The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1877-03-18
TIE CREED OF THE GUINEA STAMP.

Mr.. Warren. Q. c., in his ones famous move
OF . Ten Thonssnd Year" describes his hero
Tittiebat Titmouse, rs gazing with soul ful
nc the splendid equeatrians Of fashion whose
/ equipments of day represent his wages of O
year, until HE pent-up feelings burst forth In
thing" As the wretc6ed little suob Missed on.
| these Words haughty-lookinE old gentleman
VINO ohanced to be standing next him started
with astonishment to hear his own emotions
while the draper's assistant was In wardly boil.
ing with impotent envy of gauds and trinkets
beyond his Widest 6reams to compass, the
proud old Earl of Dreddling tou was eating his
heart in comfortless despair because the Pre-
mler mad jast given to another nohieman the
last vacant blue ribbon of the Garter. A
cruelty ontspoken article 10 q recent number
OF Mr.. Labouchere's new English weekly,
1rHth, goes to show that the point of Mr.. War
ren's shaft has by no means trusted in the
dews Of time" Mr.. Lsbsuohere would have us
belief that the repose
Which marks the c,ste Of We're do We're"
is superficial chiefly; and that NO Englishman
below what sarcastic young Scotch noblsman
calls the seventh heaven of dukery' really
rests in peace upon his ancestral honors. That
even dukes are not absolutely exempt from
this itch of vaulting ambition, would appear
from the extraordinary efforts made only last
year by the Duke Of Richmond, Lennox and
Anbigny to add fourth dueal coronet to his
pomps and dignities, and to appropriate,
against the protest of another noble Scottish
house, the stately title of Duke of Gordon.
Gibbon sage, in his sonOrously contemptuous
manner, that the meanest of Roman freeman
would have disdained to perform about the
person OF the sovereign the ofa ,es which are
greedily coveted by tho proudest MOBILES of
Britain. Certainly pride never ssands in the
way of the truly British noble when there is
anything to get by humility, or by what ought
perhops. to be designated by less hattering
name. Far from its being assumed in fashson-
able or titled circles that men who already
possess SO much want nothing more, the I'M
contradicted assumption invariably is that
what it is precisely they want, and whether
they could be persuaded to Toxic something
less.
The memoirs of st. Simon show rs that un-
der the old regime the highest order of the
French nobtesse fought each other like fish,
wives for precedent and for approximations of
rank. 1t long ranked in the Prussian heart
that the Hapsburg emperors refused to put
Prussian mobiles on an equal footing at the
Imperial Court with the counts and princes of
Austria, and within our own time duels have
been fought in Germany ON the question
whether military man who happened not to
be Won" should OF should not be addressed
as High and Well-born," or merely q
"Well-Born" Herr.
All this of courae shows tho childishness of
people in the "effste monarohies of Europe"
But what are. We to cay OF the battles which
are yearly wsged in Washington to determine
whether the wives of one class Of public ser.
wants are or are NOS required to ''psy the f1rst
visit to the wives Of public servants Of another
GLASS; It is as true now 90 Ii was when the
indignant muse of Burns first electrified Britain
that "the rank Ii but the guinea-stsmp :" but
We fear, alas! that IL is just as true ne then it
was, that men Of all races have natural pro-
clivity to quarrel over this guinea-stamp al
most as savsgely rs over the golden guinea
whatever sacrifice of inward peace aud self
respect.