Newspaper Page Text
PAGE TWELVE
SHORT TALKS TO YOUNG MEN
(CONCLUDED from page nine.)
If the host neglects to inquire whether you
would like another cup of coffee, tea, cocoa, or
glass of milk, there is no impropriety in your
asking if you may have another—unless you
should happen to see that the supply is ex
hausted.
Don’t rest your elbows on the table, while
feeding.
Don’t grasp the fork as though you meant
to jab somebody: hold it tightly between your
thumb and the first two fingers. When using
the knife to cut with, let your index finger rest
on the upper edge of the blade.
❖ ❖
After your fork has gone to your mouth,
carrying food, don’t think of using it to
supply the plate of another. If asked to
‘‘help” a fellow-guest, use his fork, if there
is none on the platter from which you are to
serve him..
With a spoon that has once been into your
own mouth, you cannot ladle anything for
another.
*l*
A meal of victuals, in private or in public,
brings people closer together; and the most
attractive qualities should be—and generally
are—displayed. Men lay aside worries and
chill reserve, become affable and amiable and
communicative.
In public, formal entertainments a brief,
bright speech is always appreciated; and the
man who can say witty things which “set the
table in a roar,” are much in request. Unless
there is a pre-arranged list of invited speak
ers, any guest may address the head of the
table.
The speaking is not supposed to begin until
hunger has been satisfied, and the end of the
banquet—so far as the eating is concerned —-
is being reached. “The walnuts and the wine”
stage, is the garrulous one; and when tact
fully managed, is most enjoyable.
Wine is universally served at formal feasts.
If you should attend such an entertain
ment, and should not wish to take the wine,
avoid a grand-stand play. Don’t ostentatiously
turn down your glass. That's bad manners.
The thing to do is, to leave “the rosy” to
itself. By your not touching it, you will make
yourself sufficiently understood.
The moderate use of a light, pure wine, at
table, is not at all injurious. On the con
trary. it is beneficial. Noah planted the
vine; and he was one of the first to prove
that too much is what hurts. In all ages,
however, wine has been regarded as a food,
to be used along with other viands.
Its legitimate use, not as a beverage, but as
a food, is sanctioned, over and over again, in
the Old Testament, Christ Himself so used
it, daily. He furnished a miraculous supply
of it for the guests of the Cana marriage
feast—and it wasn't sour-mash, either: it "was
wine. People who drink wine can’t endure
sour-mash. or unfermented grape-juice; and
those Cana people who had already been
drinking the real wine of the country, com
plimented that which Jesus made as the best
of all.
It was the genuine wine of Judea that
Christ was drinking at the Last Supper; and
we make ourselves ridiculous when we pre
tend otherwise.
Therefore, the extreme views of some of
our well-meaning prohibitionists are quite a
severe reflection on Christ, who not only used
wine, constantly, Himself, but who fre
quented the places of the “wine-bibbers.”
* * *
At private dinners, in private houses,
speech-making is not generally indulged in;
nor is it to be encouraged. Formerly the men
were expected to sing songs, usually comic.
A diner-out would make a specialty of
a certain song, would become noted for the
THE JEFFERSONIAN
excellence with which he rendered i L and
would be called upon to sing it where ter he
was invited.
In these days, however, the brief, amusing
story is preferred. The sparkle of conversa
tion, the interchange of thought, the relation
of some stirring incident, the reminiscence
which relates to some celebrity or to some
dramatic occurrence, the jest that tickles—
these are at present the constituent elements
of mental enjoyment of private entertainment,
Pathetic stories, which cause sadness and
tears, are not appropriate. As Madame Mon
tholon said at St. Helena, “they interfere with
digestion.”
People don’t come together, at social func
tions, to make one another feel badly: the
purpose of such a gathering is to promote
the enjoyment of it—each for all, all for each.
(This finishes “Table Manners.” Next
week my subject will be: Manners in the
Home, and out of it.)
The Endless Chain in Foreign Mis
sion Methods
You contribute a certain sum of money,
to have the Gospel preached to the heathen.
Do aou know what goes with it? Did you
know that part of what you contribute is used
to pay American editors and printers for pub
lishing tracts, pamphlets and papers which
urge you to give more to the heathen?
The more you give, the greater is the amount
they spend to persuade you to give still more.
Thus, you are made to foot the expense of
the literature which pulls the coin out of your
pockets.
It is you who pay the editor who is
eternally dingdonging at you for larger con
tributions.
It is you who bear the expense of publish
ing those letters from “the foreign field”—
written by men who are so generously paid
that they spend their lives in ease and luxury.
