TABLE MANNERS DIVORCE

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17285, 22 December 1927, Page 12

TABLE MANNERS DIVORCE

COUPLE ARGUE FOR 37 YEARS. A honeymoon dispute about the proper place for knives on a well-laid table has ended, after 37 years, in the divorce court at Los Angeles. Americans handle their knives and fdrks differently from English people Good manners prescribe that after cutting a morsel from their meat they shall put down the knife and use the fork with the right hand, which accounts for the fact that few citizens of the United States are guilty of the reprehensible practice of .raising the 'knife to the mouth. On the first day after marriage Mr and Mrs Charles Bucher developed opposite views regarding the position of the knife, the bride declaring that it

should be placed on the right hand, and the bridegroom insisting that its obvious position was on the left side of the plate. They quarrelled about this for years. "My husband," said Mrs Bucher, "kept arguing about it every day. He refused to abandon his point. At last I to4d him to forget it. I thought 37 years too long to argue about anything. As I would not put my knife on the left side he started a violent. quarrel iild left me." The judge, supported by the opinion of refined circles throughout the united States, declared that the 37-years refusal of Mrs Bucher to yield to an obviously illogical whi-m in table etiquette was entirely justified. He granted her a divorce decree with liberal alimony.