manners of our young women a freedom which, as our New World fills
up with people of foreign birth, cannot but lead to social
disturbances. Other national faults, which English writers and
critics kindly point out, are our bumptiousness, our spread-
eagleism, and our too great familiarity and lack of dignity, etc.

Instead of growing angry over these criticisms, perhaps we might
as well look into the matter dispassionately, and see if we cannot
turn the advice in some degree to our advantage. We can, however,
decide for ourselves on certain points of etiquette which we
borrow from nobody; they are a part of our great nation, of our
republican institutions, and of that continental hospitality which
gives a home to the Russian, the German, the Frenchman, the
Irishman, man, and the "heathen Chinee." A somewhat wide and
elastic code, as boundless as the prairies, can alone meet the
needs of these different citizens. The old traditions of stately
manners, so common to the Washington and Jefferson days, have
almost died out here, as similar manners have died out all over
the world. The war of 1861 swept away what little was left of that
once important American fact--a grandfather. We began all over
again; and now there comes up from this newer world a flood of
questions: How shall we manage all this? How shall we use a fork?
When wear a dress-coat? How and when and on whom shall we leave
our cards? How long and for whom shall we wear mourning? What is
the etiquette of a wedding? How shall we give a dinner-party?
The young housekeeper of Kansas writes as to the manners she shall
teach to her children; the miner's wife, having become rich, asks
how she shall arrange her house, call on her neighbors, write her
letters? Many an anxious girl writes as to the propriety of
"driving out with a gentleman," etc. In fact, there is one great