22 JANUARY 1881, Page 3

London Society admires wealth so very much, that it is

rapidly raising the Rothschilds to a position intermediate between that of English nobles and Royal Princes. Their movements, festivi- ties, and marriages are chronicled in the newspapers like those of the most important personages in Europe. The marriage, for instance, of Baron Leopold to Madlle. Perugia, at the Syna- gogue iu Great Portland Street, was recorded on Thursday with all the particularity of a royal wedding, and was attended by the Prince of Wales and Lord Beaconsfield, in spite of the snow-drifts. The festivities were of the "Arabian. Nights' " kind, a great florist, for example, refusing to sell for a week, that his hot-houses might be full for the wedding, and the list of pre- sents being apparently written by the author of " Eudymion." There were no " ropes of pearls," and, indeed, no gift marked by originality, but there was a shopful of diamonds and gold and silver articles. The Rothschilds are probably proud of all this, but they should read the history of the Fuggers, who pre- ceded .them as the great loanmongers of Europe, and who became, under Charles V., sovereign Princes, as, though media- toed, they still are. That is the " topmost brick of the chimney," and it is not gained yet. Could they not buy out the Grimaldis, or the Lichtensteins. P