CASTLE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2821, 10 April 1882, Page 3

CASTLE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY.

American society is an anomaly which must puzzle all those who do not believe in it; who do not see that its varying centres are but eddies on the surface of the fixed conviction that one man is the equivalent' of another in capacity, and that hii failure to prove it by results is the consequence of circumstances beyond his individual control. It is this belief which constitutes the essence of American impudence, boasting, aggressiveness, ana want of grace. “It is this spirit of caste, ’’ says a workman: of fifty years, “ which keeps us all down. If we could nag one another it would be some gain, but we avoid one another instead. There is no union among us, never was, except for a little while through the French International Asao oiation, which has died out. We never can raise ourselves from the bondage of ill-paid labor till we combine, and most of us would rather starve to death than associate with those beneath us.” Another one caroplains that •* the skilled workwomen pride themselves upon their skill to be willing to pull up the unskilled, just as in the professions a good lawyer or physician will not take a poor partner. It is social ambition, caste, that rules ns ; it begins with us, and goes up and up to Kings and Emperors. A woman with many servants despises her with one, and sho with one despises the woman who does her own work, and she who does her own work looks down upon her who goes out to work, and the one who goes out to do special housework scorns the scrub-woman who is the end of womankind.’’