The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-01-06

l. a a s tyitOSt JotANt fof raAt 5yf>
 rBut wonleh?s Why, mercy childi If they really are not entitled to distin- guished lineage and a coat of arms, they
 adopt them just the same, without a qualm of conscience. A few years ago a l rich westarn woman came to Washington, determined to enter society. She told me | she wanted to be descended from Juliet
 of Argyle, and to use the Argyle coat of arms.
 ." But, madam, told her. you are no
 more entitled to the Argyle coat of arms | than l am.'
 Tt made no difference to her whatever. 1 Judith of Argyle appealed to her as a | picturesque and desirable ancestress, and she calmly appropriated the Argyle coat
 of arms It appears today in all it's glory
 on her stationery and her electric run about"
 Time was when man or woman could
 be fined and imprisoned for appropriatins l a coat of arms to which he or she was not entitled. Today the social climber commits all sorts of depredations upon q | defenceless past.
 | "Women even select this or that coat of arms.' continued Mrs. Dorsey, flor no | other reason than that they think it pretty woman who had no claim to distinguished ancestry came to me desir- | ing to look through books on heraldry | and choose for herself the coat of arms | she thought most attractive in form and coloring. She decided upon one which 1 had belonged to an ancient and honorable l Scotch family. This coat of arms con tained two figures of lion, which I ex- plained to her were the supporters. Now only heads of clans in Scotland, peers in England, and knights of the
 Garter, the Thistle, and orders of similar
 rank were entitled to Supporters on coat of arms So I attempted to impress upon the woman that to adopt the par ticular coat of arms she had chosen would be to make herself ridiculous.
 But I think it is prettier with the sup porters than without" she answered com
 placently, ESQ I will not omit them.'
 It is not only women of the present day. however, who commit absurdities with regard to coats of arms. In old books on heraldry we learn that one Beatrice Staff ford in the year 1401, showed shield charged with her paternal arms between
 those of two husbands. And that in the
 year 142, Elizabeth. Lady of Clinton, owned a wonderful shield, paled with hve coats of arns-her arms of la Plaunche between those of four husbandsl At d little later day we find bed curtains and coverlets embroidered with coats of arms. and arms in wood and brass decorating milady's bedroom.
 Crazed Over Royal Descents
 To-day" says Mrs. Dorsey, there is a craze in America over royal descents. 1t | Is a fad caught from the English and 1 stimulated in this country by the nterna- : tional marriages which have taken place 1 within late years Ten or fifteen years | ago Joseph Foster of England, an au-
 thority of international reputation, issued | a book on royal descents in which he
 traced many old English families to royal l sources.
 gre be descended from royalty then be-
 came all the rage in England. In that | country many goods plain English families | had no trouble in proving that royal blood | flowed in their veins. This is not par
 ticularly difficult thing to do in England. In the old days kings married their daugh- ters to princes, while the daughters of | princes married earls, and earls daugh- ters married knights. whose daughters
 were in turn welded to squires
 l After the breaking out of the royal descent fad in England the smart set of | America caught the craze. There are men and women in this country who would buy a royal ancestor at any cost if they only could If Miss Clementina Hodges Is go- ing to marry Lord So and So of England, l she begins to feel tht ashe would give half her fortune to say she is descended from an English or a French king. In l America there are many families who can | lay claim to such a lineage. The Diggs | family of Maryland. for instance, is of | royal descent. So is the famous Lee fam ily of Virginia, and there are msny others | But to every one American family which has the distinction of royal descent there | are dozen or more families who have been duped by unreliable psychologists into believing themselves descendants of kings. Many do not know that it is impossible
 to establish royal descent unless dates