A Princedom for Ten Pounds.

Otago Witness, Issue 1917, 13 November 1890, Page 42

A Princedom for Ten Pounds.

Nowadays nothing is easier than to develop into a duke, marquis, or count, and at a veTy small outlay. I remember (writes a correspondent from Paris) being accosted once in the Villa Gardens in Naples by an old gentleman, who introduced himself as Prince dei Cittadini, and who, after sundry preliminaries, offered to adopt me as his son for the trifling consideration of £10, and the expenses of the legal document which would have entitled me to wear the name and honours of the Dei Cittadini family. The man's title was all right. He was the representative of one of the oldest Roman families, and made a precarious living in this way. He told me that he had more than 100 adopted children, and that, accordingly, there were that number of princes of the Dei Cittadini family in existence. The title of each of these was perfectly genuine as the Italian law stands, and the name is a most illustrious one. In France one sees every day advertisements in the papers from nobles offering to adopfpeople who may wish to bear a sonorous name, and those offers are frequently taken advantage of by ambitious persons' sons. A case happened some time ago where a young marquis adopted as his son and heir a middle-aged grocer, who had retired from business with a large fortune and wanted to do some shining in society. He figures now as a count, and should his juvenile adopted, father die before him, he will blossom out into a full-blooded marquis.