Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1898-03-24

ueH, anu Cdttle-DreeQerS. dukes are
company directors, and titled ladies
run bonnet shops and dress establish
ments. We have not heard that any
of them have been excluded from
''the hupper sukkles" IN consequence.
1t would seem, therefore, that sound
common sense is likely to prevail, and
that eventually every useful career will
be deemed honorable in any rank of
society. Fashion has taken slight
turn, and we must not be surprised if
We see countess directing a steam
laundry, or viscount master of a
merchant ship.
1t was the same abroad. The illus
triors De Medicis, father and son, were
merchants and presidents of the
Florentine republic, equal IN greatness
and power TO any of the kings of their
time. The Doges and State Councillors
OF Venice, whose faded splendours are
the marvel of Europe, were merchants
and controlled the trade of the east.
How paltry and pitiable have been
the methods by which class has in
trenched itself from contact with class,
each feeling that it must "draw line"
In its own favour, and making every
town and village in the kingdom hot
bed of jealousies and hatreds. Money
less proprletors of land disdained the
landless proprietors Of money. The
man who could let his farms on hire
scorned the man who made them fruit
full.
"WholesaIe" would have nothing to
say to "retail." Small gentry cooked
their noses at the apothecary, but ad-
mitted physician. Clergymen of the
Established church refused to shake
hands with dissenting ministers. When
a merchant or manufacturer bought an
estate ami settled in the country, he
was nouveau richie among the landed
proprietors, not worth calling upon,
and the new-made noble was parvenu
to his titled brethren. The royal source
of honour was not a sufficient guarantee.
usually accompanied by debauchery
and extravaganza, can, however. con-
vert a parvenu family into a truly
noble one!
Yet we are proud to know that
large number of England's most
honoured families is derived from the
humble ranks of industry, and from
the trading classes. The ancestors of
Lord Foley and of the Earl of Dudley
were poor Stafordshire nailmakers;
those of Lord Leigh, the Earl of North
brook, Earl Fitzwilliam, and the Duke
of Leeds, were city merchants, to say
nothing of many others. Sir J. Ber-
nard Burke, in his "Vicissitudes of
Families" says, "The present House
of Lords cannot claim among its mem
bers a single male descendant of any
one of the Barons who were chosen to
enforce Magma Charta, or of any one of
the Peers who are known to have fought
at Agincourt."
Not one-fourteenth of the peerages
that had been created up to 1875 exist
today, Notwithstanding. the Peerage of
England is, as Disreli said, "the finest
in Europe" No greater tribute of
praise was ever paid to it than by
Observation-Disclosures and democrat
that he was-where he says in "Nou-
velle Heloise," eff you know the
English nobility, you must be aware
that it is the most enlightened, the best
taught, the wisest, and the bravest in
Europe. This being SO, it is unnecessary
to enquire if it be the most ancient,
for, in speaking of what it is, no ques-
ton arises of what it has been. The
peers of England are certainly not the
slaves Of the prince, but his friends;
no. the tyrants of the people, but its
chiefs, its guarantees of liberty, sus-
tainers of their country, and suppor-
ters of the throne, they form an
invincible equilibrium between the
people and the sovereign. Their first
duty is to the nation, their second to
him who governs it: it is not bis will
but his right that they consult, supreme
administrators of the laws in the House
of Lords, and sometimes law makers,
they render justice equally to tine peo-
pie and the crown, and they allow no
one to say God and my sword but
only God and my right. "
We're it not that law, politics, and
trade are constantly recruiting the
peers with new blood, they would
dwindle into insignifcance, for no
family, plebian. noble, or royal, can
escape the vicissitudes of time. As
lord chief justice, Sir Andrew Crewe,
in his splendid charge, said of the De |
Veres-"Time hath his revolutions:
there must be period and an end to |
all things enporal-fnis rerum-an |
end of names and dignities and what |
soever is terrene, and why not of De
We're? For where is Bohun? Where |
is Mowbray? Where is Mortimer?
Nay, which is more and most of all |
where is Plantagenet? They are en-
tombed in the urns and sepulchres of |
mortality! And yet let the name and |
dignity of De We're stand so long as it |
peaseth Cod
Extravaganza, gambling, racing, and |
betting, are the means by which old |
families are brought low. Idleness and |
scI,