"Capers" (e. g.
climbing trees, etc.), while good exercise and undoubtedly
fashionable in certain "speedy" circles, are of questionable
taste for ladies, especially if indulged in to excess or while
walking with young gentlemen on the Sabbath. Sport is sport, and
no one loves a stiff game of "fives" or "rounders" more than I,
but the spectacle of a young unmarried lady and her escort
hanging by their limbs on the Lord's Day from the second or third
cross arm of an electric telegraph pole is certainly carrying
things a bit too far, in my opinion, even in this age of "golf"
and lawn "tennis."
A young gentleman escorting a young lady on foot to a formal ball
or the opera should walk on the outside, especially if they are
both in evening dress and have a long distance to go. It is never
incorrect to suggest the use of a street car, or as one gets near
the Opera House, a carriage or a "taxicab."
A young man walking with a young lady, when accosted by a beggar,
always gives the beggar something unless the young lady is his
wife or his sister.
So much for pedestrians. I can not, of course, pretend to give
here all the rules for those who "go afoot" and I can only say
that the safest principle for correct behavior in this, as in
many social matters, is the now famous reply Thomas Edison once
made to the stranger who asked him with what he mixed his paints
in order to get such marvellous effects.
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