The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1894-08-17
ENGLISH ARlsTOCRACY.
II Is Slowly Letting Down the Bars of Glass
ExcIusiveness.


ExcIusiveness
Not so long ago the line between the
aristocratic and other classes Of the COM
munity was very decidedly drawn at
trade. A poor family might lay claims
to gentility, and one or more OF its mem
beers might now and then figure at, say,
county ball, but tradesman' fam
ily-never Now it is otherwise, the
aristocracy themselves having stepped
over the dividing line. Lord Shrews-
bury and Talbot, for instance, who takes
precedence of all other earls, unblush-
ingly became cab proprietor; Lord
Rayleigh'' is the inscription that may
be read on the signboard OF one or two
London dairies The Marquis of Lon
donderry is prepared to deliver coal by
the ton. "No, agents ''-such are the
final words of this nobleman's adver-
tisement, put in just as any trader born
and bred might put them in. This de-
scent from aristocratic secluslOn into the
arena of commercial conflict is not con-
| fined to the male portion of our nobility
Titled ladies under disguised names
carry on millinery establishments and
run cafes. Their dainty fingers, too, are
not above manipulating flowers for
profit So generally indeed has the
sacred thirst for gold infected the upper
ten that, whereas they were wont to be
accused of living in idleness, they are
now accused of taking the bread out OF
the mouths of those who depend entirely
| e.. 49,. rt
Far beneath these noble ranks can be
traced a similar descent. Street music,
for instance, used to be discoursed by
the utterly abject and broken down.
Now men and women warmly clad and
well fed go about with organs. Troops
of men sing, rattle the bones and do q
breakdown i'll public thoroughfares tc
the tune of not less than the better part
of a sovereign day per man. Two hun
dred pounds year in an assured sltua-
ton was the salary that one young man
threw up last summer to JOIN a nlgger
| troop at the seaside and he doesn t re-
greet it. AT the end of the season he had
more money than he ever had at one
time before, and during the season he
| ate better dinners and drank better
wines than he had ever eaten or drunk
before. Hawking matches or laces or
any other trifie in public house bars
used to be and still is a way of evading
the law against begging. Indeed the
custom of singing on the streets arose
out of the same necessity for those III
want not to inCriminate themselves
Now you will be in the saloon bar OF a
first rate refreshment house. In comes
| a top hated, we'll dressed man with a
bag. Some successful stockbroker, you
think, if it be III the city. You fancy
you are the victim Of a delusion. Here
is this man, as we'll dressed as your
principal, holding his open bag before
you and asking you to buy box OF YES
| tas. Well dressed women are going
about from public house to public house
pursuing similar callings. They speak
we'll, too. do these people, betraylng a
! fair amount of education. If tradesmen
have any grounds for complaining OF
the aristocracy trenching on their terri
| tory, surely the poor and needy have
grounds of similar complaining Of hay
ing the instruments of their profession
thus confscated by an apparently supe-
rior class. OF course, with such gen
eral downward trend, the poor and
needy are driven lower still, and this i'll
a measure is seen in the ever increasing
charitable institutions, relief agencies,
soup kitchens and so forth, and the ever
increasing strain on the resources OF
such establishments Cassell' s Journal