may not.” Yells of laughter from the Bright Young Things. Eligible young bachelors could be seen at dances pointing to the hostess and saying: “ Who is that perfectly frightful woman over there?” Even actresses, the ones that became social, were infected, and I remember one leading lady who, when asked rather tentatively if she wouid like to buy a programme to help a hospital, thought she was being very witty and smart when she replied: “Nowe, oye should height tewe!” (No. I should hate to.) One young man dined out for weeks upon his story of how he put out his tongue 20 times at a well-known hostess at the Embassy Club, and how, when his father told him to send his apologies and a token of regret of her the next day, he ordered to be dispatched a large glazed ox tongue.

People thought it clever and brave to be rude; but the whole thing became so overdone as to be intolerable. Through people's casualness there were so many muddles and misunderstandings, there was so much that was unsatisfactory and incommoding, that people gradually realised that it was as much trouble and took as much time to be polite, and the results of politeness were so much more satisfactory. And once again fashion is paradoxical. Just when everyone is almost non-existent with hurry and robotical utilitarianism, fashion decrees a return of long skirts and curls. Cocktails have given place to sherry. Floweriness and elegance and airs and graces are now in vogue, and inelegant manners do not fit in with the prevailing tendency. A new generation of Bright Young Things has appeared that is inherently and instinctively well behaved, and they realise that good manners are of the. first importance, and to possess such places them at a distinct advantage over the others. The new Bright Young Things have ruined the market for the older

Bright Y’oung Things, who now in self-preservation have to try to toe the line, though after so much slackness, casualness, and independence they find it very difficult to smile sweetly and to bow to the people they have ignored for so long. They are simply not asked to dinners if they giggle secretly and indulge in private jokes, and they only

talk Mogo-sago or pig Latin to on* another in front of people who do net know this jargon. They are considered unornamental and messy now if their locks of hair fall over their eyes into the soup, and it is no longer an amusing novelty to see young women combing their hair at dinner. People generally are so sick of bad manners that in a flash a huge body has arisen to encourage courtesy. It is society's answer to the whole situation, for if there are no manners in society, upon what does ft exist? Good manners can certainly be misused. They can be used too facilely. - so that the result is sickly, ungenuieely sleek, stagey, forced, and even fTaciously condescending; bnt there is not much chance of these faults becoming prevalent just yet, for our manners as a whole are still in a pretty bad state. Nowadays people do write letters of thanks for lasi night’s party, and they do send flowers; young men do say “sir to older men. But it is still necessary for signs to be put up at dances, and the guests treated as though they were a pack of school children "Please place cigarette ends here. 1 no smoking.” American Influence The Americans were responsible foe | a great many of the casual manners. | so too, now, are they responsible foe the good manners. English P*®P ! are becoming less frigid and nnfor ' i coming, and we pay much more ; tion than we used to when an in ! duction is made; we are learning 1 catch the name, and to smile a® make some appropriate remark: ‘ we still have to learn the triumph*® spontaneity of “I am glad to . - you,” and “I just love your handgrip That you must be polite n does not necessarily mean that - must never be rude. Someone ovee said, "A gentleman is a petmtm is never rude unintentionally. »®“ today you feel like giving an a sock on the jaw, go to it »>«* ferce and vigour. But if yo your tongue out, or make a „ at a hostess, you will not rece much applause as "* e 7 h - t ’ that there is every possibility tha particular hostess will not c p. another opportunity of not «- - ing to her next request for ‘ sure of your company at her _