PEERS IN BUSINESS.

Evening Post, Volume XLVIII, Issue 54, 1 September 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

PEERS IN BUSINESS.

The Marquis of Londonderry and the Earl of Dudley, openly aud unblushingly, have entered into business as retail coal sellers ; Lord Hampden's milk carts are familiar in the (South of Eugland, and now another peer, the Earl of Harrington, to wit, has opened a fruit shop in Parliamentstreet, Westminster. Agriculture being iv such a phenomenally depressed condition in England, it has occurred to Lord Harrington that there was money in fruit-growing. This belief he is now putting to the test, with every prospect of success. For the future 'peers and commoners going down to the Houses of Parliament in the afternopn, or colonial visitors going to call on their respective Agents-General, will, doubtless, drop in at the Earl of Harrington's fruit shop and try his apples, pears, plums, grapes, or strawberries. Other peers have sent their fruit to market anonymously for years past; but Lord Harrington is the first nobleman to go into the retail fruit business without disguise, and openly display his name on the front of the shop. This growing alliance between nobility and trade is (says one of our contempories) to be encouraged ! for two reasons. In the first place, it necessarily tends to undermine the snobbish contempt for retail traders which has been a characteristic of the higher walks of English society for generations. And secondly, it will gradually put an end to the dangerous loafing idleness in which it has hitherto been the fashion to bring up the younger sons of the nobility. The society fiction that young lords and honourables must on no account soil their fingers with honest toil has been responsible for the wreck and ruin of many cadets of noble families in London. The increasing number of young fellows bearing courtesy titles that are now earning their own living is one of the most gratifying features of the age.