The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-05-08
ARE AMERICANS SNOBS?
THE GROUNDLESsNESS OF A RE-
CENT BRITISH ACCUSATION.


ers, But Sought for by Aristocratic
SuitOrs-Ihe Culture of American
Men and Women.
Ex-Attache in the New York Tribune.
Is snobbishness an American vice, in
6issnous to the soil of the United States
and peculiar to its people? Until now
Everybody who has had the advantage Of
reading the works of Thackeray has la
b5red under the impression that it had
both it's origin and its home in Great
Britain. But IL one is to believe an article
printed in the current number of Cas-
sePs Magazine on THE American Girl in
London" this is not the case. 1t has
been imported into England from across
the Atlantic, just in the same manner as
the potato and the tobacco pipe. 'Snob-
bshness," declares the article in question,
"frst sprang to life in a republican coun-
try. Where princely pageantry and ducal
estate are a matter of course, they can
never make anything like the same i'm
preston as where they are seen and their
influence felt for the first time" 1t is
ahe existence of this snobbishness in the
United States, so the writer goes on to
intimate, that causes the daughters of
Uncle Sam to crave for some other pre-
fix to their names than that of a mere
Mrs even though it be followed by so
well known a patronymic as that of Van
derbilt or Astor," and which impels them
to flock to Europe in search of titled hus-
bands, English nobleman being preferred.
The article in question has been so ex-
tensvely quoted and copied by the daily
and weekly press of Great Britain that it
should not be permitted to pass unnoticed,
and possibly the following remarks may
derive additional weight from the fact
that they are written by an Englishman,
who as a boy, used to sit on the knee OF
Thackeray, the unrivalled delineator of
the snob and of the snobbishness of his
c0untrymen.
To begin with, there has been Gar
greater eagerness manifested by the Old
World aristocracy for alliances with
/. American heiresses than any anxiety on
the part Of the latter to secure titled hus-
bands With a few isolated exceptions
the matrimonial stalking has been
done, not by the daughter of Uncle Sam,
but by the European nobleman, and the
latter, in the case of most of the so-called
international marriages, have been COM
PEELED to come over to this country in Dr.
der to carry on his suit, instead of being
hunted down in his lair on yonder sids
of the ocean by the American Diana, as
the author of the article in Cassell5
Magazine would have the reader believe
The two Dukes of Marlborough, the late
Duke of Manchester, the Comte de Castel-
lane, and many others too numerous to
mention here. were all obliged to trav-
erse the ocean in order to WOO their Amer
lean brides, and far from their being run
AFTER" as alleged, their offers of mar
riage were accepted only after some hest
tation, alliances of this kind being sub
jected TO much criticism, not only by the
hriI aFa n1aAsr r,s.I Fv-s1 L..
by the American people at large and by
the press.
With regard to the alleged snobbishness
a of the American girl, it is just because she
is not a snob that she is so much sought
after by the impoverished nobleman. The
daughters of Uncle Sam are by no means
the only helresses in the matrimonial
market. There are plenty of merchant
princes in London, Liverpool, Manches-
ter Leeds, etc, who can give their daugh-
tiers quite as handsome a dover as any
American father, and who would be glad
TO pay heavily in order to secure the ad-
mission of their children into illustrious
families. But the trouble is that these
English girls do not fit into illustrious
families. They cannot adapt themselves
readily to their surroundings, and the
snobbery which is innate in the upper and
lower middle classes of England exudes,
so to speak, from their every pore, jar
ring terribly upon the nerves and refine
ment of their blue-blooded husbands their
relatives and acquaintances. Their heads
are turned by their social elevation, and
NJ their one aim is to conceal the fact that
they are not to the manner born. Their
behavior is invariably affected, unnatural
and extreme. They are either abnormaIly
stiff, and even arrogant or else subser-
Went and familiar. Above all, they are
amentably lacking in that self-respect
which imparts dignity even to the Scotch
s. and Spanish peasant, and, in one word,
repel by their innate and ineradicable
as vugarity.
That Is why an English nobleman, who,
by reason of the charges upon his heavily
mcumbered ancestral estates, cannot az
ford to marry any but very rich woman,
such as is not to be found among the
members of his own caste in Great Brit
ain, prefers to come to this country for
bride. The American girl, no matter to
what class of the social system in the
NJ United States her parents may have be-
NJ Onged, somehow or other adapts herself
at once and without any effort to what
ever circle she may be introduced by her
n husband. Thoroughly imbued with a SUI
preme respect of self, she does not err on
the side either of undue assertion or of too
a great subserviency. Her innate refine
ment somehow or other inspires her with
the knowledge Of just what to do and
what to say and, sweeping though the
"eNNSAANAb may dBpNdAf nave llcNNA III OH
my acquaintance with "the American girl
. in London" in Paris and in other great
cities of Europe, known her to be guilty
OF any so.s ism of speech or behavior
that could be described as either vulgar
or snobbish.
Take girl from the English middle
classes, maiden from among the French
bourgeoise, or a young fraulein from the
Burgerschaft of Germany, and transfer
them suddenly TO some more exalted
sphere of society-bring them, for in
stance, into social contact with royalty
IN nine cases out Of ten they will render
themselves supremely ridiculous, and will
TAX and behave In a manner calculated
10 embarrass not only themselves but
also those around them. But with the
american girl IL is quite different. She
mas the faculty of at once assimilatlng
herselt TO her surroundings, no matter
no" new or strange, to such an extent that
no one would dream that she had not been
porn and bred thereto. were It not for the
Isct tnat she rarely makes any secret
aDOut her parentage or seeks to depict Il