MANNERS AT TABLE.

81

The story runs, that at an eating-house in the vilest partof London the announcement was made that, " to ensure asupply of clean plates, a Newfoundland dog was kept on thepremises." At the first-class Rhenish hoteis, however, such ananimal would assuredly starve—the ladies and gentlementhere doing the duty of the fabled hound with us.

Now simple, inexperienced people, must not imagine thatwe are here stretching an isolated case into a type of themanners of an entire nation, or citing the habits of what arecalled "low people" as an illustration of the ways of gentle-folks. We are speaking of the behaviour of " officers andgentlemen"—of professors and the members of the learnedprofessions — and indeed ofthose who rank everywhere as themost refined of the middle classes. Often have we seen ladiesat table pour the gravy from their plates into a spoon, andthus drink off every drop of fatty moisture that remained fromthe meat.

Even in the families of teachers, too, who are engaged informing the habits and manners of the Prussian youth—and inwhom, therefore, one would not naturally expect to find anygross violation of decorum — the dish of baked potatoes thatforms the supper of the family is placed in the middle ofthe table, whence all present help themselves to the vegetableswith their hands; and at the tables d'hote where the officersdine you will see the soi-disant " gentlemen" place themselvesbefore the mirror after dinner, and, pulling a filthy hair-brushfrom their pockets, proceed to smooth their locks, whiskers,and moustachios with such ostentation, as plainly indicates thatthey believe they are performing a meritorious rather than anoffensive act.

VOL. II.