And, by opposing, end it?—To smile—to—bow
No more;—and by such conduct end
The inconvenience and the thousand amenities
Politeness calls for—etc.
During the ride back to Colón on Saturday morning, instead of admiring the scenery I fell into a sort of saturnine revery appropriate to the winding up of a medico-social congress in a country in which hospitality and its time-honored formalities had not yet suffered deterioration. I had associated during my first week in Panama with Spanish Americans and cabmen, and during the second week with my own countrymen and, being in the proper mood, could not help making comparisons. The Spanish Americans and cabmen had been polite and courteous, while the manners of some of the no less worthy North Americans had been as unpolished as their boots.
We have plenty of money as compared with these poor Panamanians, and we know it; everybody knows it. We enjoy spending it freely entertaining and “treating” friends and acquaintances, or in doing them favors, yet we are apt to be exacting and businesslike in our casual relations with strangers whose interests conflict with ours or who do not awaken our sympathies. We generally know what ordinary politeness demands of us, and practise it upon special occasions when we are on our behavior, but we are too natural to cultivate politeness for its own sake. Society manners have for us a savor of insincerity, and we so often neglect to assume its conventional forms that we finally forget to do so and become impolite by habit. In crowds we push ahead, fail to give others their rights and commit all sorts of petty improprieties. In registering at a hotel or buying a ticket or choosing a seat in a public place, we are apt to take advantage of those who politely take their turn, unless we are reminded that we must not trespass, when we may feel ashamed and subside. In Paris one is knocked down or put out for such behavior. Hence, Parisians are polite.
At Hotel Centrál a copy of the daily newspaper was placed in the office for reference in looking up announcements and news items, and was kept carefully folded at one end of the counter, against an elevated case, to show that it was not a stray paper. When the members of the congress arrived it soon disappeared. A Westerner, who probably wished to save his nickel and did not think of anything else, came out of the dining-room after breakfast, saw it, took it up, carried it to the front door, seated himself and read it for twenty minutes. He then put it under him and sat on it. He might at least have returned the paper for which he had not paid to its place. He would still have saved his nickel. Probably he knew better than he did, but had acquired the habit of not stopping to think, and anyway didn’t care Adam.
Another instance of thoughtless conduct was that of a very prominent, distinguished-looking physician whom I found sitting at my table one evening when I came to dinner. He was waiting to be served, and sat there with both elbows on the table, gazing dreamily at the ceiling and nibbling at a crust of bread which he held in both hands. He was probably tired—too tired, or perhaps too indifferent, to remember his table manners. Besides there was no one else at the table, and those about him at the other tables were all strangers; and what did he care for them, so his elbows were rested and his hunger relieved.
American travelers will gladly pay a good price for a good meal or a good room, yet will often sneak out of feeing the waiter or porter, when they know it is the custom to give small fees. It may be wrong to fee waiters, but the Bible says there is a time for everything.
I am sorry to say that a member of the Pan-American Medical Congress was guilty of rudeness toward the lovable, ever-smiling secretary, Doctor Calvo. The member refused to pay the full registration fee of ten dollars in gold because a friend who had been to the congress when it met in Mexico, had told him that he only paid five dollars in gold. Doctor Calvo looked at him with that pleasant, meek smile of his, shrugged his shoulders, showed him the printed rules calling for ten dollars in gold, and said, “Ah! In Mexico! Your friend make it go dere, but I can not make it go here,” and kept on smiling. A North American official would neither have joked nor smiled, nor have exhibited such politeness—a politeness that did credit to the little secretary, and certainly seemed preferable to our sincere but abrupt U. S. method of dealing with such customers. When the objector had left without registering, Doctor Calvo, with a scintillating smile, whispered in my ear the Spanish proverb, “Long journey, long lies.”