Morning journal and courier., 1893-02-11
MORE ABOUT CHESTS.

SAxz EHRES BS HAIL,
 MORE ABOUT CHESTS.
 We take pleasure in printing the follow ing communication from 8 courteous COT respondent who is quite right in his belle that we did not intend to poke fun ''st ths fact of honorable linease:"
 | Tothe Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER.
 Your article, ''Do We Need Cresta," 1T Thursdsy's issue WAS certainly very anus ing, but am sure you did not intend tc poke fun at the fact of honorable lineage or those who have proper pride in such g possession, yet the spirit of the article might 80 impress reader.
 | If New Haven Society is inclined to be "tcppy." it seems that they have reason to i be, and when one comes to know these i "toppy" people you will find them delight fuI and interesting. There are some of | our citizens whose line isN not difficult to trace back to "escufcheons," and "orests' too, in spite of Mr. Fairbairns His ssser- tion may nevertheless be true, as he doubt lees uses the word families" in its generic | sense.
 One would hardly accuse that grim old warrior Captain Myles Standi=h of bsipg "toppy," yet his pride and desire to come | into the succession of the family estate led 1 to his match making scheme between the ! youthful scion of his name fn England and 1 his gentle daughter.
 Whoever will read Betty Alden," by Miss Austen, may perceive the spirit of his personal life, and why shall not his de- scendants, of whom some are now living in New Haven, be proud of the past! The first governors of New Haven colony, Bradford, Haynes, Winthrop, have slso descendants here, thongh not all through the male line, and, as colonial history shows, EDgland's fairest a:d noblest set | tied on our New England shores. The Netherlands furnished blood and Train to the early settlers of New York and Pennsylvania, of which their grand aud great grandchildren may justly be proud Through Maryland and other southern States fine Egg fish blood prevails In some in stances, this se called English blood Is not real Saxon. since William the Conquer or brought with him to England many French followers, whose American descendants are certainly proud of their ''coat of arms," whose Maltese crosses prove their family to have participated in the second or third crusade.
 If to possess such evidences means to be "toppy," then I shall enjoy being "toppy."
 No one dreams of snaering at fine blcoded horse, or even sighting the pedi- gree of thorough bred COW or dog; there- fore I fail to see why similar fact Of lineage, and prids in the same, by a human, should arouse 8 spirit of ridicule By all means, let us study our pedigree, let us polish our ';escutcheons" and "crests," let us be ss grand and noble as we may; but let us remember that great ness ard nobility are sweet-natured and simple, and let us carry our toppishness in way to draw forth, not sarcasm, bnt admiration. KEITH SAINT JOHN Our correspondent has well stated his case, and we can, in the main, agree with him, although he perhaps lays little too much stress on 'long descent " It is 8 good thing to have ancestors who have been distinguished for nobility of character and for noble deeds. It is not always a good thing to be at the tail end of family which has an escutoheon and a crest. It all de- pends on how the escutcheon and the crest wers won. If they were the reward of sue cessful plunder. cruel and relentless Ambi tion, or base service, they are nothing to brsg of. There are escutcheons and orests in existence which are badges of shame and memorials of wrong. And though, as our correspondent intimates, our acquaintance with the owners and worsbippers of es- cutcheons and crests Is limited, what &C., | quaintance we have has taught Us that pride in bad ancestry is q oits com | men and sincere as pride in good ances- try.
 We do not object to proper and we'll mothers But there is nothing more foolish and fantastic thsn the pride of family which takes no account of the quality of the family, and which is chitfy based OIL the fact that the family is old and has au escutcheon and a crest. A celebrated preacher once told his hearers that there were three kinds of pride he wanted te warn them against-pride of birth, pride o1 wealth and pride Of intellect. And ther he cruelty added that he felt warranted 1T emitting the warning agsiust the third Perhaps he felt that those who had the frs two couldn't possibly have the third Whether he did or did not, pride o birth, as 1t usually exists, is SC foolish that it isn't consistent with pride of intellect. Our correspondent probably knows what We mean. All ever the civ ilized world there are people walking about with 8 consciousness that they be long to "a family" Not the human fam fly, whose ancestry reaches back to Adam and Eve, but Ca family" which can b. traced back to some ncentious court O. some particularly bold robber who sue ceeded in making it for the interest of tn royal frauds of his time to ''ennobls" him The best, and perhaps the worst parts O these families, have long been under ground, but their members who live to da, "claim every thing" on the strength or tn
 weakness of the past. And the curiou feature of the performance is that the, succeed in convincing themselves ant some others that pride rooted in 8 grave yard is fine thing.
 Our correspondent speaks of "propsr
 pride in an honorable lineage. That is al
 right But that isn't the thing that zoe
 in this windy world, and there isn't yer
 much of 1t. And there are few familie
 whose members can afford to pry yer
 deeply into what they would like to believ
 is an honorable lineage. Adam and Ev
 were not strictly honorable in the Garde
 of Eden, and many of their descendant
 have not improved upon the old folk
 The kind of family pride that is chief
 felt and exhibited is the pride that is fe
 by memorials of high station, royal favo
 decorations, escutoheons and crests. NJ
 the true and legitimate pride that ca
 point to an ancestry which believed that
 "Kind hearts are more than coronets
 We commend to all who have followe
 us thus far the noble words of Alexand Pope, who had this to say about fami ! pride:
 Honor and shame from no condition rise | Act we'll your part, there all the honor lies. | One hauuts in rags, one fiutters in brocade. | The cobbler aproned and the parson gowned, | The friar hooded and the monarch crowned. , "what differ more, :" you cry, "than crown al I'll tell you friend a wise man and 6 fo I