The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1885-07-09
SHAM LORDS" IN AMERICA.

Two Instances-"Lords Northbrook" and
s.Abercromby"-AG Glance at the Peer
age.
was much amused the other day on
reading in San Francisco paper of the
exploits there of Young Englishman
calling himself 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,
or the very commonplace way in which
he played his game, but the almost
idiotic cordiality of the people upon
whom ne imposed himself. If this were
4 new thing one wouldn't wonder so
much, but it seems as if those Ameri-
cans whose Anglomania leads them
into taking kindly to every Englishman
with 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 5
''Peerage," they would never be taken
in b. 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
collaterallv with the male line of the
peer himself When an Englishman
with a suit of rough tweed. red neck,
flannel shirt, pair of gigantic boots,
and an eve glass. comes to You and
says: I'm Lord So-and-so or Wis
count ThiS-Orthat, 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 is transparent as
glass. Take this man Cecil North
brook for example. A "Peerage'
would have shown in a 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 bat 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 4
gale in the Bay of Biscay in 1870.
\ curSOry investigation of the same
sort would have exhibited the fraudu-
lence of the youth who styled himself
Lord Abercromby in New York a few
months ago, but no one seemed to have
a ''Peerage' to spot HIM in, or to know
how to use it if they had. But, mind
you, an old "Pcerage' won't do. 1t
must always be this years, or the inn
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. so
that noviceS at the business must have
the most recent edition they can get
At best the study of Englaud's peer
age IS nauseating task. To begin with,
few books of its size contain such 4
record of immortality and seduction; but
it IS the rank and honors showered upon
with disgust. Altogether it is book
after whose perusal one feels a sense of
shame. One sees the hollowness, the
absurdity of mobility" as it has become
in England, the utter absence of the
sentiment of nObleSSe OLlige among its
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 corrupt kings favorite
as it is on those of a self-made, purse
proud brewer or iron-monger. 1t is,
therefore, not out of any respect or rev.
erence for the volume, or those whose
history it is, that | recommend its pur-
chase to Americans who like titles, but
as Il Shelved watchdog to keep Off the
Understanding and dinner-eating adj
venturerS, who, as English dukes,
marGuiseS, earlS. viscounts. baronS and
honorableS, come and accept their hos
pitalitr and marry their daughters
LOndON Cor. san Francisco ArgOhdut.