r titles.

[Illustration]

In countries where there are peers and degrees of nobility, it is the
custom of the sovereign to reward any great deed by making the doer of
it a peer of the realm, that is to say, a duke, a marquis, an earl, a
viscount, or a baron; baronets and knights are not peers.

In the olden times these gifts of nobility were often accompanied by
some personal service to the sovereign, by the performance of which the
holder of the title secured his patent or right to it. At the time these
grants were made the services had some especial and important meaning.
Nowadays they only seem strange and rather silly. Despite this fact, the
services must still be rendered, else the peer loses his patent of
nobility.

The article in _The Century Magazine_ tells of these things, and how the
Duke of Norfolk is obliged to furnish the sovereign with the glove worn
on the right hand during the coronation service, and also to support the
monarch's right arm during such times as the sceptre is carried in the
hand.

Another earl is bound to carry the sword of state in the procession to
Westminster.

The peers are very proud of these privileges, and make a great boast of
them. The highest honor ever perhaps granted by a sovereign to a subject
was earned by the lords of Kinsale. In the time of King John the head of
the house performed a great service for his King, and when asked what
reward he desired, replied that he had lands and money enough, but that
he should like to have the privilege of wearing his hat in the presence
of his sovereign, and that this right might belong to the head of his
house forever.

Foolish as this right may seem to us, no Lord Kinsale would ever give it
up.

* * * * *

You will be interested to learn that the break in the levee near New
Orleans has been closed.

It was feared that this break would prove very destructive to the
surrounding country, as it occurred in the midst of the richest sugar
districts of Louisiana.

The crevasse was four hundred feet wide, and in some places twenty-five
feet deep. No such gap had ever been closed before, and the levee
engineers declared it to be impossible to do so.

Necessity, however, decided them to make the attempt, and for the past
week a large force of engineers and bridge-makers have been at work.

They first built cribs around the crevasse; cribs are walls made of
timbers which break the first force of t