Page:Debrett's Illustrated Peerage and Titles of Courtesy.djvu/44

PHEFACE. (i) furnishes more information anent living members of the titled classes and their immediate connections than all other kindred books combined; (ii) is the only illustrated volume that gives (a) the addresses of the widows of peers, baronets, and knights, (6) the services, residences, clubs, &o., of the younger children of peers and baronets, (c) the inferior titles of peers arranged in alphabetical order, (d) the engraved tinc- tures of the armorial bearings of peers and baronets, and (e) full biographical sketches of knights ; (iii) is the cheapest illustrated work of the kind extant. The alterations necessitated by promotions and other causes among the collateral branches of peers and baronets, and among knights, were in 1875 much beyond the average, while those referring to the heads of families were unusually few. For some years past the numbers both of marriages and births among the titled classes and their children had been gradually waning ; in 1875, however, a material change occurred, and the year is remarkable for the great number of fashionable marriages that were solemnized, and the many children that were born to those whose names appear herein, or to their immediate connections. The information furnished throughout the volume is entirely devoted to dry facts, a circumstance afc which some octoge- narians express surprise when they compare such with the fulsome adulation, or covert sneers, with which the biographies of "DEBRETT" were interlarded in their early days. The appreciated simplicity of the present style is, however, a prac- tical exemplification of the utilitarian character of the age. Having referred to variations of editorial work, it may not be outre to record a few instances of the difficulties that arise in compiling a book of this character. For instance, one branch of a family feels indignant because certain political or