University of Virginia Library

The stanza—

which you have just
sung will not help
you much unless you
change your course of
life. You must commence dressing more like angels
here in this world if you want to be a real live angel
in the next. You'd make healthy lookin' angels,
wouldn't you? Now, wouldn't you? Angels don't
wear pearl powder, do they? and angels don't wear
false braids. They don't enamel their faces and smell
of Caswell and Hazard's cologne, nor bore holes in
their ears like Injuns and put Tiffany's ear-rings in
them! Angels don't dye their hair, nor wear big diamonds,
and have liveries and footmen, like many of
our “shoddy” people. They—

“But how can we tell `shoddy' people, Uncle Eli?”
interrupted several young ladies in the congregation.

This way, my friends, I said: When a strange family
arrives at our hotel, you must watch them closely.
Divinity puts up certain infallible signs to distinguish
the ignorant and vulgar from the children of culture
and virtue.

1. If a lady comes into the parlor with a diamond
ring on the outside of her glove, it is safe to ask her
how much she gets a week. [“Hear, hear!” and several
ladies put their hands under their paniers.]

2. If Providence erects a dyed mustache over the
mouth of a man, it is to show that he is a gambler
or a vulgarian. [Cheers, when two Americus Club
men, a gambler, and four plug-uglies from Baltimore,
put their hands over their mustaches.]

3. If, when that new family enter or leave the dining-room
or parlor, the gentlemen rush ahead, leaving the
ladies to follow, there is something “shoddy” somewhere.

4. If the man presents the ladies to the gentlemen,
instead of vice versa, and they all shake hands on first
presentation, then you may know they hail from Oil City.

5. If, when they go in to dinner, they do nothing but
loudly order the waiters around, and talk about the
wine, you can make up your mind they are the first
waiters they ever had and that is the only wine they
ever drank. If they pick their teeth at the table, or
take out their false teeth and rinse them in the tumbler
[A voice—“Shoot them on the spot!”]—yes, my friends,
I say that to their teeth.

6. If, when a gentleman sits in the parlor talking to
a lady, he doesn't sit up straight, but sprawls all over
the sofa, puts the soles of his boots on the lady's dress,
on the furniture, or wipes his shoes on his own white
linen pantaloons, you'd better refuse an introduction
to him. [Applause, when eight young fellows, who sat
with their legs radiating like the wings of a windmill,
or sprawling one foot cross-legged in the empty air,
whirled themselves right side up.]

7. If the ladies in that party whitewash their faces,
redden their lips, blacken their eyebrows, or bronze or
yellow their hair, just you think this is another sign
which Providence puts up so you can shun them.
Enamel and hair-dye are social beacon-lights, to enable
you to keep off the rocks of Cypria. Just you keep
away from such people, for they are wolves in sheep's
clothing.

Voice from a young lady—“But we want to look
beautiful, Mr. Perkins.”

But this will not make you beautiful, my children.
Any sweetheart who is so shallow as to take whitewash
for the human skin, or rouge for the rose-cheeks of
nature, is too much of a sap-head to make a good
husband; and if he is smart enough to see through
your deception—why, he will surely leave you in disgust.
[Applause by the gentlemen, while several ladies
wiped their faces with their pocket-handkerchiefs.]

8. If, when this family get into their carriage to ride
around the Park, the young ladies appear in gaudy
colors, throw over their laps a bright yellow and red
or blue afghan, and the coachman wears a gold hat-band,

and a sprawl-tailed yellow livery, with velvet
collar, and holds brass-bespangled horses with white
reins, you may know that the owner keeps a livery
stable and that this is his first carriage.

9. It is considered the height of impoliteness to
criticise persons to their faces, and still many vulgarians
try to make polite reputations by picking up other
people, when the correction is ten times a more flagrant
breach of etiquette than the original mistake. I have
seen plebeians who, if a man by design chose to eat
the fine ends of his asparagus with a knife, would call
his attention to the error—thus straining at a doubtful
gnat of custom and swallowing a camel of impoliteness.
Politeness is to do as you would be done by,
and anything you do, if you wish to be polite, must
be tried by this golden rule.

In conclusion, my dear brothers and sisters, I will
say that politeness does not depend upon eating peas
with a fork, but it rests on the grander and broader
basis of love for your fellow-man.

How is your mother, Johnny?

“Oh, she's dead, I thank you!” is a silly drop of
Mrs. Potiphar politeness, which looks sick beside the
big ocean of manly generosity which comes out of the
Pike's Peak, “Come up, old boy, and liquor, or fight!”

There being several Members of Congress present,
Dr. Chapin now lined the hymn—

and the congregation, like a man with a poor hand at
euchre, passed out.