To the Editor of the "Norra-Cama Dairy News."
Sm,—Your leader-writer_raised an interesting question on Monday, but apparently had not given himself time to think out the answer. He questioned the pre-eminence of Hongkong in that quality gf social life known as snobbery, and suggested that it was a very proper reflexion of the natural inequality that exists among individuals. The charge of snobbery he thinks, is laid by mental inferiors'" and otherwise has small foundation.
This is such a new definition of something we are al] familiar with and properly ashamed of that I began to wonder if "mental"? was a misprint for "money." We all frankly admit variations and inequalities of physical, mental and moral endowment. But we have only to read our own hearts to see that "'inferiors" have respect and admiration for those who are naturally superior.
Snobbery is something quite different. Tt results from the fact, (and the fault), that people who get on in the world, or whose husbands or fathers are given good appointments, make it a reason for asserting a superiority which is not natural, but arbitrary, superficial, unreal, and therefore deeply resented. When a man (or a woman) is "mentally superior" or better educated he has not even the temptation to look with cold eyes and talk in frigid tones when he is in the company of those who are less happily endowed. But it ts a temptation, to which all of us yield except those who are ladies and gentlemen in the true sense of the word, to advertise in little ways of rudeness the fact that we have more to spend than our fellows.
I wondered why the word money did not appear in the paragraph. for snobbery' is one of the evils of which money is the' chief occasion, the root being described in the Bible by the simple word "sin." Which reminds one that. the speciality of the British brand of snobbery is that it often cloaks itself with a religious profession, in order to enhance the sense of distance we wish to make between ourself and our neighbour.
Tam, ete.,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.