It is you who foot the bills for the circula
tion given to those begging letters —letters
that absolutely exhaust human ingenuity in
their purpose of deluding you about the true
conditions in those “foreign fields,” and of
getting more cash out of you.
I have read hundreds of those letters, and
have found more cant, more childishness, more
self-righteousness, more exaggeration, and
more selfishness in them than I could have be
lieved possible.
Just An Exchange of Horses
Do you remember the outburst of jubila
tion, not quite a year ago. when the Demo
crats and Insurgents overthrew the one-man
despotism of that grand old rascal, Joe Can
non ?
TWAT 7 TFAN BEFORE THE ELEC
TIONS. So happy were the people, in their
expectation that at last they were to have
relief from the terrible burdens of class-legis
lation, that they voted against the Republi
cans, and elected a Democratic Congress.
Do you remember that I expressed the fear
that the Trusts and Wall Streeters had
merely swapped horses?
It is almost heart-breaking to see how soon
my distrust was justified.
On precisely the same ruling by Cannon,
which caused his overthrow, last March, the
Democrats voted to sustain him, leaving the
Insurgents in the lurch.
This means, of course, that Champ Clark,
who is to be the Democratic boss of the next
House, wants the same one-man power that
old Joe Cannon has enjoyed. And he wants
it for the same purpose.
He is to be the servant of the Trusts, just
as Cannon has been.
He is to answer the people’s cry for bread
with a stone, just as Cannon did.
He is to take his orders from Wall Street,
just as Cannon did.
He is to harden his heart to suffering hu
manity, just as Cannon did.
The Greatest Fault-finder
The item below appears in the Washington
(D. C.) Herald:
“Greatest Living Faultfinder.”
“Ex-Senator Chandler,” says a dispatch from
Washington, “is finding fault with the Carnegie
peace gift.” Why not? Mr. Chandler is the
greatest living faultfinder and has been since they
separated him from the government pay roll. —
St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Anyway, that leaves me out.
As Chandler lives in New England, how
ever, and is not much known in the South and
West, I am still in some danger.
But did you ever stop to think what might
happen, if SOMEBODY did not find the
fault?
Clearly, if it is there, it should be found,
and cast out.
I watch the man in charge of our monster
presses; and I see him constantly on the watch
to make them run right. The moment there is
a fault, he finds it and battles with it, until it
is remedied.
I watch the Proof-reader, as she goes over
the printed slips, looking for errors made by
the printers.
Unless she finds the fault, and corrects it,
the whole shop is worried; and you yourself
comment on the typographical errors.
(Once, one of these faults which was not
found, made me call Gen. Putnam (Old Put)
by the unheard-of sobriquet, Old Pot!)
Faults in Government are natural, since
men are the governors: they are not infallible,
and their faults should be found.
Laws are man-made, and partake of human
infirmity: their faults should be found.
Human institutions are bound to have some
imperfections in them: these should be found
and, as far as possible, corrected.
Our liberties are due to fault-finding an
cestors, who not only found the fault, but
went to Avar to destroy it.
The Progress of Democracy in
England
Last year, some men Avho had been elected
to Parliament lost their seats because they
loaned automobiles to the voters on the day
they voted. The cars Avere used to get the
patriots to the polls. Under English law,
this Avas illegal, and Parliament promptly
punished the candidates Avho violated the
law.
In England, the voter must not be given
any inducement Avhatever, excepting, of
course, verbal solicitation.
In this country of boasted democracy, a Demo
cratic boss, like Lee O’Neill Brown, can bribe
Democratic members of the Illinois legisla
ture to vote for a Republican candidate for
U. S. Senator— the men Avho Avere bribed
making confession of the fact—and yet Lo
rimer, the beneficiary of the bribes, can hold
his seat in the upper chamber of the highest
law-making body on earth.
Not only that; we see the lavish and un
concealed use of money and whiskey in elec
tions, all over the country.
It is because voters and neAvspapers can be
bought, that Ave have such evil laws, and such
law-made conditions.
In England, the legislation is responding
more and more to the will of the people,
BECAUSE the money of the rich has no in
fluence on the voters.
In this country, the people have neglected
to Avatch their public servants, and to study
the trend of their government: hence, the
rings and cliques and committees and cor
porations have been ruling the roost and get
ting what they Avanted.
In England, not only the men, but the
Avomen, take intense interest in their public
business, hold their representatives to the
strictest account, and demand to know the
reason why for every act of Parliament:
hence, the people of England get what they
want.