The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-12-07
GOSSIP FROM LONDON... Mania for Titles Affects All Casses-Fase Inducements
 St held Out to Young Wnmen to Go to South Africa E
BY HENRY DEvEREAux.

' ONDON, December 6.--Title-hun- ger is a disease. Those who are
 1 suffering from this will do any thing to gratify the appetite. There Is natural and artificial greatness; the first is the reward of special ability, character or achievements; the second can be at tained by variety of methods. Only the few have inequalities and the opportuni- ties to become really great, but the many have it in their power to secure artif- cial greatness. They support the party which is in power, they poster ministers, they pose as philanthropists, they enter tain royal personages, they advertise themselves they flatter and fawn, and in due course some of them receive the title they have made such persistent efforts to obtain. Possibly half the energy and ingenuity expended in the right direc- ton might have produced good work which would have entitled them to be honored-but they lacked natural great ness. Is it good policy to bestow titles upon such people? Their subordinates and their acquaintance know they do not deserve such distinction, and the officials who have been the means of conferring the honor laugh amongst themselves at the award As it Is, our ministers almost always refuse titles, as also do most of the leading men in the colonies. When the Lord Normandy of the day asked for a marquisate. Lord Melbourne answered: 'I did not think you could be such a d--d fool" N
 Out of the matter of titles indirectly occurs a disturbing thought. There comes a time of life to those who have lived in what might be described as the world of the most prominent action, when many of their friends occupy pedestals. A walk through the West End of Lon- don is then somewhat like strolling through a cemetery. Here Is General
 - in bronze, astride of an impossi- ble horse. You remember him huddled in a closed carriage, enveloped in wraps and rugs. There Is MT. - in stone, ar- rayed in an irreproachable frock-coat, addressing inattentive crowds. Not many years ago he was a prosy, elderly, Addressed individual who dogmatised a dinner. and loudly repeated what he had said to MT. Gladstone" or to Lord Beaconsfield." Elsewhere a tablet re- cords the many virtues of Sir - -, who certainly did not occupy the position, of a latter-day saint in the estimate of ms dSSOCldleS. lney are BEehI HIGH HOW and for time-they were very far from great then, to those who knew them best.
 Volodyovslxis turf career has surely terminated. and no derby winner has pre- viously disgarced himself so deeply as a four-year-old. Volodyovskds perform ances have been ignominious in the ex- treme during the past season, and as he apparently will not try over and course whatever he may just as well be turned out of training. It might be good plan to send this horse over hurdles just on the off chance of his proving a good jumper.
 It is time protest was entered against the attempts that are being made to per- suade young women to emigrate to South Africa. The rosy pictures of their pros poets that are drawn over here are al- most entirely illusory; and for the pres ent at any rate, female emigrants in search of employment at the Cape or in the new colonies are finding, like the men, that they would have been better off If they had remained at home. Far more serious, however than any ques- tion of their material prosperity Is the consideration of their moral welfare. have lately received several communica-