The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-06-26
INHERITED FORTUNES.
Along with Them Comes Leisure to
English AristOcrats.
London latter I'M Washington Post

London Letter III washington Post.
1t is always a matter OF establishment to
the American from the West, visiting Lon
don, to find such large leisure class. He
meets pleasant fellow who impresses him.
When you leave the hosptable Briton' s
bnsiness is Mr. ri'ie--can in? None" you
reply We'll, but how did he make his
money will be the next question. He
didn't make it at ALL He inherited it,"
But how did his father get the money he
left to his SOM" He inherited it," And
SO it goes. There is the Duke of Suther-
land, for example. The family was noble
four hundred years before America was
discovered or dreamed of. The Levison-
Covers, the family name of the Suther-
lands, own strip of land sixty miles wide,
clear across Scotland. The great fortune
belonging to the Dukes of Sutherland has
been gathering and growing greater each
decade for eight hundred years. Each head
Of the house is obliged to put a certain
amount of the income of the estate into
land No Duke of Sutherland can sell an
acre of the land his forefatners have pur-
chased. He has only life interest in it.
1t is entailed, and has been handed down
Norman conquered England and laid the
foundations of the greatest empire on the
globe. certainly the richest. This keeping
of an estate together by the law OF entail
has made the English nobility and gentry
what they are. The daughters are usually
we'll lowered but the home and broad acres
go to the eldest son.
When a woman is a peeress in her own
right-that is, inherits the title under
special legal provision allowing her to do
so-she can inherit land as though she were
an oldest son. There are less than a
dozen of these favored women in all Eng
land. The Earl of Berkeley is not the head
ago as 1.-The wicked Berkeleys." The present
earl dates from the last quarter OF the
seventeenth century. But the baroness s
family of the same name and blood was
ennobled in the first quarter of the fif-
teenth century, which has caused no small
amount of heart burning between the Ba-
vate life-and her noble relative and grand
nephew, the present earl. Of course, the
owners Of these great estates do not per-
sonally manage them. They are in charge
of class of the ablest men in England.
They are called attorneys for landed es-
tates. Thus, one firm of lawyers has had
the charge of the Sutherlands' property for
three hundred years. Another legal assoc
ciation-three partners-look after the Gros-
venor or Duke of Westminsters estate,
which chiefly consists of $40 acres which is
now the very heart of business London
The Duke of Westminster manages the
greater part of this business himself, and
it would take a better man, indeed, to get
the better Of him III bargain. The noble
duke, who has the thin face and tall, lank
figure Of a New England farmer, possesses
a landed estate valued at $3.50, 000 900.
He usually wears a suit of clothes which
would be dear at $40 American currency
But the Duke of Westminster whose moth
err was the daughter of the first Duke Of
Sutherland, owns Grosvenor House, one of
the finest of the great residential palaces
OF 1OnQOn. HOW IuucH lIlS peTSOIldl estate
of the duke is worth nobody but himself
and the silent close-mouthed men who
have managed the intricate legal business
of the family for more than generation
could tell
And this is the way in which the Eng
lish nobility has been built up, until 1t is
the most powerful and homogeneous body of
patricians in all Europe. They stand
Shoulder. to shoulder whenever their politi-
cal or class rights are threatened, however
wide their differences may be at other
times. This is why an English duke out
ranks everybody on the continent except
the heirs to the thrones of Germany, Aus
tria and Russia. Think what such an es-
tate say as Rockefeller's would be in
ten generations, 800 years, if it We're as
carefully conserved as the ducal properties
/ have mentioned. Old Commodore VAN
derbilt had some such idea as the entail
for one lifetime when he willed ninety mill
lions to his eldest son. Had the son lived
to attain his fathers age, he would have
possessed an estate almost equaling that
of the Southerlands or Grosvenors, that
has been a thousand years in gathering.
But in a personal dispute he got so furious
that he burst g. blood vessel in the brain,
and the great estate that an unlettered
boatman and fisherman had made so
mighty was broken as a dish might be
broken into twelve fragments Ainsi va
notre monde.