Brisbane's pro-proletariat The Worker was aghast 100 years ago at something in the bourgeois English press.
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"The poor have always been a favourite topic for the twaddling tongues of dabblers in 'social uplift'," it said. "But the limit of this snobbery is attained in an editorial in Leslie's Weekly.
"It says, 'The happiest people in the world are the poor. Religion has always taught men to be content with their lot, showing the folly of relying upon possessions for happiness.' "
"The article," the Worker raged on, "gives approving reference to the writings of a worthy dame who visits the poor. This is her at her best. 'We need to be aware of the pleasures to be derived from a good dinner of corned beef and cabbage ... often when I pass a row of mean houses I think gratefully of the good times that I have had in just such places.' "
The Worker concluded, "In other words, those who are in a position to exercise mental influence on the poor should use it to induce them to be content with that condition of life which it has pleased the accident of birth to call them [so that the rich can continue to exploit] their cheap labour."
"This expresses the utmost refinement of the snob mind ... the sooner such people get into dry dock and have the barnacles scraped off them, the sooner they'll understand the proletarian mind in an age when the magic of the 'superior person' is fast disappearing."
