The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-10-20
TOWN HOUSE OF
 ENGLISH DUKE
 HAS BEEN SOL 3
Real Estate Syndicate Pur- chaser---Price
 S,O0O,0O
DEVONsHIRE HOUSE
 NOTED DWELLING
Stands With Its Back to Chief Thorough
 fare


 London, Oct. 20.-(By The Asso-
 ciated Press) The sale of the Duke of Devonshire's town house to a real estate syndicate for $5,O00,O0O is the
 latest of the seats of the old nobility to pass into the hands of outsiders. i The purchase of this London home of . the Governor-General of Canada is . an American syndicate and it is re- ported that a hotel will be erected on the site.
 Devonshtre House was erected nearly two centuries ago, in 173S, at a cost of about $1,O00,000. It is one
 of the most important and historic
 of the old London mansions with { gloomy exteriors and splendid in teriors which Thackeray and the other Victorian novelists made the ! stage settings of their most impress
 sive passages of London life. It stands with characteristic British { disregard for display, it's back to
 Londons chief thoroughfare, Pic i cadilly, its porches iacing a spacious l garden worth some dollars per square
 inch. LaEsGowne House, the town
 place of the Marquis of Lansdowne,
 which commands all even larger gar
 den, is the nearest nesghbor and that i is reported to be in the market also, 1 The Governor General of Canada and the Marquis of Lansdowne both own three or four country estates as l we'll They are at the front of the great landed proprietors of the king i dom, and the Dukes palace named | Chatsworth in Derbyshire is one of the most magnificent private estab- lishments in the world surpassed by nothing in Britain except Windsor i Castle.
 Chesterfield House, owned by gen.
 erauons of Lords Chesterfield, and long considered the finest of the old London residences, has been sold re- gently. This had been rented for
 some years by the Duke of Roxburge who married Miss May Goelet, the daughter of Ogden GoeIet, of New
 York. Here the government enter 1 taired Colonel House when he came after the United States entered the war.
 The Duke of Rutland has just parted with his town house which for
 a time was tenanted by the American merchant, Gordon Selfridge. Lord ! Ebury's great country estate in Sur u by a newly created peer, Lord Le- verhulme, the soap magnate.
 The newspapers ascribe various 1 reasons for these sales. The chief i one is that super-income taxes and i the general increase of the cost of
 living make impossible the upkeep of | such buildings and the necessary re- 1 tinue of servants; another that the
 motor. car makes 1t possible for peo- 1 pie to live in the country and still | enjoy all the advantages of town life. i Another. writer credits the Duke of Devonsl1re with a belief that the | constant sight of such costly private l possessions by the bus-riding masses
 who daily pass the iron gates of De- vonshire House tends to promote 1 Bolshevism.''
 England Changing Hands, is the
 heading under which a weekly paper i groups long pages of notices of estates 1 for sale. Kimberley Castle, one Of 1 the properties of the late Duke of 1 Norfolk, is in the latest list. Also 1 Ruthin Castle, long in the possession i of the Cornwallis-West family; the i Rothes estate, linked with the ancient earldom of that name; and l Burton Pynsent, once inhabited by
 William Pitt. Mathern Palace. Ash | by-Saint-Legers, Creg-y-Nog, Castle 1 Toward, Graham Grange, Rush | brooke Hall, Wind1esham Park, ! Whatton Manor, Barwen Court, Ab- 1 by-OWn- -Hir-these are typical offer 1 ings on the real estate market. They ] are described, some of them as Ja- i cobean, Tudor, Queen Anne, Geor- gian; pictured with meats, turretS. i gargoyles, panelled oak walls and 1 carved stair rails; and many have ap- 1 pertaining to them lakes, deer parks,
 Italian and Georgian gardens, hunt ing with four packs and even fen ] ing land-' In such reading matter i the knowing find between the lines
 not few stories of family tragedies. Apart from sales of whole proper ! ties many great estates are being cur i tailed by placing a few thousand acres on the markets here and ! there. The aggregate of these land | transfers has amounted to millions : of acres this year. The redistribution 1 of the land into smaller holdings, which has been the principal reform l of the past century in Ireland, is l generally considered all for the good i cf the larger island.