Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1872-05-09
Japhet in Search of a Grandfather.
From the New York World.

II SlL SOClcly HAS Uc6n lOunu6Q
in this city under the name and style of
1.-THE Genealogical Registry for the
United States" 1t has issued docu-
ments, and one of these it has been our
happiness to peruse.
1t begins by remarking, in effect, that
there are many Americans with weak
ness for grandfathers and this it pro.
ceeds to prove by citing the fact that
the Puritans wore "their neck and
wrist ruffles and laces," and the further
fact that there was a crushing crowd at
| the New York reception of the Prince
of Wales. One does not exactly see the
force of these facts, but after all they
are at worst but surplusage. 1t needs
no ghost come from the grave, nor even
from the Herald's College. to tell us
that toad-eating is the practice of many
| enlightened Americans, and that the
snob may change his sky but not his
mind. But the entertaining writer to
whom we owe the fresh confirmation of
| this trite truth sadly admits by implica-
ton that there are Americans who no
more care to climb their ancestral trees
in public for their own Qualification
than they care to scale the creased pole
of rustic festivals for the entertain
ment of their fellows. But for such
degraded persons the spokesman Of the
Genealogical Registry entertains no
sentiment but scorn and disgust. "The
scoffers of heraldry," he remarks,
care of the same sort as the scoffers
of religion" He fercely cont overts
the opinion of Mr.. Robert Lowe, Of
whom it is quite possible that he never
heard. For Mr.. Lowe in his address on
education advised the youth of Britain
that nothing man could know was
altogether useless to him except that
heraldry which our present pamphleteer
maintains to be SO noble, useful. and
entertaining a science" 1t is perhaps
to be regretted that his devotion TO this
lofty theme has left him no time in
which to master the science, equally
arbitrary perhaps and not nearly so
noble, but at all events equally useful,
of English grammar. But we cannot
have everything; and when we are told
of the "scoffers of heraldry' "thai this
class of persons are now nearly
sllenced by the very great preponder-
ance of the better class in society" it
behooves US to bow before the nobility,
or at least the gentility, of the senti-
ment SO crudely expressed. OF course
sensitiveness about his syntax is far
from such writer. The medieval
heroes whose archaic substitutes for
door plates and visiting cards he desires
to see become current again were adopts
in the noble and useful science of heral-
dry but they were not strong on read
ing and writing, and in their high and
| hAx
of those arts. OF one of them, indeed,
it is authenticity told that when low
born churl suggested to him that
Schisma was of the neuter gender he
roared in wrath, 81 am king of the
Romans and above grammar" The
present pra;ser of that long-gone time
is not king of the Romans but it is
open to him to despise grammar, and he
does it. Unhampered by Lindley Muir
ray he rises to epic eloquence: "To
feelings how fine and elevating may our
love OF pedigree be traced as we stand
on our isthmus of time, looking down
the stream at time gone, now tinted
with the glow that mellows the past =
or up at the uncertain dawn of the
future ilIumined by the rainbow tints of
hoper The modern mind refuses to
believe that generous enthusiasm alone
can induce man to make such an ass
of himself as this, and searches the
pamphlet for a motive. On the last
page it is found in the shape of an init
nation that the payment of $50 will
make anybody g life member" what
ever that may mean, although it seems
that further fee will be extorted from
him before he can exploit his ancestors
ia the American Genealogical Register.
OF course nobody who is specifically
aware of his grandfathers VIII take the
trouble to embalm them in the Ameri-
can Genealogical Reg ster. 1t is only
the person who is vaguely cropping after
grandfathers that the pamphlet which
we now advertise will appeal to with
any hope of making him life member.
We can imagine a proposal to find
every body's ancestors for HIM awakening
tumultous gratitude in founding
asylum. But outside founding asylum
we cannot imagine genealogical regis
try meeting with signal success. At
least the value of whatever success it
does attain will be that its success
furnishes tolerably accurate American
snobometer.
Where Does the Gold Come From?