CHAPTER XVIII.
MISCELLANEOUS.
When you are walking with a lady who has your arm, be careful to keep step with her, and do not force her to take long, unladylike steps, or trot beside you with two steps to one of yours, by keeping your usual manly stride.
Never allow a lady, with whom you are walking, to carry a bundle, shawl, or bag, unless both your hands are already occupied in her service.
When you attend a wedding or bridal reception, it is the bridegroom whom you are to congratulate, offering to the bride your wishes for her future happiness, but not congratulation. If you are acquainted with the bridegroom, but not with the bride, speak to him first, and he will introduce you to his bride, but in any other case, you must speak first to the bride, then to the bridegroom, then the bridesmaids, if you have any previous acquaintance with them, then to the parents and family of the bride, and after all this you are at liberty to seek your other friends among the guests. If you are personally a stranger to the newly married couple, but have received a card from being a friend of one of the families or from any other reason, it is the first groomsman’s place to introduce you, and you should give him your card, or mention your name, before he leads you to the bride.
Always remove a chair or stool that stands in the way of a lady passing, even though she is an entire stranger to you.
You may hand a chair to a strange lady, in a hotel, or upon a boat; you may hand her water, if you see her rise to obtain it, and at a hotel table you may pass her the dishes near you, with perfect propriety.
In this country where every other man uses tobacco, it may not be amiss to say a few words on smoking.
Dr. Prout says, “Tobacco is confessedly one of the most virulent poisons in nature. Yet such is the fascinating influence of this noxious weed, that mankind resort to it in every form they can devise, to ensure its stupifying and pernicious agency. Tobacco disorders the assimilating functions in general, but particularly, as I believe, the assimilation of the saccharine principle. I have never, indeed, been able to trace the development of oxalic acid to the use of tobacco; but that some analogous, and equally poisonous principle (probably of an acid nature), is generated in certain individuals by its abuse, is evident from their cachectic looks, and from the dark, and often greenish yellow tint of the blood. The severe and peculiar dyspeptic symptoms sometimes produced by inveterate snuff-taking are well known; and I have more than once seen such cases terminate fatally with malignant disease of the stomach and liver. Great smokers, also, especially those who employ short pipes and cigars, are said to be liable to cancerous affections of the lips.”
Yet, in spite of such warnings met with every day, Young America, Middle-aged America, and Old America will continue to use the poison, and many even use it in excess. An English writer gives some very good rules for the times and places where smoking may be allowed, which I quote for the use of smokers on this side of the water.