The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 16, 1904, Page 17

e —— el Pages17t026 { ".'71’;35 PR\ TS5 4} CALL i Pages 171026 l -— SAN FRANCISCO, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1904. British Peerage Still a FIELD FOR AMERICAN HEIRESSES Seeking to Wed Titles MARCHIONESS OF DUFFERIN AIDS IRISH POOR. MARKETS THEIR NEEDLEWORK AND BRIGHTENS THEIR LIVES Crush at Swell Functions in London Results in a Scramble Among the Invited Guests to Gin Entrance to Home of Hostess. is cab could not find a p ssage n e under- the jam on foot. By d in getting inside val and won- THE IMPOSSIBLE CRUSH. Currie, ador to h does not ttempted ivitation. similar. carriage at her rve 2diately ks were g the wistfully after her was by no means say, “I get your car- Then, in spite of the rain, she set = ple, which many satin- pered res followed—s ran gh the storm-swept, muddy street she caught up with her carriage. {VEN THE HOST BLOCKED. ill more comical and exasperating was the experience of Lord London- de His wife was giving a big party at Londonderry House. He had an- other engagement that evening, but hurried hack from it to join his wife and play the part of host. He found the street so blocked with carriages cheer don’t riage know whe again ) LZFLX BTER « = e dering what had happened to detain him. Fashionable hostesses are utterly at a to provide any remedy for the state of airs these incidents reveal. They cannot restrict their invitations to a > number without giving mor- 0 many persons and placing pardy their own popularity. How- magnificent their _abodes, they y one front door, and only ene carriage can draw up at one time. One or two minutes are exnended while the occupants alight, and the carriage rolls away. When there are hundreds eof carriages filled with guests waiting, these minutes stretch into long and tedious hours. And it is not alone those who are invited to these grand func- tions who are exposed to sore inconve- nience in consequence of the street blockades they cause. Cabs containing people who are returning to their homes and are very anxious to get to them are often detained for over an hour in consequence. Swells cannot be treated like ®ostermongers and summoned for impeding street traffic and creating what the law terms a nuisance. SRR SRS U Croker and Daughter in Erin. DUBLIN, Oct. 15.—Richard Croker and his daughter Florence are visiting J. H. Perd, a prominent Irish veterin- ary surgeon. Miss Florence is much admired and has several suitors, but her father has caused it to be known that none but Roman Catholics needs apply for her hand. —_——— Home for Aged French Artists. PARIS, Oct. 15.—Robert Tony Fleu president of the Societe des Artistes des Francais, announces that plans will be published shortly for . a home for aged members of the soci- ety. Almost $200,000 have been sub- scribed for the home, ever ASTOR PLANS T0 CONSTRUCT TUDOR VILLAGE Shows Keen Interest in the Historical Scenes in British Kingdom About Hever Castle the Millionaire Will Con- struct a Quaint City LONDON, Oct.: 15.—William Wal- Astor is coming out strong in his new role of patron and preserver of scenes and associations. Not content with his scheme for restoring Hever Castle as it was in the days when King Henry VIII wooed the ill- fated Anne Boleyn there, Astor is further planning to build around it a Tudor village that shall be in every de- tail an exact replica of the dwell- ings of olden time. One house, which historic \ 4 T — British Peers Who Are Eligible as Husbands. - [ SR S —— will be the first built, the millionaire intends to reserve for his own occu- pation, that he may have the satisfac- tien of seeing the scheme carried out under his own personal supervision. The position of Hever Castle lends itself well to such an undertaking as ite owner has in mind, for it is situat- ed on the banks of the river Eden in the Weald of Kent and close to the classic ground, near Penshurst, made famous by the immortal Sidney. It is quadrangular in form, surmounted by towers and battlements, and inclos- ing a large courtyard. Few places in England are richer in historic asso- ciations, both tragic and picturesque. Heretofore Astor has manifested a spirit of selfishness in reserving his es- tates for his own exclusive enjoy- ment, which is not at all in keeping with the customs and traditions of the English aristocracy, most of whom freely throw open their domains to the public on at least one day in the week. When Astor bought from the Duke of Westminster the beautiful Clieveden property, overlooking the Thames, he treated visitors as tres- passers and withdrew the privileges which they had previously enjoyed. At the present time he has a row on — his hands with the Thames Conserv- ancy because he objects to the public fishing in the stream where it borders his estate. Astor wants to be popular. It is no secret that he would very much like to get a title conferred upon him. But it is also no secret that King Edward will never give him one until he mends his ways and shows some disposition to share with the crowd the good things that his money commands. The public is anxiously waiting to learn if the Tudor village is to be reserved for Astor’s exclusive enjoyment. Tl e, Dowie Converts in Paris. PARIS, Oct. 15.