So, finally, our unaspiring old-year homily simply chimes in with the traditional spirit of Christmastide--season of hopeful words and wishes, of kindness for the struggling, of encouragement for the discouraged, of charity for the so-called failures. RIBBONS AND CORONETS AT MARKET RATES. It is said that a Yankee has arranged to furnish foreign titles (warranted genuine) of "earl or count for $10,000; European orders, from $250 to $10,000; membership in foreign scientific and literary societies, $250 and upward." The story is plausible. Impecunious princes and potentates have been known to replenish their purses in this way, though hitherto usually by private sale rather than market quotations. It is not probable that our ingenious countryman has the Order of the Seraphim or of the Annonciade at disposal, or that he can supply the Golden Fleece to whoever will "gif a good prishe," or even that he would pretend to furnish the Black Eagle of Prussia in quantities to suit purchasers. He can hardly be the medium of creating many Knights of the Garter, nor can the Bath or the St. Michael and St. George very well be in his list of decorations "to order." But we know from the Paris and Vienna fairs that a Cross of the Legion is obtainable by Americans of the mercantile class; and as for the Lion and the Sun, it was an order created by some bygone shah for the express purpose of rewarding strangers who had rendered service to Persia; and what service more substantial, pray, than helping to fill the Persian purse? When you come to central and southern Europe, titles are going a-begging, and hard-up princelets will presumably be eager to raise the wind with them. And there will be buyers as well as sellers. To the democratic mind a royal star or ribbon is an object of befitting reverence. None of our countrymen would, indeed, on purchasing a title, really ask to be addressed as "Your lordship," or even to be familiarly called Grand Forester or Sublime Bootjack to His Serene Highness--unless in private, by some very much indulged servitor or judicious retainer. But though the badge of nobility may not be worn in the streets by the happy purchaser, for fear of attracting a rabble of the curious, he can fondly gaze upon it in the privacy of home, or try it on for the admiration of the domestic circle, or haply submit it to the inspection of discreet friends.