Arizona state miner., 1919-11-07
OLD ORDER
Today Is the Twilight of the
BeIted Earl.
British Aristocracy, for So Many Gen.
tures Secure in Its High Place,
Is Feeling the Ground Slip
Under Its Feet.

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
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 earPS 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
soh and the housekeeper's son and the
parlormaid's brother and chamber
maids sweetheart. who, being COM
missioned. 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 sef-resppct. Whatever you do,
said her Iadyship to her guest, don't
ring a bell y TO the question in the
visitors face the hostess replied: If
you ring bell the servants Will leave.
have only three. They have an
nounced that they will do their work,
but they forbid Interruptions by
bells!" 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
we'll cooked. But the servants were
efficient shop assistants, no longer
feudaI serfs. And the earl chopped
the trees in his own forest with his
own hands for his own fires The
meager household allowance of coal
that the fuel controller gave to the
earl from the mines Under the earls
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 yeoma 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 100-acre lots.
and the nation, having taken charge
of the earrs coal mines, may now re-
lieve him of the burden of mine own
ership as well. For the parliamentary
committee by a large majority has re-
ownership of all mines of every de-
scription.
And because the earl's son sleeps
under the poppies of Flanders and his
daughters are married and gone the
earl is a weary, confused old man,
chopping wood in the forest to keep
his old wife warm.
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 q parliamentary bill
gradually approach which provides
that capital as we'll 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
nnnial NNnnn IAl.inno Of ANoIoc