As a child, Etiquetteer thought everyone in the past had been Perfectly Proper. Only with adulthood and an education outside school curriculum did Etiquetteer learn the Unhappy Truth, particularly about using Dirty Words. Today, Etiquetteer has a story to tell about Victorians Behaving Badly.
Researching the etiquette of private clubs for a recent presentation, Etiquetteer found an oblique reference to something called the Loubat Case. Intrigued, a little searching led Etiquetteer to the leading clubman’s scandal of the 1880s, centered on New York’s Union Club. Now we know why the Victorians published so many etiquette manuals. They simply were Not Perfectly Proper!
What happened was this. Yachtsman Joseph F. Loubat was bemoaning his single state with another clubman, Henry Turnbull. When Mr. Turnbull suggested he cast his marital eye on a wealthy, well-known widow, Mr. Loubat said something so startling that Mr. Turnbull was quoted later as saying that “Mr. Loubat made use of shockingly low and vulgar language so revolting as to be unfit to be repeated here. I told him then that any man that would make use of such a remark about a lady was a dirty, low blackguard, and that he was not fit to be a member of any club, and certainly should never be admitted to any gentlemen’s house.”*
Mr. Loubat laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and walked away. Alas for him, that was only the start of the affair. Mr. Turnbull was so incensed that he seems to have had a circular printed with his complaints about Mr. Loubat’s behavior, which he then had distributed to the entire Union Club membership. A few members declined to get involved; in this century that’s like deleting yourself from the group chat.
The result was Loubat’s expulsion from the Union Club, which, according to his attorney, he learned about from the newspapers. And then:
“A few hours later he received an official notification [from the club], but without a word of explanation or a cause for the act . . . the matter grew out of a personal quarrel between Mr. Loubat and Henry Turnbull, but it was from outside sources that even this fact was discovered . . . It is no doubt true that in an unguarded moment, in private and confidential conversation, Mr. Loubat used language which never should have been repeated, but, being uttered in private, it was no offense against public morals or club morals. The only offense against public morals was in repeating the language and thus making it public. ‘If,’ said Mr. Choate, bowing satirically . . . . ‘for language indecent or profane used in private conversation between members in a club-house after dinner a member is to be expelled, I am afraid there would not be enough left of the 1,500 members of the Union Club to constitute a Governing Committee.’”**
But what did Mr. Loubat say?! Etiquetteer found another source that shared his response to Mr. Turnbull: “Why would I marry her when for the last ten years I’ve been trying to ______ her daughter?” Now you know any time a Victorian has to replace a word with ______ it must be a Pretty Bad Word. In this case, any clubman would have known how to Fill In the Blank, too.
Eventually the court overturned Mr. Loubat’s expulsion, upon which he promptly resigned, which was at least a more honorable way to leave a club. And there are those who suggest that Mr. Turnbull may have escalated the whole affair deliberately because of Mr. Loubat’s alleged friendship with Mrs. Turnbull, who eventually divorced him (more about that here).
From this somewhat piquant tale, the moral “Speak in haste and repent at leisure” rises to the top. Had Mr. Loubat been more careful in his words, and had Mr. Turnbull curtailed his outrage, none of this would have happened.
*Quotation found here.
**“Club Morals in Question,” The New York Times, April 19, 1884.