to the
lowest legislative or judicial functionaries as Honorables. This
simplifies the task of directing envelopes to them, and, if a man once
holds military rank in any peace establishment, he makes life a little
easier for his correspondents by remaining General, or Captain, or
Admiral, or Commander. You cannot Mister him, and you cannot Esquire
him, and there is, therefore, no question as to what you shall
superscribe him.

A score of years ago two friends, now, alas! both doctors of philosophy,
of letters, and of laws, agreed to superscribe their letters simply
Smythe Johnes and Johnes Smythe respectively, without any vain prefix or
affix. They kept up this good custom till in process of time they went
to Europe for prolonged sojourns, and there corrupted their manners, so
that when they came home they began addressing each other as Esq., and
have done so ever since. Neither is any the better for the honors they
exchange on the envelopes they do not look at, and doubtless if mankind
could be brought to the renunciation of the vain prefixes and affixes
which these friends once disused the race would be none the worse for
it, but all the better. One prints Mr. Smythe Johnes on one's
visiting-card because it passes through the hands of a menial who is not
to be supposed for a moment to announce plain Smythe Johnes; but it is
the United States post-office which delivers the letters of Smythe
Johnes, and they can suffer no contamination from a service which
conveys the letters of plain William H. Taft to him with merely the
explanatory affix of President, lest they should go to some other
William H. Taft.

Undoubtedly the address of a person by the name with which he was
christened can convey no shadow of disrespect. The Society of Friends
understood this from the beginning, and they felt that they were wanting
in no essential civility when they refused name-honor as well as
hat-honor to all and every. They remained covered in the highest
presences, and addressed each by his Christian name, without conveying
slight; so that a King and Queen of England, who had once questioned
whether they could suffer themselves to be called Thy Majesty instead
of Your Majesty by certain Quakers, found it no derogation of their
dignity to be saluted as Friend George and Friend Charlotte. The signory
of the proudest republic in the world held that their family names were
of sufficiency to which titles could add nothing, and the Venetian