The young lift-man in a City office who threw a passenger out of his
lift the other morning and was fined for the offence was undoubtedly
in the wrong. It was a question of "Please." The complainant,
entering the lift, said, "Top." The lift-man demanded,
"Top--please," and this concession being refused he not only declined
to comply with the instruction, but hurled the passenger out of the
lift. This, of course, was carrying a comment on manners too far.
Discourtesy is not a legal offence, and it does not excuse assault
and battery. If a burglar breaks into my house and I knock him down
the law will acquit me, and if I am physically assaulted it will
permit me to retaliate with reasonable violence. It does this
because the burglar and my assailant have broken quite definite
commands of the law. But no legal system could attempt to legislate
against bad manners, or could sanction the use of violence against
something which it does not itself recognise as a legally punishable
offence. And whatever our sympathy with the lift-man, we must admit
that the law is reasonable. It would never do if we were at liberty
to box people's ears because we did not like their behaviour, or the
tone of their voices, or the scowl on their faces. Our fists would
never be idle, and the gutters of the City would run with blood all
day.
I may be as uncivil as I please and the law will protect me against
violent retaliation. I may be haughty or boorish and there is no
penalty to pay except the penalty of being written down an
ill-mannered fellow. The law does not compel me to say "Please" or
to attune my voice to other people's sensibilities any more than it
says that I shall not wax my moustache or dye my hair or wear
ringlets down my back. It does not recognise the laceration of our
feelings as a case for compensation. There is no allowance for moral
and intellectual damages in these matters.
This does not mean that the damages are negligible. It is probable
that the lift-man was much more acutely hurt by what he regarded as a
slur upon his social standing than he would have been if he had had a
kick on the shins, for which he could have got legal redress. The
pain of a kick on the shins soon passes away, but the pain of a wound
to our self-respect or our vanity may poison a whole day. I can
imagine that lift-man, denied the relief of throwing the author of
his wound out of the lift, brooding over the insult by the hour, and
visiting it on his wife in the evening as the only way of restoring
his equilibrium. For there are few things more catching than bad
temper and bad manners. When Sir Anthony Absolute bullied Captain
Absolute, the latter went out and bullied his man Fag, whereupon Fag
went downstairs and kicked the page-boy. Probably the man who said
"Top" to the lift-man was really only getting back on his employer
who had not said "Good morning" to him because he himself had been
hen-pecked at breakfast by his wife, to whom the cook had been
insolent because the housemaid had "answered her back." We infect
the world with our ill-humours. Bad manners probably do more to
poison the stream of the general life than all the crimes in the
calendar. For one wife who gets a black eye from an otherwise
good-natured husband there are a hundred who live a life of martyrdom
under the shadow of a morose temper. But all the same the law cannot
become the guardian of our private manners. No Decalogue could cover
the vast area of offences and no court could administer a law which
governed our social civilities, our speech, the tilt of our eyebrows
and all our moods and manners.
But though we are bound to endorse the verdict against the lift-man,
most people will have a certain sympathy with him. While it is true
that there is no law that compels us to say "Please," there is a
social practice much older and more sacred than any law which enjoins
us to be civil. And the first requirement of civility is that we
should acknowledge a service. "Please" and "Thank you" are the small
change with which we pay our way as social beings. They are the
little courtesies by which we keep the machine of life oiled and
running sweetly. They put our intercourse upon the basis of a
friendly co-operation, an easy give-and-take, instead of on the basis
of superiors dictating to inferiors. It is a very vulgar mind that
would wish to command where he can have the service for asking, and
have it with willingness and good-feeling instead of resentment.
I should like to "feature" in this connection my friend the polite
conductor. By this discriminating title I do not intend to suggest a
rebuke to conductors generally. On the contrary, I am disposed to
think that there are few classes of men who come through the ordeal
of a very trying calling better than bus conductors do. Here and
there you will meet an unpleasant specimen who regards the passengers
as his natural enemies--as creatures whose chief purpose on the bus
is to cheat him, and who can only be kept reasonably honest by a loud
voice and an aggressive manner. But this type is rare--rarer than it
used to be. I fancy the public owes much to the Underground Railway
Company, which also runs the buses, for insisting on a certain
standard of civility in its servants, and taking care that that
standard is observed. In doing this it not only makes things
pleasant for the travelling public, but performs an important social
service.
