124 DAMMING THE STREAM OF CHANGE

If a young woman goes into training to be an architect,
the heading is " Peer's Niece becomes Draughtsman/'
When the daughter of a needy earl was known to be
earning money as a dancing partner, the newspaper
excitement was intense*

" A Duke Opens his Grouse Shoot" was the heading
under a half-page picture in the Mail. " A London
Girl's Romance: Secret Engagement to Baronet" was
featured in the Evening News. All marriages arranged
between titled persons, or even with one in them, are
" romantic/'

That a peer has some innate quality to distinguish
him from the common herd is the belief of the Liberal
Star, expressed in a paragraph about one who opened a
shop of some kind:—

" Not all the customers of the Earl of March—
Freddie, as his friends call him—have realized that
they have been served by an earl/'

The same journal, which once printed the daily protests
of T* P* O'Connor against aristocratic humbug, now serves
it up in this style :—

" Chatsworth without the Duchess of Devonshire
would still be beautiful, but I do not stand alone in
believing that the trees would hold their heads less
high and the flowers lose something of their radiance/'

Even Nature, it seems, is affected by the nearness of
an aristocrat, like a butler or a floor-walker in a shop.

Now, I have explained that this is partly done as a bait
to catch advertisers; to make them believe that papers are
read by the aristocracy, and must, therefore, give plenty of
aristocratic news.