HOW TO CREATE A TITLE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1012, 3 August 1883, Page 4

HOW TO CREATE A TITLE.

announces his profound contempt for hernditary titles of all kinds. He then goes on to say:— .1 once conferred a vast pumber of decorations on ah individual—that is to say, I told him how to get them. He was an : Italian— rich, noble, and a fool. He confided to me that life was a burden to him because he had no decorations. I pitied the silly creature ana said tq,,him:—“ Pay some one to Write a book upon the antiquities of your province, pay some one else to illustrate it, publish it in folio, and send a copy, beautifully bound, to every rWQeirhead in Europe. Two-thirds tHeni will repay you with a decoraTwo years later I saw him again.' He was covered with pieces ot jnetal attached to variegated ribbons. He pressedjny hand; tears of gratitude glistened in his eves ; he would have hugged had me I not, on his showing a disposition to do so, put a table between us. He had followed my advice. T have also made a great many Counts, for I.am always glad to increase the sum of harmless happiness. It was in this wise. I was an Attache at a : legation in a country where scamps'tue as plentiful as—where shall I say?—in the City. It was in the day of passports. Most of these scamps called themselves Counts, and were perpetually|jclamoring’ for passports in which Aefr % Qountships were recognised., *twas ihy business to deliver these ofnctSh-documents. I asked no questions. I registered every one as a Count who called himself one. This soon became known, and seldom a day pasyd. without my creating one or two 'noblemen. Most of the aspirants had names 'Suspiciously un-English.; When I suggested some doubt as to their nationality, they explained it by waving •a dingy band towards the East, and jSaying', that, they were bom in the lonian Islands. Perhaps they were, and I gave them the benefit of the “ perhaps.” As they must have been bom somewhere, why not in lonia ?

el TK6‘ passport was the guarantee of the title. When it was contested, the owner of the official document only g ! 'to produce it’in order to prove his ifiry. From my earliest age I have regarded hereditary titles with con■|gmpts, and ,Ii . have derived much pleasure in thus making them, if possible, still more contemptible. fNot unfreefubrttiy 1 ! t ,: meet; When on the Continent, the son, of one.of my; Counts. He bq}ieves;'Seriously in his title, and, by some strange mental process, ima-gines-that he is the descendant of a Crusader, at least. I sa y nothing to undeceEvejhitm j ■ ;Why should I crush all happiness but of the poor butterfly ?