“Give up to ‘cads’ and ‘snobs’ the practice of smoking in the streets or in a theatre,” says the author of “The Glass of Fashion.”
“Gentlemen never smoke in the streets, except at night,” says another.
“A well-bred man will never pass a lady with a cigar in his mouth, whether he knows her or not, not even in a desert,” says yet another.
From another writer we have: “In the eyes of persons of the best culture, a cigar or a cigarette in a man’s mouth, in public places, vulgarizes his appearance; hence men of the best fashion never smoke in the street, except at night.”
“In England,” says Mrs. Duffey, “a well-bred man never smokes in the street. Are we obliged to say that this rule does not hold in this country, or shall we repeat it with an emphasis on the _well bred_? At all events, no gentleman will ever insult a lady by smoking in the streets in her company; and in meeting and saluting a lady he will always remove his cigar from his mouth.”
Spitting is one of those things that no man should do, if he can avoid it. If in the street, common decency, it would seem, should prompt a man to go to the gutter if he finds it necessary to spit; and if anywhere else, it should prompt him not to spit on the floor, be the floor carpeted or not. We often see men spit on a carpet, especially in our theatres, but we never see any man spit on a carpet of his own.
Another disagreeable habit is that of going about singing, humming, or whistling. The man that habitually does any one of these things, either in the street--no matter what the hour--in the halls of hotels, as he goes up and down stairs, or in his own apartments, when there is any one within hearing, has the manners of a boor, and deserves the calaboose for disorderly conduct.
Pointing, too, as a habit should be avoided, especially pointing with the thumb over the shoulder, which is a very inelegant action.
Another vulgar habit to be avoided is that of going about with a toothpick in the mouth.
“The ball is the paradise of love,” says an English writer. “In the happy spring-time of life, when the brain is fertile in pleasant fancies, and the heart throbs with unexpressed hopes--when every day brings with it a new pleasure, and every night a new reason for looking forward with joyous anticipation to the morrow--when our energies are as exhaustless as our spirits, and no sense of fatigue or weariness can oppress us, the ball-room becomes an enchanted world of light and music and perfume, into which that ubiquitous ‘black care’ of the Roman poet durst not intrude, where sorrow is never seen, and past and future are forgotten in the innocent intoxications of the present.