There is danger at a hotel of little boys loitering about the bar or office, encouraged by unthinking young men, who give them "tastes of drink," and even amuse themselves by teaching them to smoke segars.
And no children, either boys or girls, can live at a public house without hearing and seeing much that it is best they should not know. The English travellers deprecate the American practice of bringing up young people in hotels or boarding-houses. And they are right.
When a lady, having with her a young child, and no nurse-maid, stops for a day at a hotel, she can avoid the inconvenience of taking the child with her to table, and incommoding herself and all who sit near her. She has only to entrust the little traveller to a chambermaid up-stairs; directing the girl how to take care of it, and promising her a gratuity for her trouble. She will rarely have cause to regret such an arrangement. It will spare the annoyance and mortification of having the child make a noise at table, and perhaps compelling the mother to go away with it.
CHAPTER XXIII.
DECORUM IN CHURCH.
We wish it were less customary to go to church in gay and costly habiliments, converting its sacred precincts into a place for the display of finery, and of rivalry to your equally bedizened neighbours. In many Catholic countries,[17] a peculiar costume is universally adopted for visiting a place of worship—a very plain gown of entire black, with a long, black cloak, and a black hood finished with a veil that shades the face. This dress is kept for the purpose of wearing at church. We highly approve the custom, and wish that something similar could be introduced into the United States—particularly on the solemn occasions of taking the communion, or being confirmed as a Christian member. We have known young ladies to have elegant dresses made on purpose, and to get their hair dressed by a barber when preparing for confirmation.
In a Sacred Melody of Moore's, St. Jerome tells us—
"Yet worldly is that heart at best,
Which beats beneath a broider'd veil;
And she who comes in glittering vest
To mourn her frailty—still is frail."