They have exploded the unmeaning and troublesome
custom of drinking healths at their dinners.
This custom the Quakers have rejected upon the principle, that it has no
connection with true civility. They consider it as officious,
troublesome, and even embarrassing, on some occasions. To drink to a
man, when he is lifting his victuals to his mouth, and by calling off
his attention, to make him drop them, or to interrupt two people, who
are eating and talking together, and to break the thread of their
discourse, seems to be an action, as rude in its principle, as
disagreeable in its effects, nor is the custom often less troublesome to
the person drinking the health, than to the person whose health is
drank. If a man finds two people engaged in conversation he must wait
till he catches their eyes, before he can drink himself. A man may also
often be put into a delicate and difficult situation, to know whom to
drink to first, and whom second, and may be troubled, lest, by drinking
improperly to one before another, he may either be reputed awkward, or
may become the occasion of offence. They consider also the custom of
drinking healths at dinner as unnecessary, and as tending to no useful
end. It must be obvious that a man may wish another his health, full as
much without drinking it, as by drinking it with his glass in his hand.
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