A moderate degree of poverty does not abolish caste in France, provided that the nobleman is just able to maintain external decency of appearance without working. In England it is impossible to maintain high caste without a complete staff of domestics. In both countries real poverty abolishes caste. [Sidenote: Armorial Bearings.] It is impossible in England to assume and maintain falsely the position of a titled nobleman, but coats-of-arms are constantly assumed without right, and it is not uncommon in these days for people to take a name that does not belong to them by inheritance. If a plebeian Englishman chooses to adopt the name, and the arms too, of an old family, he can do so in perfect security. I pass now from the noble to the professional castes. [Sidenote: The Clergy.] [Sidenote: Superiority of the Anglican Clergy.] [Sidenote: The French Clergy.] [Sidenote: The Religious Orders.] [Sidenote: Social Position of the French Clergy.] The clergy in England are said to form part of the aristocracy, but this is true only of the Anglican clergy. The Dissenting clergy form part of the middle classes. The Anglican clergy itself is less aristocratic than it was in the earlier part of the nineteenth century; in fact, its position has varied greatly from one century to another. It is now said to be rather declining, as the clergy are recruited from an inferior class, both as to position and ability. A father may put his son into the Church because the lad is not keen-witted enough to be a successful attorney, or because there is not capital enough in the family to set him up as a manufacturer. There are also ways of entering the Church without the training of Oxford or Cambridge. Nevertheless, in spite of this decline, the Anglican clergy are still, as a body, incomparably superior to the French Roman Catholic clergy in the social sense. The French clergy are now almost exclusively recruited from the humble classes. Nine out of ten are sons of peasants, the tenth may be the son of an artisan or a gendarme. It is curious that the French aristocracy, which _professes_ such deep respect for the Church, should no longer supply recruits for the clergy. Fewer and fewer of the sons of the _noblesse_ become priests every year, and those who do now become priests shut themselves up in the religious orders, and are of no use for the common work of the parishes, many of which are left empty, in country places, for want of working priests to fill them. It would seem as if it were no longer thought _comme il faut_ to be a parish priest, whilst it may be _comme il faut_ to belong to one of the recognised orders, such as the Marists, the Jesuits, etc. The practical result is that in the country parishes many of the priests are burdened with extra duty, sometimes far from their homes, merely from an insufficient supply of ecclesiastics. This plain fact--which I do not give merely on my own authority, but on that of a French