Twentieth Century Culture and Deportment / Or the Lady and Gentleman at Home and Abroad; Containing Rules of Etiquette for All Occasions, Including Calls; Invitations; Parties; Weddings; Receptions; Dinners and Teas; Etiquette of the Street; Public Places, Etc., Etc. Forming a Complete Guide to Self-Culture; the Art of Dressing Well; Conversation; Courtship; Etiquette for Children; Letter-Writing; Artistic Home and Interior Decorations, Etc.

by Maud C. Cooke

THE ETIQUETTE OF BOATING.

There are certain customs and usages in connection with this interesting pastime that deserve to be noted and observed.

Gentlemen unaccustomed to the management of a boat should never venture out with ladies. To do so is foolhardy, if not criminal. Great care should be taken not to overload a boat. The frequent boating accidents that happen are in most instances due either to overloading, or to the inexperience of the man at the oars. Men who cannot swim should never take ladies upon the water.

Assisting Ladies to Their Seats.

When the gentlemen are going out with the ladies, one of them steps into the boat and helps the ladies in and seats them, the other handing them down from the bank or pier. When the ladies have comfortably disposed themselves, and not before, the boat may be shoved off. Great care must be taken not to splash the ladies, either in first dipping the oars or subsequently. Neither should anything be done to cause them fright.

A BOATING PARTY.

Who Should Row.

If a friend is with you, he must be given the preference of seats. You must ask him to row “stroke,” as that is the place of honor.

If you cannot row, do not pretend you can. Say right out that you can’t, and thus settle it, consoling yourself with the pleasant reflection that your confession entitles you to a seat by the side of the ladies and relieves you from the possibility of drowning the whole party.

A Popular Exercise.

Rowing has become a great fad among the ladies in recent years, and it is to be commended as a wholesome and vigorous exercise. But it should be indulged only on quiet rivers or on private lakes. If ladies venture into more frequented waters, they must at least have the protection of a gentleman. And in all cases they must wear costumes proper for the exercise, which requires freedom of movement in every part. Corsets should be left at home, and a good pair of stout boots should complete an equipment in which a skirt barely touching the ground, a flannel shirt and a sailor hat are the leading features. Rowing gloves should protect the hands.

The ordinary rowing costume for gentlemen is white flannel trousers, white rowing jersey and a straw hat. Peajackets are worn when their owners are not absolutely employed in pulling the oar.

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[Bicycle: Etiquette]

Cycling having taken such a mighty grasp upon the land, it has naturally followed that an etiquette of cycling should be established, and that it should be well established and rigidly regarded by society.

There are the details of meeting, mounting, right of way and various other points which are carefully observed and give the desired air of fashionable righteousness, without which, for many people, the pleasure of meeting in a social way on one’s wheel would be but legendary.

It is distinctly understood in the first place that “cycling” is the correct word; the up-to-date woman dares not speak of bicycling nor of wheeling.