BLUE BLOOD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10197, 5 July 1911, Page 2

BLUE BLOOD.

DOES IT DIFFER FROM RED? At the dinner parly of Mrs Waterbrook, recorded in " David Copperfield," tho conversation turned upon Blue Blood, writes the Rev S. BaringGould in tho ''Guardian." "Other things are all very well in their way." said Mr W., "but give me Blood." "You know," said a simpering gentleman at the board, '" wo can't forego Blood. We must have Blood. Somo young fellows may be a little behind their station, perhaps, in point of education and behaviour, and may be a little- wrong, and get themselves and other people into a variety of fixes—but—deuce take it!--it's delightful to reflect that they have Blood in 'cm. Myself, .I'd rather at any time be knocked doivn by a man who had Blood in him than be picked up by a man who hadn't." The Right Hon G. W. S. Russell tells tho anecdote of the childish scion of a noble house screaming when he had cut his finger, not because of the pain, but because the blood that issued from tho wound was red, not blue. What is the origin of tho expression It was applied originally only to women of the aristocratic class, who masked, their faces and gloved their hands against sun and wind, and showed the blue veins through the transparent skin, whereas the lusty farmers'? wives, exposed to the brunt of the weather, had an epidermis too thick to exhibit the azure tissues, and showed instead a network of fine red veins. The term came eventually to be applied to men as well as women of the upper classes when they also withdrew from the rough work of the camp and field. Whero is blue blood to be found—tho pure ichor of the groat barons who came over with the Conqueror, who forced John to sign the Magna Charta, who made English history? Echo answers, Where? Tho names may be here, the titles may be here, but they are assumptions, very often without tho smallest genealogical justification. The late Lord Swaythling was not a Norman Montague, but Joseph Samuel, son of a Jewish watchmaker, of Liverpool. The Duko of Northumberland is not a Percy, but a Smithson—although the Smithsons themselves had a Percy descent before their head married the great heiress—the name proclaims descent from the forge. Earl Boauchamp is neither a Beauchamp npr a Lygon, but a Pyndar, and the family name unmistakably indicates that the direct ancestor was a poundkeeper. Lord Lytton is not a Lytton, but a Robinson, a stranger in blood to the ancient Lytton family. Tho Russels, Dukes of Bedford, have largely contributed to the restoration of the Church of Rozel, but actually fake their name from a red-headed ancestor; and tho first, of the family authentically known was a pettv landowner in' Dorset in the reign of Henry VII.

The humble origin of the majority of the House of Lords is perfectly well known. Earl Carrington is a Smith, descended immediately from a, respectable draper at Nottingham, remotely from a blacksmith, yet now, in the female lino, possessing the bluest baronial blood. The first Lord Kensington was the son of a purser. Lord Brassey issues immediately from a very humble class, although more remotely from a respectable yeoman family. Lord Wim borne derives from a coal pedlar and small, brewer in Staffordshire. Lord Glanusk's great grandfather was a ragged, shoeless, collier lad. The peerage is largely composed of modern creations of men of wealth who would not knew who were their great-grandfathers did not pedigreemongers come to their aid. Jews, lawyers, bankers, money-lenders, engineers, tobacconists, men who have dipped their hands into their moneybags to serve their party—these form the bulk of our modern peers. During the last eighty years the Liberals have created 289 peers, since 3900 as many as 47. Without any disparagement of the gentlemen so honoured, it must he allowed that the material is not that of an ancient nohlesse. We cannot always trust the family names—they are often assumptions to disguise poverty of origin. A Smith blossoms into Vernon, a Hunt is transformed into Do Vere, Morres is converted into MontMorency, and Mullins sounds better as Do Moleins. Peasoup may bo entitled Cramballi on the menu-card, but it is plain pea-soup all the same. One might as well look for a needle in a pottle of hay as for blue blood in tho present House of Lords, although in a generation or two intermarriages will givo it. In Thackeray's " Level the Widower," the son of the German baker of White Chapel, Adolf Loeffel. became Frederick Love!, Esq., with arms and pedigree from the Norman Do Luvell family. This sort of thing goes on daily. All honour to the men who, by their ability, gain promotion, but let there ho no pretence that they represent the blue blood of England. Ti' tho present Government should create a few hundred Pierrots, we may as well look into our pantries and down the area into our sculleries for blue blood _as to the House of Lords. According to novel-writers, a nobleman has au aouilino nose, clearcut features and a stately bearing. Ladies of rank are willowy, have oval faces, and transparent skin. But, in fact, good profiles and distinguished appearance are no prerogatives of blue blood. " What do I care," said Lord Kew, "what a man's father was? When I am a middle-aged man I hope humbly I shall look like a butler myself. Supposo you were to put ten of Gunter's men in the House of Lords. do you mean to say that thoy would not look as well as any average, ten tK?ers in the Houso? Look at Lord Westcott. I never dine with him but I fancv he ought to be at the sideboard/' Take the peeresses who walked at the Coronation, and their daughters who were presented. Compare with them an equal number from Peter Robinson's shop, or Lyon's tea rooms, and tho balance of beauty will probably be found with the latter.

Muzio AUendolo was a poor peasant, born in the Romugna in 1369. One day as he worked in the field;* a band of condottieri passed, and ho thought that the life of a soldier of fortune might ho preferable to that of a labourer. He throw his hoe into a tree, resolving that if it fell ho would resume his toil. But it stuck, and he followed the host. Tn a quarrel over the division of plunder he drew on himself the attention of the captain. "You look/' said he, "as if you would use violence (Sforzurc) to mo also." From this time ho was known among his comrades as Sforza, and he became the ancestor of Princes, Dukes of Milan and Ban", and mated with Royal houses. Indeedj Bianca Maria, his defendant married the Emperor Maximilian 1. The greatest military and political genius who rose between Charlemagne and Napoleon was Sverrir, Kins: of Norway, whose uncle was a pip-driver and whose mother was a dairvmaid in the Faroe Isles. If that maid could have gone down into Hecate's Cave she would have seen rise up an endless nerspective of Royal and Imperial heads descending from her. Her blood, in fact, flows in the veins of the Kings of Denmark. Norway and Greece, of the Czars of Russia and of cur own Kino- George Y. s Emperor of India. Where i* boasting, then? It is excluded. As Stephen exclaimed, "God hath made of one blood all nations of men "—not nations only, but all classes.