A FAMILY PAPER DEVOTED TO THE NEWS OF THE DAY IN SOUTH DANVERS (PEABODY), MASSACHUSETTS
January 6 – June 29, 1864 - Part VI
Etiquette
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About South Danvers (Peabody), Massachusetts
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South Danvers Wizard, 6/8/1864,
p. 2/3
ETIQUETTE [Editorial] – “We often read in the papers about coach and car etiquette, but most everything on this subject treats the obligation a gentleman is under to give up his seat to a lady. – There is another question almost entirely overlooked by those who scribble upon this great social question. It is this: - Is they any law, human or divine, to justify a woman in occupying two seats – one by herself, an the other by her crinoline, work-bag, poodle, or what-not – when the car is so crowded that others have to stand. We entered a car on the Eastern Road the other day, and when we had started we noticed that a lady, heavily loaded with silks and velvets, had managed to spread herself like a brooding hen over two seats. All the other seats were fully occupied and several gentlemen were standing. When the conductor came in a passenger called his attention to this little monopoly. Without any ado the knight of the car immediately ordered the senseless woman to gather up her plumage and remove her rattle traps from the other seat, so that a gentleman might sit down. This she sullenly did, and we suppose she went home and wrote an article for the newspaper denouncing the gentlemen who do not always immediately surrender their seats, which they get and pay for, the moment a woman enters the car. If there is anything that tends most to make men illiberal to women in the matter of the railroad car scats, is the boorishness and extreme selfishness of some well dressed females, who ride in our public conveyance, and who not only never surrender their seats to others, but are ever ready to take double room, even if it compels others to stand.” |