Ste. Genevieve Herald Ste. Genevieve, Mo. Saturday, Feb. 10, 1883 THE NOBILITY CRAZE The tree of genealogy, or stocktree, as the Germans significantly term it, is one of the oldest trees in the world. We find it in the Bible, the Iliad, the Aeneid, the Edda, in Saxo Grammaticus, the Veda, the Venerable Bede, the Saxon Chronicle, and other ancient books, and whoever could not trace his pedigree back to Wodan himself, was nobody. There are many even now who boast the descent from that celwetial one-eyed rascal. According to Bede's register, Wodan must have lived about the time of the commencement of the Christian era; Saxo Grammaticus however extends the list of his mythical vikings, a thousand years further back. There was great rejoicing in the American press fifteen years ago, because a Boston professor of heraldry brought forth evidence of Washington's having descended from Odin. Sensible people who look at the world in its true light, have undoubtedly often noticed that the worst fruit may grow on the best genealogical tree and share the opinion of Tibesius: "A man of consequence needs no ancestry, he is his own ancestor." But unfortunately not everybody is sensible, and the pedigree epidemic is one of those sicknesses that break out periodically. At present it is raging in New York and several other eastern cities; a college of heraldry is being founded in Boston, and the metropolis on the Hudson contains the best paying nursery in the world, but the gardeners plant none but the trees of nobility. Every oil merchant or fish vender who has got rich, has his genealogy traced up, and the professor of the noblest of arts works with a dozen assistants to supply the demand. There are but very few rich families in New York without a coat of arms; for the heraldry epidemic is at present raging in New York, as it was in Germany 50 years ago, where every tailor and cheese monger had his coat of arms embroidered upon cushions and pillows by his daughters. A N.Y. journalist who visited the college of heraldry there, heard the following dialogue between the professor and a rich dealer in garden sass: "My name is Hunks and I would like to have my coat of arms; not that I care so much, but my wife is continually dinning my ears." "Hunks. Hunks!" said the learned expert thoughtfully, "descended from De Huncussie, a knight who fought at the side of Godfrey of Bouillon. Your ancestors were crusaders." "Don't doubt your word, sir; they have honestly carried their..." (Small portion of article missing - sjr) "...rich by lottery speculation. But I am glad I can rub my aristocratic origin under neighbor Livingstone's nose." "What was your mother's name?" " Sarah -- Sarah Slum." "English or Welsh Slums?" "Can't say, more Irish I think." "A hard case to clear up; the family of the Slums is very imperfectly known, but I think I can trace it back to the conquest; charges $25." "No consideration whatever, trace it back to the highest back garret, for all I care if it's only aristocratic." "Certainly, highly aristocratic. Do you wish a fenealogical tree?" "Trees do not thrive well before our mansion on account of the gas pipes. You can send one to my villa Rosecraft; one of those small trees, on which large pears grow, like neighbor Gould imports, would please Mary very much." "You mistake me, I meant a pedigree, like the one on the wall there. You see that is the tree of Grant's genealogy, full of Saxon Edeliings, Norman Dukes, there is even a king of Ulster among them. Costs $100." "I'll pay you $125, if you can manage to put in a king, for instance king David or Solomon, $25 for a king is no money at all." The man went. In his hall you may in all probability find his genealogical register with king David, and the remote descendents of this honest clown may perhaps wonder when looking at it, how the Jews got into their family. Mundus vulti decipi, therefore they deserve to be imposed on. A pedigree nursery would to all appearance be a remunerative institution also in the West, for not only have we tailors, counterhoppers and even drivers of soap-grease wagons who claim descent from the noblest families of Europe, but the craze has far taken hold of the people that a man, who tells the truth and pays his debts but is offspring of common people, born in lawful wedlock, is nothing compared with Hunks and Slum who have bought their pedigree, or with some imposter whose title to nobility rests only on his ability to run up grocery bills and to show himself highly insulted when he is asked for the cash. Let us have a college of heraldry by all means, if it only to rescue the female portion of those title hunters from the odium of being taken for ancient relics of chambermaids, who had the honor of wearing out the old discarded wardrobe of "my lady".