—Dr. Dowie evidently is beginning a big crusade in Paris and on the Continent. Mr. and Mrs. Booth Clibborn, formerly of the Salva- tion Army in France, have become con- verts to the Zionist doctrine, and have arrived here to carry on the propa- ganda. “My sister-in-law will start here shortly,” said Perey Clibborn, the financial manager for Dowie,and some days ago we sent a missionary to Bu- dapest. Last week one went to Ber- lin and now we are organjzing a Paris branch.” SN The Duke of Richmond, With Vast Estates, and the Marquis of Bute, With His Thirty Millions, Plums in the Matrimonial Market ~—~HEONDON; Oct." 15—Though the Brit- ish peerage has of late years yielded many titled husbands to American heiresses there is no danger of the sup- ply running short. With over 500 fam- ilies entitled to representation in the House of Lords, it will be understood that John Bull's output of peers, mak- ing no allowance for new creations, is in a fair way to keep pace for some time to come with Uncle Sam’s sur- plus of vastly rich and pretty girls. As a matter of fact, there are at pres- ent far finer matrimonial plums to be plucked from the tree of the British aristocracy than have yet been gath- ered by the American feminine in- vaders. Dukes rank first in the British peer- age after the Princes of royal blood and the two Archbishops. Matrimo- nially viewed, among the most eligible of them is the Duke of Richmond, who is four times a Duke—of Richmond, Lennox and Gordon, in Great Britain, and Duc d’Aubigny in France. He has also three Earldoms—March, Darnley and Kinrara—and the Barorial append- ages of Settrington and Methuen. He owns nearly 300,000 acres of land, which is about fifteen times as much as the Duke of Marlborough has. He pos- sesses a fine old Scotch castle, Gordon Castle in Banffshire, a magnificent mansion at Chichester, Goodwood House, which deservedly ranks among the best of the stately homes of Eng- land, and several other residences. He succeeded to his estate only last year. He is 59, tall, thin and of active habit: He carries his age well, and where titled marriages are concerned youth and romance are secondary considera- tions. He is a brainy man, too, and a plucky one; was a member of Parlia- ment for nineteen years, and as colonel of the Third Royal Sussex Regiment he distinguished himself in the South African war. He has no objection to an untitled bride, for he has been twice married, and each time to a plain “Miss.” His first wife was Miss Amy Ricardo, and his second, who has been dead seven- ‘teen yvears, was Miss Isabel Craven. With neither did he receive a fortune, but he was only the heir when he mar- ried them. Now that he is four times a Duke he finds himself sorely in need of ducats to maintain his estates in proper style, for much of his property is in Scotland. where rents are low. That is why an American heiress would stand a good chance now of making her money count. The Duke already has an heir—the Earl of March—by his first wife, and this heir has a son, so that his third Duchess would stand a very remote chance of seeing any of her offspring in possession of the titles. RARE DUCAL PRIZES. ‘Well worth cultivating by American match-making mammas is the Duke of St. Aibans, hereditary grand falconer of England, who, though thirty-four vears of age, has thus far succeeded in eluding the net of the fowler. He is not a drawing-room Duke and pre- fers a yacht to all the gayeties of town. He is a handsome fellow with one of the finest seats in England at Best- wood in Nottinghamshire and ome of the finest in Ireland, somewhere in Tipperary, but he has never shown any disposition to settle down since he en- tered upon his inheritance in 1898, much to the regret of several English mat- rons with marriageable daughters. His property covers some 9000 acres. At present his half-brother, Lord Osborne @e Vere, is the heir-presumptive. In- cidentally the Duke of St. Albans is a descendant of Charles II and Nell Gwynn. As he celebrated his seventeenth birthday only a few months ago, a few vears must elapse before the Duke of Leinster can be regarded as in the eligible list, but he is well worth wait- ing for. He is the premier Duke, Mar- quis and Earl of Ireland all in one and, unlike many secions of the nobility. when he enters into his hereditary pos sessions he will have plenty of money to maintain them. He was only six vears old when his father died and his trustees have been carefully nursing the property ever since, so that when he comes of age there will be a big for- tune awaiting him. His Kildare es- tate was recently sold for close on $7, 000,000 and he still retains a few thou- sand acres of the ancestral domain elsewhere. Should an. American girl marry him there would be no ground for the usual cynical jests about swap- ping British titles for American dol- lars. As he is one of the.few. peers who will be able to afford the luxury of a love match, an American girl without much money would stand about as good a chance of landing him as one with lots of it. And such a marriage would establish a new record in international alliances. THE FUTURE