Vernon Parish Democrat., 1919-11-15
old ORDER PASSES
Today Is the Twilight Of the
BeIted Earl.
British Arlstocracy, for So Many Cen
turtles Secure in Its High Place,
is Feeling the Ground Slip
Under Its Feet.

QnQer It's FeeL
In one of the old Plantagenet houses
of England the belted. earl and her
ladyship live in one corner of the cas-
tie. The rest of the fine old mansion
is closed, William Allen White writes
In Golfers. The servants needed to
run the house are no longer available.
Money will not hire them. Their men
have been commissioned in the army
because the earl's son-who had a
right to sit at the foot of the throne
and who had also the blessed privilege
Of hearing the king by ancient right
address him as cousin-the earl's son
lighted one cigarette too many on the
parapet, and when he and his kind
from Elton and Harrow went out, COM
missions in the army fell to the cooks
son and the hOusekeeper's son and the
parlormaid's brother and chamber
maids sweetheart, who, being COM
mlssioned, promptly took their women
kind out of service. They are feeling
what they never felt before, these do
nestle servants of the nobility-the
spur Of ambition.
So they have left the castle, and
such Of the servants as stay have be-
gun to assert their rights, to manifest
their self-respect. "Whatever you do"
said her Iadyship to her guest, don't
ring a benp To the question in the
VISITORS face the hostess replied: 'If
you ring a bell the servants will leave.
have only three. They have an
nounced that they will do their work,
but they forbid interruptions by
bellsI' The hot water appeared on
schedule; the service flowed into the
guestroom in its regular channel, ex-
cept that fires were so low that the
visitors feet were frostbitten; the
meals were served on time and were
well cooked. But the servants were
efficient shop assistants, no longer
feudal serfs. And the earl chopped
the trees in his own forest with his
meager household allowance Of coal
that the fuel controller gave to the
earl from the mines under the earl's
own lands was barely enough to heat
the servants rooms.
And as for the broad estate over
which the earl ruled as an agricultural
overload six years agO-an agricul-
tural overlord and Industrial entrepre-
neur through his coal mines-the es-
tate is all crumbling. The land is pass
ing into the hands Of small farmers /;
the old yeoman farmer, fairly well-tO-
do, of good old yeoman stock, going
back to the Conqueror-he and his
kind are taking the ownership of the
land of the belted earl in 1O0-acre lots,
and the nation, having taken charge
of the earl's coal mines, may now re-
lieve him of the burden of mine own
ership as well. For the parliamentary
committee by large majority has re-
ported in favor of the government
ownership Of all mines of every de-
scription.
And because the earIs son sleeps
under the poppies of Flanders and his
daughters are married and gone, the
earl is q weary, confused old man,
chOpping wood in the forest to keep
his old wife warm. He cannot fight
the new order. No leadership is call
= ing him. He knows that the end is
coming for him and his kind. He real
izes quite definitely that in few years
the castle Of the Plantagenets, who
were royal in the last Henry's days,
probably win fall into the hands Of q
brewer or a draper or a stock broker,
who will put in a central heating plant
to- defile it, debase the privacy of every
bedroom with hot and cold water, and
degrade the place with a wilderness
Of bathrooms, so that four servants
can run the place on two eight-hour
shifts where 100 retainers once served
the baron under Elizabeth.
The millions the old earl received
from the yeOman farmers for his land
have been divided with the state in
yearly income taxes; and now on the
horizon he sees parliamentary bill
gradually approach which provides
that capital as well as income shall be
heavily taxed. So the old man in the
forest sees even his capital unsafe,
and he wonders curiously how the lit
tie gray man at Windsor feels about
the prospects of succession for the
genial young prince Of Wales.
Dish Runs Away With Spoon.