The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-01-06
NoBILITYS GOOD FRIEND.
SAMUEL LEWIS, THE FAMOUS MON
Fey LENDER OF LONDON.

London Letter In Washington Star
What a pity Thackeray had not lived to
embody in a second Vanity Fair" Sam
mel Lewis, esquire, lender of moneys to
the peerage of England, and his custom
srs the Lord William Nevills, who trap
their friends into putting honest names
10 otherwise fiimsy promises to pay. Lewis
Is so distinctly in Thackeray's line, so pc
culiar also to the British aristocracy, an
institution so indigenous and so indispen-
sable to the upper crust thereof. One can
fancy Rawdon Crawley sinking off Pic
cadilly into the Lewis cash emporium. No
II Cork street, to discover what his ex-
pect1tions through the unctuous elder
brother. Sir Pitt Crawley, bart, might
profit him in cash in hand. And the
minds eye can see the SNUG covered car
riaee of Samuel Lewis stopping before
mat modest little back door to Gaunt
house, in Gaunt square, to appraise Lord
Steyne's ancestral plate in the Steyne
time of need.
If all the skeletons of VANITY Fair
we're TO be paraded from their closets into
sunlight how the trail of the Samuel Lew
ises might be seen warmed through their
dry bones. What tragedies of younger
sons, tutored to champagne appetites,
finally to be thrust from the paternal
thresholds to maintain the same on beer
incomes. Thackeray's so-called fiction
would walk down into history
For Thackeray's so-called fiction
was amazingly STEPPED in reality. Any
man in London can tell you who was the
original of Lord Steyne they will point
out his heir of the third generation stroll
Il
any Sunday morning. They will inform
you who was Rawdon Crawley also. and
who Sir Pitt; name the real names of the
sporting Capt. Macmurdo, he of the purple
whskers; Mr.. Wenham, the go between
for the noble lord, and direct you to the
coy house, not on Curzon street, where
Rawdon found his helpneet entertaining
his lordship, and Indicate upon the map
the exact longitude of Coventry Island,
whittier Crawley was blleted into exile for
the relief of Steyne.
Some of these specifications may be apo
chrypal, but at any rate, there is no harm
in perpetuating them along with the Poca-
hontas and Santa Claus legends. The per-
sons and episodes of VANITY Fair" must
have had their being in real life. though
the novelist doubtless dressed them for the
purposes of his stage. Samuel Lewis
would have been thoroughly at home in
that classic company Thaekeray would
have painted him from the life and left
the impression with the reader, as he did
in the case of Mr.. Sam Moss who kept
house in Cursitor street for the compul-
sorry lodging of debtors that he was hu-
nan being after all, a brother man and
not half a bad fellow
That is the popular verdict of London on
sam Lewis, as everybody knows him. that
ne is not bad sort. Instances of his gen
crosby figure in the repertoire of London's
pr-6i 1fc
ed necessary evil, and these Britons re-
gard the evils incident to the maintenance
OF their arlstocracy with a kind of fond
liberation. So no one looks down upon the
younger sons-or the elder sons and faith
ers for that matter-when the wolf at the
door drives them Cork-street-ward, while
the association with patrons of so high a
stratum elevates MIR. Lewis above his col
leagues in the note brokerage line whose
doors are surmounted by the dingy trinity
OF gilt balls.
A British peer must have his houses and
horses and traps and servants, yachts and
opera boxes and jewelry morning coats,
evening coats, golf coats, walking running
ana travelling coats, coats in which to be
porn, TO grow up, to be christened mar
ned and 10 die. with all the accessories
which they imply, and these he may get by
borrowing, begging from his relatives,
iending his title to the directorate of shell
SaAS coIpoidWOnS Tor a stipend, or mar
rvng an AmeN can heiress whose parent
eats his fish with the wrong fork. but the
only thing he may not do without losing
cast is to work for living Thus. when
the tailors wax too importunate, and the
baliffs threaten to take possession of the
mouse, as they are said to have once act
ually patrolled the premises of the Duke
OF Teck, and the grocer man rings the
'front.' door bell and announces in his coarse
way and in the hearing of the dining
guests, S one did in the hallway of a
prince Of the royal blood, that he will not
.eave until his little bill shall have been
settled, in such straits the aristocrat must
betake himself TO II Cork street to hypoth-
ecate his expectations There, unless his
future is too hopelessly insolvent, he will
be gwen the cash he needs at interest
varying from 10 to 100 per centum per
ahhum according to the proba bilities OF
payment. But he must not be seen after
ward speaking to his angel on the street
Lewis list of misunderstanding is
esteemed word too common, just as Ger
tdIh houses in Washington whose menu is
ihVersely to their frills entertain guests
instead of keeping boarders-runs hign
INTO the hundreds, and it is believed that
ne never has less than two or three mill
ION pounds aioat in the community ON
terms of living profit One Of those notes
gwen by Lord William NeVill which have
camera of public interest, was according
10 the testimony in court, for the sum of
i5'V0O, for which 81, $40 interest was TO lie
paid' and 1t was testified that other trans
actions in the course of two or three years
WIN this ornament of the peerage totaled
lWVOo or 10000. Whatever the profits of
ms profession may be, they enabled Mr.
Lewis to live in richer style than most Of
ms patrons can carry
ANY American who desires to see this
steat and unique parsonage unprofession-
any can find him at a theatrical first
AlSht. He will be seen always in a box
20 speak more accurately, in the best box.
le IS a round, well-fed looking man, ap-
t~ehtly on the desirable slope of 49, with
!tl black waxed mustache and curly hair
10 match, sharp, black beads of eyes,
spoiush in his general cut with the air of
race track follower He is not unpaas-
"nl IN looks, nor does his face mirror the
,''IHIonal flinty heart of the money
''N"er To be viewed in his glory, how
'er Lewis must be framed in his box at
vac Royal opera i'm Covent Garden as, for
Instance, the jubilee performance, when
ll'Hces, generals, dukes and ambassadors
were thick as congressman at an inaugu-
.'uon. On such occasions the blaze of dia-
"oHds which irradiates from the Lewis