But this distinction can never be fully carried out. We have known it to be set aside by the following direction {p191} marking out a “special style” for a volume of “Decisions”: “Capitalize Supreme Court, Court of Claims, Circuit Court, District Court, and Supreme Court of Tennessee.” Besides, Great Men are inimical to small letters. The President of a Village Lyceum insists on being put up as high as the President of the United States,—in fact, the said president may feel that he is “a biger man” than the President.
And if, on the other hand, as some proof-readers have contended, capitalization should be employed to distinguish, in print, our Government from every foreign Government, the effect would be almost too ridiculous to state; as:
The Chief Executive of the United States had an interview with the chief executive of Mexico. The President said to the president, “How do you do?”—and the president replied, “I am better than ever I was before, for I see the President of the Great Colossus of the North.”—“And I,” rejoined the President, “am delighted with the honor of conversing with the great colossus of the south.” Here the president bowed to the President, and the President shook the president’s hand. The One then took his Oysters on the Half-Shell, and the other his oysters on the half-shell.
The style was once verging toward something very ridiculous, and might have proceeded to the above extreme had not a distinguished Secretary of State, several years ago, made some well-timed suggestions.
If the office style require “board,” “bureau,” etc., referring to a corporation, or collection of individuals, to be put down, cases like the following should form exceptions:
The festive board was graced by the festive board of directors of the Rochester saw-mills.
It should be printed “Board of Directors.”
A new bureau has been forwarded to the new bureau of musical notation.
Put up “Bureau of Musical Notation.”
Thus, by a judicious selection and arrangement of capital and lower-case letters, Boards and Bureaus of gentlemen may {p192} be readily differentiated from mere furniture, mahogany or black-walnut boards and bureaus.