TITLED WANDERERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16987, 10 March 1923, Page 2 (Supplement)

TITLED WANDERERS.

UNSUSPECTED RESIDENTS IN AUSTRALIA. SOME STRANGE EXAMPLES. (SYDNEY ‘ SUN.”) A favourite theme of novelists for generations past lias been woven round the younger son of an aristocratic English family and his adventures in Australia, whither ho went in order to repair his shattered name and fortunes, subsequently returning homo after having amassed an enormous sum of money. Everybody i«\ familiar with such stories, but few,perhaps, are aware of the fact that, scattered about, here and there in th© Commonwealth, are many holders of titles in their own right, some of them A u st ra 1 ia n-born. Just as in Great Britain the war was the cause of number of people succeeding to earldoms, baronies, and baron© ticies to which, in ordinary circumstances, they had only the mostremote hope of ever aspiring, in tin* country titles have come to some who would otherwise never have been within three or four “lives” cf them. As:, general rule, it is a. younger son .vho sails for a. far country in order to undergo the process of moral and financial rehabilitation, and mostly a couple of elder brothers stand between him and the family title and estates. The war wined out practically the flower of the younger English peerage, and in some cases where these eldei brothers fell in the field the inheritance came the way of the outcast who had been shipped off by his people to some spot far distant from England and his relatives. Not all, of course were of thi* kind, some having simply emigrated because “ the colonies” offered the best prospects of accumulating the wealth

which was out of reach in the Old World, or for considerations of health, or for some other good reason. But the fact which adds zest to -i contemplation of his possible ancestry on the part of an Australian is that many of these aristocratic offshoots, on arriving out here, promptly severed themselves from all connection with lhe life that they had formerly led. even going to the lengths sometimes of altering their names and keeping it dark that they were scions of noble houses, more or less. man who crawled ashore. Thus it was easily possible for al. traces to vanish completely, with th© result that at the present day their descendants may bo living in ignorance of tfrie fact that one at least among them is a real live lord, perhaps the owner of vast estates in Great Britain. Twelve or 15 years ago there crawl 3d —“crawled ” is the right word—ashore from a cargo vessel at a North Queensland sugar port a dilapidated nondescript specimen of battered humanity. His progress from ship to shore was accelerated by the right boot of the skipper, a. large, rough man, who had his own ideas as to how stowaways on his ship should be dealt with. The newcomer looked at the town, deckE.i that it seemed to be a good place in which to live without working, and promptly settled down there. As time went by he managed to avoid the neceMsity of living without soiling bis bands with work, he took out a sort of insurance hr marrying a .slightly coloured lady, who was prepared to support him by going out washing. In due course, an offspring of the alliance appeared. a bov who was unmistakably a throw-back to one of his colon reel ances--1 tors, being several shades more coffeetinted than bis mother was. "While the youth was growing up in the slum quarter of the town—that portion of n tropical town being guaranteed to put a polish on the education of a growing Jad which could not be obtained anywhere els©—his father was steadily sinking lower and lower through the progressive grades of social degeneraion. until eventually bedrock was reached. And about the time that lie arrived there he managed to net into a brawl in a slv-grog shop. Somebody hit him on the lmad with bot*l,.. and he died a few da vs later in the

local hospital, unwept-, unhonoured, and unsrung. COLOURED HEIR- TO PEERAGE. The surprise therefore, of the police and the hospital authorities may be imagined when, on going through his few personal effects in th© form of some papei-s and letters, they found indubitable proofs of the fact that he was a member of a family famous in English history, on© of th© oldest and most honoured in the country, and the second son of one of the great figures in contemporary affairs. It was contrived to let lus people know of his death without hinting at the kind of existence that lie had led while in North Queensland, but in a short time the story was all over the town and district. With a fine touch of that snobbery which perhaps is found all over the- world, the local bank managers, medical practitioners, and town clerk formed a committee with a couple of others and seriously discussed the project of erecting a statue to the memory of the dead aristocrat-, whom in life they had scorned and despised whenever they had condescended tr» notice his existence. The plan fell through, however, and the committee had to content itself with sending a photograph of the grave to the bereaved father—the funeral having been paid for by their subscriptions—accompanied by a. letter setting forth the great virtues of the deceased. Then came the war. bringing with it a. sequel which some day may be the cause of endless worry to the House of Lords and to the family of the dead man. The latter’s elder brother fell in the retreat from Mons, and with him went th© immediate heir to the title and estates. The father, who is the present holder of them, is still living. but at his death they will pass to the coloured youth in North Queensland. since he is directly next in the line of succession. There can be no doubt as to the validity of the marriage of which he is the progeny. THE RETIRING BARONET. Until a short time ago there lived

in one of the fruit-growing districts of North-Eastern Victoria a quiet, middle-aged Englishman, of culture and good family. He had little to do with his fellow townspeople, and took no part iri local social activities, devoting himself instead to the business of trying to make his orchard yield him a living. He was married to an Australian woman, and there was a small family of three, two boys and a girl. Tt was not until he had been settled down in the place for nearly seven year- that it leaked out purely by accident that he was a baronet, albeit one without estates, unless his orchard could be considered as such. Thereafter his neighbours set to and made life thoroughly miserable for him and his wife. Female leaders of society in the town organised receptions and at homes to “ meet ” him and his wife, notwithstanding the fact that every resident in the district had already met them •both on numerous occasions. Not a, bazaar or a bun-fight within a radius of ten miles was regarded ;».s being in proper order unless one or the other of the couple was present to declare it well and truly open. And, to cap all, the headmaster of the private school which the baronet’s small son attended suggested that the youth should he given private tuition apart from the other pupils ! The disgust of th© baronet and his wife—a pair of decent, unassuming souls—can be letter imagined than described at all these manifestations, and, one day, he announced suddenly that bo had sold his orchard and was leaving the district, which lie did within th© week. Nor did the residents of the town ever hear of him again, for both he and his wife returned evasive replies in answer to inquiries, direct and otherwise, as to where they were going, and when, the aid of the postmistress was enlisted, all that she could find out for them was that letters were to be forwarded to th© care of a firm of Melbourne solicitors. A WAITER’S ROMANCE. In The Darling Downs region of Queensland there live two brothers, both of them engaged in pastoral plysuits. the elder of whom is the holder incognito, of a Scottish earldom. It is over 30 vears since the\ first came , to Australia, and in the whol~ of that

period they have been known simply bv their family name, although many of their friends are aware oi their aristocratic antecedents. The earl lias two sons, and at his death, of course the title will pass automatically to the oldest. it is his desire, however, that it should be allowed to die out, or at least to be forgotten, for locally it can never become extinct by lack of usage, and could be lawfully revived after the laps© of hundreds ot Among the submerged and semi-sub-merged ranks of th© community, titles and other patents of nobility ore by no means rare in +his country. There was a Melbourne restaurant, now closed, which a few years ago boasted among its staff of waiters the son of a great English house, one whose name is known and respected far and wide. By what strange by-paths of Fate he travelled down from a commission in mi English cavalry regiment to the job of waiting on diners in an Australian eating-house will probably be told, hut when the war broke out he hastened to L-ondon and enlisted. "What- became of him has since been a mystery, but lie left behind him, here in Australia,’a wife and son, and it is naturally not outside the bounds of probability that the latter father and father’s distinctions. *”