Paul Minor

Delving Into Yester~Year

Local historian and writer Paul Miner takes items from The Republican’s Yester-Year column to develop an interesting, informative and often humorous article.

To the Editor: Old-time comportment guidelines, I find, are generally most instructive. From 1882, I learned tilting back in your chair at the dinner table and idly drumming on your head with a fork is condemned in good society. When introduced to a young lady, “immediately ask her age and the size of her shoes.

This will put you on an easy conversational plane.” I’ve never been that charming. The Republican advised in 1895 that nothing beyond a bow was required when men or women were introduced to you. I shall remain silent when next I meet someone.

If you were a boarder or a guest at a big mansion in 1882, you never hurried down for dinner if someone was running late. Wait at least half an hour. It just might be you next time crawling around looking for a lost collar button. Or possibly misplaced dentures.

Readers were advised in 1880 not to interrupt when another was speaking. Nothing was recommended when the speaker wouldn’t allow a word in edgewise. I’m constantly in this situation, my thoughts inaudible. For that reason, I’m considered mysterious and potentially aloof.

If you can speak, never shout during conversation. Instead, “a firm, clear, distinct, yet mild, gentle, musical voice, has great power.”

Never condemn ugly people, particularly when one or more with that “defect” are within earshot.

Union readers in 1881 discovered it was quite the faux pas – at least among Austrian ladies “of high station” – to serve two dishes of the same color in succession. One Austrian lady did and it was “a fault for which she was hardly to be forgiven.” I bet it was sweet corn and squash. Possibly peppers.

Laramie Boomerang editor Bill Nye advised in 1883 against loving a young woman without her knowledge or consent, or “she will hit you with something and put a Swiss sunset over your eye.” Instead, “give her 20 or 30 years in which to see your merits.” Sound suggestion. “The main thing you have to look out for now is to restrain yourself from marrying people who do not want to marry you.” Again, sagacious counsel. Dear Editor, the defunct Brownsburg Record’s etiquette columnist in 1923 was just as wise in describing a “real gentleman.”

If dining with his beloved at his future mother-in-law’s residence and the old woman launches into a coughing fit, the gentleman quietly rises “with a manner full of respect and consideration,” and proceeds to pound her on the back with his fist until the episode passes.

And if you’re taking a young lady for a motor ride, never insist she pony up for all the gas and oil. Rather, “if she wants to buy a new tire occasionally do not mar her pleasure by refusing.”

Danville in the mid-1800s was divided into a class society and the twain never mixed. Population was somewhat beyond 1,000.

“It is a well-known, as well as a lamentable, fact that for a number of years Danville society has been considerably split up.”

The Union in 1876 identified three to four classes, “each holding aloof from the other, and seldom, if ever, co-mingling in social, or even neighborly, intercourse.”

I know the populace at the town’s southwest was seedier, but that was decades later. As well, that far back hardly anyone lived on the other side of the railroad tracks.

“Cod-fish aristocracy” occupied the top berth. Those folks were “galvanized, silver-plated and gold-mounted.” Most likely, they were the ones who paid attention to etiquette and fashion recommendations emanating from New York and Paris.

They deigned not to mingle with the middle class, “hence they have been left alone in their glory to waste their sweetness on the desert air.” The middle class, in turn, “have turned the cold shoulder to those of the lower class.” The fourth class was not identified. Perhaps mentioning that caste was forbidden. As a result, “the beautiful embryotic city of Danville” had been unable to assemble enough young people to “compose a social party large enough to be dignified by the name.”

Times were changing. The cod fish wanted to mingle with the masses, particularly during election time.

Danville could be on the cusp of “the dawn of a better day.”

Paul Miner Lizton ______________________________________________________________________