14 APRIL 1883, Page 14

" OUR BETTERS."

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SER,—If not too late, the following might he useful, in the way of indicating a common, perhaps the common, interpretation of our "betters." Some years ago, a young Wesleyan minister told me that, as a boy, with the other village children, duly marshalled, he had stood on the village green on the Sunday morning, and, as the Squire and his friends drove up to the parish church, had sung :— " God bless the Squire, And all his rich relations; And teach us poor people To keep our proper stations."

The words italicised give, I apprehend, a tolerably accurate idea of what "betters " has been taught to mean, to the great mass of the English people.—I am, Sir, &c.,

Ramshottom, April 9th. W3I. H1131E ELLIOT.