Linnen” for the State dinners of the elders, but none were included in the “Common Table Linnen.”[1]
The old adage that every man eats a peck of dirt before he dies must have originated at Commons. Cider, the favorite drink after beer, was served in a common can, passed from mouth to mouth. The order that the hall be washed out “at least once a quarter” throws a murky light on the standard of cleanliness considered sufficient. It is only too probable that the personal neatness of the waiters—and of the diners as well—was of a correspondingly shady quality. As dry old Gordon, the contemporary historian of the Revolution, observed of the Yankee militia, “when at home, their female relations put them upon washing their hands and faces, and keeping themselves neat and clean; but being absent from such monitors, through an indolent heedless turn of mind, they have neglected the means of health, have grown filthy, and poisoned their constitutions by nastiness.”[2]
- ↑ Inventory of 1683: College Book, i, 85. Napkins were absolutely essential to cleanly eating in the days before the introduction of forks, when all food that could not be spooned had to be manipulated with the fingers. Students in England were much more refined in their table manners. Charles Gawdy of Caius College, Cambridge, sent home in 1687 for “hauf a douson napkins”; and Bassingbourne Gawdy of Christ’s wrote in 1654: “I want also half a douzen of napkins which are to be used in the hall which in the meantime I am constrained to borrowe.” Although the table-cloth was probably not altogether immune, there were strict rules against using it as a substitute. Venn, Early Collegiate Life, 211, 217.
- ↑ History of the American Revolution (1788), ii, 142.
