SEODDY ARISTOCRACY.

Grey River Argus, Volume XV, Issue 1858, 20 July 1874, Page 3

SEODDY ARISTOCRACY.

[ISEI#OTJIWE CORRESPOND?!! QTAGO DAILY #[attsrs have been very tmeventf ul with Via for some time and the stagnating paralysing effect of the long dreary debate would seem to have extended into social affairs as well as political ones, : if it were not for the recent flutter which has been caused in the halls of Toorack by an un-' pleaßant discovery. Oh Saturday, the 6th inst., the following advertisement appeared in the Argus : — . " Caution. — The public are cautioned against a young man, who by wrongfully representing himself as Hugh Leslie Courtenay, a son of the Reverend the Honourable H. H. Courtenay, has obtainei money from persons in America, London, Paris, and the south of France. He also represents that he has been in the English navy/and he has the above name withK. N. on his luggage. The above facts having come to the knowledge of the saidH. H. Courtenay, hp hereby cautions the public that the young man is, not his son. H. H. Courtenay, M.&\nr head/Deyon, Marcfi, 1874" 41as !it was too late. The young man in question had already run a brilliant career in India upon the strength of his agreeable features, and having exhausted that field of enterprise had come on to Melbourne. He -was "hand in glove " with our brightest nobility at once, and the unpleasant exposure made by this awkward advertisement was almost as annoying to them as to him — to the dupes as to the ' swindler. The soi di&ant Mr Courtenay had managed things pretty well. He came from Galle by. the mail steamer, and a little while after leaving Galle the captain of the vessel handed him a letter addressed to the Hon. H. L. Courtenay asking him if that -was for him

" It can hardly be for me," he said, " unless, indeed, my uncle, the Earl of Devon, is dead." After opening the letter :" It is so,. indeed. My poor uncle is dead, and my father wants me home in all haste, y J will give you, Captain, LIOOO if you put theshipback and land me at Galle." The captain regretted that, even to oblige the son of an Earl, he was/unable to comply with his request ; but he took care : 'to inform the other passengers what a distinguished young gentleman they had amongst them. Need ,it be said that all kinds of attentions and repects were shown to the scion of the illustrious and once Imperial line of the Courtenays, or ' that.whenj he arrived' :at ! Melboiirne : his brother aristocrats of the shoddy palaces of Little Flinders street received him, with open arms ? Blue blood is .blue blood all the world over, and every opulent wholesale grocer or. keeper of a wholesale drygoods store felt like a brother towards the yoxxng patrician.. He. was received everywhere ; his presence was an honour and favour; he dined with the richest and danced with the fairest ; and the very highest circle of our Colonial society was open to him. The daughters of Toorak admired his conversation, delighted in his talk about the titled friends he had left at home, and the Lady of Lyons did not hang with greater rapture on Claude's description of his palace by Lake Como than the aspiring girls of Victoria bestowed to the young visitor as he described the glories of his ancestral line, and the family seat of which he would one day be the lord. An English, or rather Irish, earl, had lately married a young lady n Tasmania, and why mightnotthe future Earl of Devon wed a Melbourne bride 1 Things were at the best and brightest when the crash came. The young man who had been so flattered, to whom Viceroyalty had shown such kind attentions, the game was up, and that he. might as . well without loss of time transfer histalent arid ids enterprise to some new andimworked field.. So the halls of dazzling light knew him no more, and his image only remained as a; 'tantalising dream in many a tender -heart which had dreamed too wildly • of . a. coronet and a title that had now flitted away. The case is only one of the many humiliations which our mercantile aristocracy has had to bear owing to jits abject flunkeyism to everybody, were he the most, vulgar-impostor, that claims to., be the representive or bearer of a title. If that fat Orton had been contented to : stay in Melbourne, instead of going home, our nobility would have been feasting him and licking his feet tothjis day : ; and had he not unluckily married that Irish servant girl, ; the fariest girls of the South Yarra 'mansions would have been paying him court and admiring his haui ton and aristocratic breeding. However* they have had a lesson that will serve for a time. .