SNOBBERY.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3838, 18 April 1881, Page 1

SNOBBERY.

When passing through Ashburton recently, His Excellency Sir Arthur Gordon was uncturously informed that he was a scion of the noble house of Gordon, descended from an illustrious family, I noted for their wisdom in Council and their bravery in the field, with hereditary attainments carefully cultivated, besides being a descendant of a proud and warlike race. And so on ad libitum et naU' seam. How those who have taken the trouble of reading English history, especially modern and contemporaneous, must have laughed at all this rubbishing gibberish ! JSo one was ever known to accuse the house of Gordon of having been overwhelmed with brains, let alone wisdom in Council, &c. What the Earl of Aberdeen did, or did, not do, not many years ago, and which cost Great Britain so dear is yet upon peoples' minds. Our present Governor has been pitchforked into viceregal office, simply because he is the son of his father and his party is in office. Not in any way or shape for any especial brilliancy of mind or acuteness of wit. In a country like this where Jack, if he deserves it, is quite as good as his neighbor, and where democratical ideas are such that educational advantages of the highest order are offered free of cost to the poorest lad in the land, it is sickening to hear such vapid twaddle as emanated from a body of respectable men congratulating a new Governor because of his ancestry and of his hereditary attainments. It is pure and undiluted snobbery, a thing much to be deprecated and avoided in young countries such as ours.—Eangiora Standard.