Professor Emeritus Eliot has lately been lecturing to the ladies of Harvard upon modern manners, and there is one part of his remarks which will be read with general interest, that upon the telephone greeting. He pointed out that the usual opening of a conversation on the telephone with the word "Hullo" was, of course, a thing unknown in his youth, but so was the telephone. At once the "New York Times' rushes to the defence of "Hullo," and points out that on the grounds of clearness and force it is preferable to the rather futile 'Are you there?' of the English, as also on the ground of that simplicity and ease which are the essentials of what rhetoricians strangely call elegence.'"' But we must not be outdone, and in our turn we must remark that "Are you there" is a hundred times better than the Chinese "Wah," or whatever they shout when they ring up the wrong number. But it is not our fault if we are forced to say "Hullo," "Are you there?" or "Wah." Were we endowed with the leisure and ceremoniousness of the Egypt-jans we might translate their delightful "'Saidé" and chortle to the individual at the other end of the wire something like "Hail" or "Salutation." Only were our next remark to take the form of a query as to the price of bird-seed or dog-biscuits, the effect would be so incongruous that visions of the mental ward might arise.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.