But though an Englishman, and, following him, a colonial, is thus very careful to restrict /the Hon./ to proper uses, he always insists, when he serves without pay as an officer of any organization, to indicate his volunteer character by writing /Hon./ before the name of his office. If he leaves it off it is a sign that he is a hireling. Thus, the agent of the New Zealand [Pg121] government in London, a paid officer, is simply the /agent/, but the agents at Brisbane and Adelaide, in Australia, who serve for the glory of it, are /hon. agents/. In writing to a Briton one must be careful to put /Esq./, behind his name, and not /Mr./, before it. The English make a clear distinction between the two forms. /Mr./, on an envelope, indicates that the sender holds the receiver to be his inferior; one writes to /Mr./ John Jackson, one's green-grocer, but to James Thompson, /Esq./, one's neighbor. Any man who is entitled to the /Esq./ is a /gentleman/, by which an Englishman means a man of sound connections and dignified occupation--in brief, of ponderable social position. Thus a dentist, a shop-keeper or a clerk can never be a gentleman in England, even by courtesy, and the qualifications of an author, a musical conductor, a physician, or even a member of Parliament have to be established. But though he is thus enormously watchful of masculine dignity, an Englishman is quite careless in the use of /lady/. He speaks glibly of /lady-clerks/, /lady-typists/, /lady-doctors/ and /lady-inspectors/. In America there is a strong disposition to use the word less and less, as is revealed by the substitution of /saleswoman/ and /salesgirl/ for the /saleslady/ of yesteryear. But in England /lady/ is still invariably used instead of woman in such compounds as /lady-golfer/, /lady-secretary/ and /lady-champion/. The /women's singles/, in England tennis, are always /ladies' singles/; /women's wear/, in English shops, is always /ladies' wear/. Perhaps the cause of this distinction between /lady/ and /gentleman/ has been explained by Price Collier in "England and the English." In England, according to Collier, the male is always first. His comfort goes before his wife's comfort, and maybe his dignity also. /Gentleman-clerk/ or /gentleman-author/ would make an Englishman howl, though he uses /gentleman-rider/. So would the growing American custom of designating the successive heirs of a private family by the numerals proper to royalty. John Smith /3rd/ and William Simpson /IV/ are gravely received at Harvard; at Oxford they would be ragged unmercifully.