Snobbery in America.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 238, 21 January 1888, Page 3

Snobbery in America.

America boasts itself to be the land of Social equality, and yet the following little incident comes to us from the town St. Paul anent the tour of President) and Mrs Cleveland in the North- West, Ifc appears that a United States Senator, a person of course of high position in his own district, happened to marry a pretty milliner. The ladies of the town utterly refused to know her f and , she was entirely ' excluded from society in' St. Paul.' When, however, she journeyed Wesb - with her husband she was entertained by President and Mrs Garfield; and received by the] wire's of the State officials and statesmen generally. Her husband's position and her ' own acquaintance with Mrs- Cleveland marked her out in the ordinary course of things as one of the" six principal ladies who were to wait on Mrs Cleveland, .The other five ladies, however, peremptorily declared thdt, "if the dressmaker was going-to be onb "of tlie nuihber," theybeggecT to alcline. The difficulty - was* got' bVer by enlarging the number to 206, and thus rendering the honour of selection 'one of little, value. Even • then, however, the other ladies only consented to be present on 'condition' that they were not "expected to speak to the dressmaker."' The curious result' followed that the only person who could talk intimately to Mrs 'Cleveland was the despised and tabooed "dressmaker/ and that the orily lady whom the latter could claim as a friend was the' Presidentess of the United Skates.