The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-10-25
az ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE

dispatch from Copenhagen which
says that certain Russian Grand
Duke has presented his aunts, the
! dowager queen Of England, Alexan-
ORA; and the dOwager empress of
Russia, with an automobile for use
when in their summer home in Den
mark.
1t was stated that they had been in
the habit of hiring one when they
wanted to ride out in motor car.
This has a curious sound to every
other person in Richmond who owns
an automobile.
There is a great deal of misery and
injustice and poverty and degradation
in this world, but there is also, at
times, a good deal OF nonsense utter
ed about the downtrodden condition
of the masses
BY the way nothing is more amusing
than to hear people talking about the
masses"
In older countries where class dis
tinctions are drawn with rightly there
might be some basis for this relega-
ton of humanity in the lump, although
no excuse.
But in the United States it is an af
| fectatiOn.
| Can you fancy anything funnier than
| people born, say, in Wayne county,
down on the farm" where they help
ed wash the dishes, hang the clothes
on the line, milk the cows and fry bat
ter-cakes for the harvest hands talk
ing Tin public on the stage about" the
masses"
In the horrid, low vernacular-"get
the hook"
What's the use of putting on airs
in Richmond, Indiana, or Keokuk, To-
wa, or New York, N. Y, or any place
else.
| Who's anybody anyway?
Consider the poor snob.
! How hard he works. He can new
err enjoy himself for fear he won't be
seen out with the right people. He
snubs the people he really likes be-
cause they haven't enough money or
| the latest clothes or live on the wrong
street.
And swallows the insults of the cads
he wants to go with
AS said the other evening, snoDbery
is not supposed to exist in demo-
crazy. But there it flourishes as the
green bay tree.
The truth is that, as Thackeray says,
everybody is snob sometimes.
Haven't you been ashamed at times
of the off-hand and shabby treatment
you have accorded some excellent, if
unpretentious person for no reason in
the world save that you had nasty
feeling of social superiority which had
no basis in fact?
| How about the country cousin who
calls you by a childhood name per-
haps she's fat and wears ner hair in
some ungodly fashion-who happens
in OH the day you're giving a bridge
party to the members of your exclu-
sive coterie?
Oh, If Cousin Sally only hadn't
come today!
| Dear Cousin Sally!
How we love to go down to her hos
pitable home and stay a week at a
time and luxuriate in all the good
J eats she hands out and talk conf
dentially to her about the mean way
our relations in town treat U.S. And
we tell her how We believe in her sim
cerity. And we hope she will come
and sec us whenever she can. Just
run in any time. OF course we're
glad to see her. Why certainly. Only,
ticular day.
| However there is nothing to be
done. So you introduce Cousin Sally
to your hobbleskirted friends VINO
nod to her superciliously when she
says. PLEASED to meet you"
Well it's all funny enough.
Snobbery is circle within a cir
Gle. The farther you penetrate or
the closer you get to the core there
do you find it in as relatively thick
a layer as on the outside.
1t is as rampant in the kitchen as
in the boudoir.
At the crossroads settlement as in
the metropolis.
And nowhere is it found in more
varied hue than in the church. Rath-
er, churches. A clergyman in India
napOlis preached a sermon about it
the other day.
Maybe that's what's the matter with
the church. There are many inquir-
les propounded as to the lack lustre
activities of our religious institutions
and perhaps, as this man says, it's
snobbery.
You know how it goes yourself.
Certain persons always shake hands
with other persons after the service
Still others they pass by with a sane
titled stare. which being interpreted
says Il am Christian but 1 must
draw the line somewhere"
At church socials you can always
tell the heavy contributors.
They lend their presence to the &C.
casion and receive the flattered at
tention of those who give what they
can. And never at any drawing-room
has royalty endured the salaams of
!