MANNERS IN PUBLIUC PLACES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4255, 10 December 1881, Page 4

MANNERS IN PUBLIUC PLACES.

(English Paper.) English and Foreign manners are frequently contrasted, and vory often we fear the verdict is in favour of the lattor. Certainly this is the case when the behaviour of largo crowds is in question. Newspaper writers are vory fond of inditing panegyrics on tbe " good humour " of an English orowd, and certainly it is, as a goneral rule, fairly amenable to the direction of the police ; but in intelligence it is far inferior to, let us say, a French orowd, which arranges itself instinctively en queuej and waits with an almost pathetic patience/ enlivened only by Bailies of wit, whioh contrast favourably with tho rough horse-play with which an English crowd contrives to lighten the tedium of waiting. But it is of highor-claBS crowds that wo wish now to speak, and we are forced to confoss that in Knglanda woll-drossed crowd has often but a vory poor idea of propriety. Ladies ond gentlomen who, in ordinary life, are fairly courteous and well bred, no sooner find themselves in a crowd, assembled for tbo purpose of °eeirig anything, than they throw politeness and consideration for the feelings of others to tbe winds, and push, fight and struggle, as if escaping for thoir lives from a burning building. All sense of fairnoss, too, seem to desert them; thoy climb ovor borriorß and usurp the places Bet apart for others, with tho greatest coolness, and, if they cannot bs reached by the police and removed, defy .the unfortunato ticket-holders, who arrive later only to find their places filled by those who have no right to them. And no sort of shume ever appears to bo felt by the intruders ; indeed, tbey boaßt afterwards of what good places thoy securod, and loudly congratulate themselvos on their own cleverness. It is frequently instanced by foreigners aB an illustration of tho bad manners of the English, that they walk about foreign churches as if they wore simply picture galleries, and talk and laugh though tho service is going on. Tho excuse generally made for this — a sadly lame one wo have alwoyß thought — is that English Protestants cannot bo expected to realise any solemnity in the services of another church. But what excuse can be made for the conduct of tbo well-dressed crowds that fill our own churches on the occasion when anything is to be seen thero ? Tbo guests . invited to a fashionable wodding seem frequently to forget altogether that tho edifice in which thoy are assembled is a sucred ono, and talk and laugh almost as froely as if in a drawing-room, while tho ppectiitors fight for overy coign of vantage, and completely forget tho decorum due to the place. At a fashionable wedding in a Bolgravian church thia Biimmer, tho buzz of frivolous conversation was bo loud as seriously to scandaliso all reverent persons ; and at tho funeral of the lato lamented Dean of Westminster, the majority of tho sightseers lost, all sense of tho sanctity of the pluca and the solemnity of tbo occasion, in their anxiety to seo everything that was to be seen. Apparently the crcat object was not to pay tho loet token of reepect to a greut and good man, hut to seo the greatest number of notabilities attending tho funeral, and to point thom out in a rather loud voico to friends. Somo peoplo wero not ashamed to mount on tho Boats, and even uso opera glusses, while the Bolemn aorvico was proceeding : whilo others fought for bettor places, and complained angrily and loudly of those who, boing iu tho places duly allotted to them, naturally declined to.movo and give them up. i Probably in no othor country would such a Bceno havo been possible. Abroad, arrangomcntß would have beon mado, and they would have boen implicitly acquiesced in ; whorcas

tho great object in an English well-dreesed ■ crowd always seoms to be for each person to I achieve a position to which ho or she is not entitled to. No ono knows better the excessive rudeness of a crowd of presumably wellbred persons than those wbo have fought tbeir way through one of Her Majesty's drawing rooms. There every thoughtful arrangement is made ; there is not tbe very slightest necessity that any lady should be crushed or crowded ; but the insane desire to be first, to gain an advantage over her neighbour, animates each one alike, and the result is a orußh and a Btruggle, in which all get torn and heated, and in which intonse rudeness is Bhown, and often far from courteous language used. We are always told that it is this determination to be first, to allow no competitor to pass in the race, which is tho secret of the succeßß and preeminence of the Anglo-Saxon race ; and doubtless there is muoh truth in the assertion. Still, even virtues in excesß may become defects, and this hot desire to distance everyone else in a crowd iB certainly a case in point. Courtesy and consideration for others would prevent the vulgar struggling of whioh we complain.