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Show Aristocracy Not One of Many Excellent Qualities Quali-ties of Pilgrim Fathers By MRS. JOHN KING VAN RENSSELAER, in "The Social Ladder." The society of New England, more particularly that of Boston, has been largely of native growth. Its background is almost entirely American. Ameri-can. Excellent as were many of the qualities of the Mayflower's passengers, passen-gers, aristocracy was not among them. Apparently it is easy enough for a great many people to trace their lineatre back to the folk who arrived at riymouth in that little craft. It is much more difficult to find any record of its passengers or their ancestors an-cestors in the Old World. To the Dutch gentlemen of New Netherlands and to the French and British nobility of the Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia and South Carolina colonies, relationship with the settlers of Plymouth would have seemed a ludicrous ground on which to base a claim to aristocracy. . . New York and Charleston, S. C, were chiefly respoiisible for, fostering in the New World the gentility and breeding of the old. |