WELLINGTON. It is as a prospective Duke that Lord Douro should figure in the list of ducal eligibles, for if he lives long enough he will some day be Duke of Welling- ton. He is now twenty-seven and his father, the present Duke, is fifty-five, but longevity as well as genius has thus far been restricted to the first Duke. Financially the house of Wel- lington has fallen on evil days and the Duke has a hard time of it to make both ends meet. The generous money grant made by a grateful nation to the national idol terminated with the third Duke, and the estate, which consists of some 19,000 acres, does not yield enough in the shape of rents to maintain a ducal style of living. This state of affairs should make Lord Douro an easy match for some rich American heiress. With enough of the needful to pay the bills an American Duchess of Wellington would stand socially, at least, on an equal footing with the American Duchess of Marlborough. As far as titles go the Wellington dukedom is much richer in them than the Marl- berough one. Spain and Portugal vied with England in lavishing them on the Iron Duke, but did not sully their man- ifestations of gratitude by associating them with anything so sordid and vul- gar as cash. There is no house in London better adapted to entertaining than Apsley House, with its magnificent hall, rare art treasures and priceless relics of the conqueror of Napoleon. It needs only money and those arts in Which the American”’ girl excels to make it the most popular resort of the social elect. Lord Douro is reputed to be a very de- cent fellow. In the Guards he made the mistake of taking his profession seri- ously instead of “going the pace,” and was “ragged” by his brother officers. RICHEST BACHELOR PEER. By long odds the richest bachelor peer in the United Kingdom is the Mar- quis of Bute, who is only 24 years old. At a low estimate his property is worth at least $30,000,000. Cupid will count for more than cash in determining his mat- rimonial choice, but that is no reason why it should not fall on one of Colum- bia’s fair daughters. He is three times an Earl and several sorts of lesser no- bilities, and withal he is an eminently proper and correct young man. Although the greater portion of his hundred thousand odd acres is in Scot- land most is wealth is derived from Cardiff, which he practically owns. He cares little for *iety and he and his mother us reside in one or the other of northern strongholds, sur- rounded e superbly barbaric state of the old fashioned Scotch nobility. Instead of evening dre he dons the kilt at dinner and insists on all his servants arraying themselves in High- land costume. Although a married man the Marquis of Downshire figures among the elig- ible peers, for a few years ago he di- vorced his wife whom he had married when he was 22. He is now 33. He owns about 120,000 acres; -a castle in County Down, Ireland, and a fine old park and dence in Berkshire. A HERO WITH PROSPECTS. The Earl of Caledon is still a minor, but in two years he will take posses- sion of the 30,000 acres which constitute bis ancestral domains. Castle Caledon and Derg Lodge, Tyrone, are the his- teric seats which go with the title. In the fire at Eton College last year, which caused such a flutter in aristo- cratic circles, the lad distinguished himself by his pluck and coolness. His mother cuts a considerable figure in London society and occupies a hand- some house in Cariton Terrace. It is understood that she would not be to an American heiress as a daughter-in-law, for Irish estates are not usually productive of large in- cemes, and the family is not a very rich one. Lord Leconfleld is regarded as a great catch among British matrons, but the fact that he is still single though thirty-twe would indicate that he does not look with much favor on English beauties with limited purses. He was one of the most important hosts of the Goodwood races. Equally prominent socially and from a monetary view much/ more desirable is Lord Howard de Walden, the cighth Baron to inherit the historic title which dates back te 1597. He is only twenty- four and enormously rich as wealth is estimated in the British aristocracy. In the South African war he served with distinction for two years, but m these piping times of peace he devotes himself to sports. Lord Gerard, whose father died tweo years ago, will come of age this autumn. The family is not a notably rich one, but socially it is well at the top and the wife of the young man would experience no difficulty in gain- ing entrance to the charmed circle of royalty. Among the eldest sons of peers who will some day inherit distinguished titles, historic seats and large estates there is a goodly number deserving of the attention of socially ambitious American mothers with pretty daugh- ters, for whose benefit their fathers are willing to shell out handsomely. Conspicuous among them is Lord Dal meny, the Rosebery heir, whose com- ing of age was the occasion of so much rejoicing and sumptuous hospitality a couple of years ago. He is a tall, ath- letic, manly young fellow and popular everywhere. Thus far he has shown & greater predilection for sports than pol. jtics, and is a first-class cricketer, averse