The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1885-07-09
SHAM "LoRDS" IN AMERICA.

Two NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. N~Orthbrook' and
"Abercromby"-A Glance at the Peer
age.
was much amused the other day on
reading in a San Francisco paper of the
exploits there of a young Englishman
calling himself s'Cecil Northbrook,"
and claiming to be the son of England's
First Lord of the Admiralty. What
amused me was not the very bald and
threadbare subterfuge of the young man,
OF the very commonplace way in which
he played his game, but the almost
id.otic cordiality of the people upon
whom he imposed himself. If this were
a new thing one wouldn't wonder so
much, but it seems as if those Ameri-
ans whose Anglomania leads them
into taking kindly to every Englishman
with a title would never get their fingers
burnt enough. If such people would
only invest annually the sum of seven
or ten dollars in a Burke's or De Brett's
.~'Peerage," they would never be taken
in by fictitious titles or ~non-existing
noblemen.
Not only will the name of every peer
in the kingdom. with his immediate
family, be found therein, but those of
every man, woman and child related
collaterally with the male line of the
peer himself. When an Englishman
with a suit of rough tweed. a red neck,
a flannel shirt, a pair of gigantic boots,
and an eye glass, m to you and
says: I'm Lord So-and-so. or Wis,
count This-or-that, or the Honorable
Plantagenet Emptyhead," all you will
have to do is to take down your .'Peer.
age" and look. If you can't find him
there. make him show you.
And yet, day by day, one hears of
Americans being duped by adventures
whose stories are as transparent as
glass. Take this man Cecil North.
brook" for example. A ..Peerage''
would have shown in q moment that
Northbrook is but the name of the title,
Barring being the family name. Had
this young man been Lord Northbrook's
son his name would have been Cecil
Barring. But the 'Peerage" would
have further demonstrated that the
Earl of Northbrook has but one son,
and he is called Lord Barring, being the
eldest. There was another son in the
royal navy, but he was lost at sea in
the Captain when she foundered in a
gale in the Bay of Biscay in 1870.
A cursory investigation of the same
sort would have exhibited the fraudu.
lonce of the youth who styled himself
Lord Abercromby in New York a few
months ago, but no seemed to have
a ~'Peerage' to spot him in, Or to know
how to Use it if they had. But, mind
you, an old 'Peerage" won't do. Il
must always be this years, or the i'm
posters will say they have come into
the title since it was published. But
even then their names would be among
the collateral branches. 1t, however
takes an adept to run these down. sc
that nOvices at the business must have
the most recent edition they can get.
At best the study of England's peer
age is an~auseating task. To begin with
few books of its size contain such
record of immortality and seduction; but
it is the rank and honors showered upor
~nonentities which one contemplates
with disgust. Altogether it is a bool
after whose perusal one feels a sense o.
shame. One sees the hollowness, the
absurdity of mobility" as it mas become
in England, the utter absence of the
sentiment OF nObleSSe Oblige among it.
members and the sham that underlies
the whole fabric. A coronet is out Of
place quite as much On the brows of the
descendant of a corrupt kings favoritt
as it is on those of a self-made, purse
proud brewer or i~ron-monger. 1t is
therefore, not out of any respect or rev
crence for the volume, Or those who's.
history it is, that l recommend it's pur
chase to Americans who like titles, bu
as > shelved watchdog to keep off thu
Understanding and dinner-eating ad
ventprers, who, as English dukes
%marIuises, earls, %viscounts. barons ant
h~onorables, come and accept their hos
pitaiity and marry their daughters
LeHd1H Cor. SeH FraHeiSse Argenaat