BUYING UP TITLES.
Extravagant Sums Paid to the Old English Nobility.
London, Aug. 20, 1999.—The English government to-day purchased the title of Lord Algernon Percy Augustus Dunraven for a mere song, the consideration being £10,000. This removes one of the oldest titles existing in modern times and only about twenty remain in England. Since the law passed by Parliament providing for the purchase of old titles held by the descendants of the members of the peerage, as it existed under a monarchy, over £800,000,000 have been spent in buying up these remnants of a semi-civilized form of government. The highest price ever paid was that for the abolishment of the name borne by the duke of Argyle, £1,000,000.
Sir Tom Lipton, who will be henceforth known by the republican name of Thomas Timothy Tubbs, has been reduced to poverty by reckless expenditures entailed in his enthusiasm for air-yachting, and it is said that he has spent £40,000 in trying to increase the speed of his defective atmospheric racer, the Shamrock.