The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-25
A MOD FL VILLAGE.
HIGHEST RENT ASKED AT CHE MES JS 30 CENTS PER WEEK,

of Bedford, Who is a MeddIesom m
 Landlord.
 His grace Herbrand Arthur Russell
 the eleventh Duke of Bedford, descend
 ant of Lord William Russell, whose ! head was cut off by Charles II, looks ,, like William Waldorf Astor and the x chances are that he is as rich. If he { keeps on at the present rate he bids x fair to outstrip the young Duke of SGWestminster and become the wealth
 jest of Englishmen, for, unlike the Duke of Westminster and the expatri- ated Astor, he is not content to sit at $ ease, pocket his rents, as they come and let the increase in land values do the
 rest. No, he is perpetually experiment.
 ing, making improvements, fighting for
 what he thinks are his rights laying
 down new laws for his tenants and { popping up with new ideas
 One of the Dukes ideas was Chenies,
 and the result is that it is one of the
 Queerest villages in Christendom
 Chenies itself-an hour north from
 London--is one thousand years old, and
 has been owned, body and soul, by the
 Dukes ancestors for generations back But the peculiar features of the place gre due chiefly to the notions of the { present proprietor. The brick, ivy-cov-
 xered cottages of the town are as lovely
 as vy-covered cottages well could be, \ and the duke furnishes them complete
 JVy r1yt ino YoJo ,fc, for lo bod
 and keeps the hedge that surrounds
 each place closely cropped at his own expense. He even provides nice red cloaks, all just alike, for the tenants children. Yet the highest rent one can
 pay in Chenies is thirty cents week, x and many of the cottages can be had flor twenty-two cents a week. But
 SChenies doesn't want outsiders-or if 1t does, the duke won't let 1t have
 them. You must be employed by his grace if you want to live there, and
 even if you are on his payroll you must agree to do exactly as the duke says
 about such a lot of little things that
 the advant ages begin to look smaller Ion closer examination.
 s Every one of the dukes men on the
 great estate around Chenies is hired
 by the week, which means that if he loses his place he loses his home as well, and has to worry about looking for new lodgings before he can attend
 to the more urgent business of getting
 a newy job. He is liable, too, at any
 time to have to share his quarters with any strangers who may be hired to
 work on the estate in any especial Emergency, such as harvesting, but, on the other hand, the idea of his taking 1odgers on his own account is severely Crowned upon. In theory all he has to | Sdo if he wants to rent out one of his rooms is to get the permission of the dukes agent, but in practice 1t gene l rally turns out that just at that special | time the agent strongly objects to the | .tenant's adding to his household at all. | Tt Is hard and fast rule that each ten ant must put up with frequent "domi- ciliary visits on the part of the dukes agent or of the duke himself, for fear that the tenant may be maltreating his Kitchen range or injuring the sitting | room woodwork, and it Is anent this | rule of the dukes that his own cousin Remarked publicly on one occasion: ~It must be delightful to see his grace the laborer's pig sty or measuring the cubic space of his back bedroom" The tenant is obliged to move from one cottage to another Whenever it suits the all powerful agents pleasure, and above all, If the Chenfes folk are to be believed, each voter somehow gets the imprssion that about the best way to lose his little home would be to vote otherwise than for the political party favored by his ducal employer.
 < Chenies supplies the duke with a suitable equipment of picturesque and historic buildings, including an ivy covered manor house which dates back past Queen Elizabeth's time and which can show at least two romantic secret Chambers and one subt terranean pas 3age, and with an equally remarkable ,hurch, part of which is given up to ,he private chapel of the Russell fami- V. in the vault beneath which lie the Duke of Bedford's aristocratic and fa- nous progenitors and their relatives, including Lord John Russell prime ; minister twice between 1S40 and 1866, of the earl who is now in { IolIaway jail for bigamy because of / lis American marriage. The village ,ublic house-saloon we call it in l kmerica-is called the Bedford Arms, Z nd that, too, is his grace's property | Incidentally, it is only one of thirty | even that the duke owns in various ] arts of the country. Ne
 But Chenies is important in the r )uke's vast rent roll only by virtue of t ts peculiarities. His chief source of in- orne is indirectly American, for he t wrs almost the whole of the American d oArding house district in London n nown as Bloomsbury, Bedford square, N Lussell square, Woburn square, Tav- fl tock suuare-al1 of them more familiar s nan other parts of London to thou W ands upon thousands of Americans 6. re all called after some of the Dukes N amily names, except Woburn, which fc omes from Woburn abbey, the Dukes u country place. Each summer u le dollars from twenty to thirty thou e md American pockets get to him by a ay of the landIadies who pay stiff te ants to him. The fat district around al event Garden is also his, including u edford street, to which most of the P ,eat publishers have come from Pater- ir Dster row. He is lord and master of si in