It is not, therefore, with any feeling of unfriendliness to
conductors as a class that I pay a tribute to a particular member of
that class. I first became conscious of his existence one day when I
jumped on to a bus and found that I had left home without any money
in my pocket. Everyone has had the experience and knows the feeling,
the mixed feeling, which the discovery arouses. You are annoyed
because you look like a fool at the best, and like a knave at the
worst. You would not be at all surprised if the conductor eyed you
coldly as much as to say, "Yes, I know that stale old trick. Now
then, off you get." And even if the conductor is a good fellow and
lets you down easily, you are faced with the necessity of going back,
and the inconvenience, perhaps, of missing your train or your
engagement.
Having searched my pockets in vain for stray coppers, and having
found I was utterly penniless, I told the conductor with as honest a
face as I could assume that I couldn't pay the fare, and must go back
for money. "Oh, you needn't get off: that's all right," said he.
"All right," said I, "but I haven't a copper on me." "Oh, I'll book
you through," he replied. "Where d'ye want to go?" and he handled
his bundle of tickets with the air of a man who was prepared to give
me a ticket for anywhere from the Bank to Hong Kong. I said it was
very kind of him, and told him where I wanted to go, and as he gave
me the ticket I said, "But where shall I send the fare?" "Oh, you'll
see me some day all right," he said cheerfully, as he turned to go.
And then, luckily, my fingers, still wandering in the corners of my
pockets, lighted on a shilling, and the account was squared. But
that fact did not lessen the glow of pleasure which so good-natured
an action had given me.
A few days after my most sensitive toe was trampled on rather heavily
as I sat reading on the top of a bus. I looked up with some anger
and more agony, and saw my friend of the cheerful countenance.
"Sorry, sir," he said. "I know these are heavy boots. Got 'em
because my own feet get trod on so much, and now I'm treading on
other people's. Hope I didn't hurt you, sir." He had hurt me but he
was so nice about it that I assured him he hadn't. After this I
began to observe him whenever I boarded his bus, and found a curious
pleasure in the constant good-nature of his bearing. He seemed to
have an inexhaustible fund of patience and a gift for making his
passengers comfortable. I noticed that if it was raining he would
run up the stairs to give someone the tip that there was "room
inside." With old people he was as considerate as a son, and with
children as solicitous as a father. He had evidently a peculiarly
warm place in his heart for young people, and always indulged in some
merry jest with them. If he had a blind man on board it was not
enough to set him down safely on the pavement. He would call to Bill
in front to wait while he took him across the road or round the
corner, or otherwise safely on his way. In short, I found that he
irradiated such an atmosphere of good-temper and kindliness that a
journey with him was a lesson in natural courtesy and good manners.
What struck me particularly was the ease with which he got through
his work. If bad manners are infectious, so also are good manners.
If we encounter incivility most of us are apt to become uncivil, but
it is an unusually uncouth person who can be disagreeable with sunny
people. It is with manners as with the weather. "Nothing clears up
my spirits like a fine day," said Keats, and a cheerful person
descends on even the gloomiest of us with something of the
benediction of a fine day. And so it was always fine weather on the
polite conductor's bus, and his own civility, his conciliatory
address and good-humoured bearing, infected his passengers. In
lightening their spirits he lightened his own task. His gaiety was
not a wasteful luxury, but a sound investment.
I have missed him from my bus route of late; but I hope that only
means that he has carried his sunshine on to another road. It cannot
be too widely diffused in a rather drab world. And I make no
apologies for writing a panegyric on an unknown bus conductor. If
Wordsworth could gather lessons of wisdom from the poor
leech-gatherer "on the lonely moor," I see no reason why lesser
people should not take lessons in conduct from one who shows how a
very modest calling may be dignified by good-temper and kindly
feeling.
It is a matter of general agreement that the war has had a chilling
effect upon those little every-day civilities of behaviour that
sweeten the general air. We must get those civilities back if we are
to make life kindly and tolerable for each other. We cannot get them
back by invoking the law. The policeman is a necessary symbol and
the law is a necessary institution for a society that is still
somewhat lower than the angels. But the law can only protect us
against material attack. Nor will the lift-man's way of meeting
moral affront by physical violence help us to restore the civilities.
I suggest to him that he would have had a more subtle and effective
revenge if he had treated the gentleman who would not say "Please"
with elaborate politeness. He would have had the victory, not only
over the boor, but over himself, and that is the victory that counts.
The polite man may lose the material advantage, but he always has the
spiritual victory. I commend to the lift-man a story of
Chesterfield. In his time the London streets were without the
pavements of to-day, and the man who "took the wall" had the driest
footing. "I never give the wall to a scoundrel," said a man who met
Chesterfield one day in the street. "I always do," said
Chesterfield, stepping with a bow into the road. I hope the lift-man
will agree that his revenge was much more sweet than if he had flung
the fellow into the mud.