The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-11-21 00:00:00

(From the Tomahawkl

Few deaths ever suggested sadder thoughts than that
of the young Marquis f Hastings. The words "It
might have been," in all their terrible depth of
meaning, are uttered over his grave. The dreary
hopeless sense of wasted ,q,portunities welffis one
down, as one reflects on his misdirected energies. on his
misspent fortune. We wete oft, accusal of severity
against him when living, and his friends. as is ever the
cage, were feverishly ansi,,us to at,ply to him allusions
which were not intended for him, but for the abuses,
of which he was indeed one of the main causes, bus not
the only one. It was impossible to see one so
nobly born, and of such a gen-rims and manly nature,
plunging headlong Mtn such utter ruin and not to be
angry. Many people know him only from his repu-
tation on the turf ; few knew bow kindly a heart had
been seared by snob debasing excitement. He hail all
the recklessness of a Buckingham without his wit, all
the contempt for propriety of a Wharton without hi.
genius, all the wonderful power of enduring dissipation
in which Bolingbroke gloried, without the equally
wonderfu, power of application of which he boasted less.
but by which he vofited more. The Marquis of Hastings
had certainly no great mental endowments ; quirk-
ness he had; and inigitt have made at lea t as good
a statesman as other yt mpg noblemen have turned
out, had his eneraies been prop trly directed But
from Is tylamd he Wes under evil influences ; he was
tile of those who was for ever violating etiquette in.
stead of combating, prejailices, who contused a noble
contempt for conventionalities with an ignoble disre-
gard of deceney. There was a time before he bad
reaehed tita he:ght of his audition mol regulnrl,
"joined the Vila," when he might have been aved
from his own worse self. It is not for us to distal',
matters of private family history ; but in an obi:lnce.
which was anxiously hoped for by those who value,
his true interests the NI articis might have found a spelt
sufficiently strong to lure him from the dangerom
fascination of the worst form of gambling which man
has ever invented. . . . .

The wonderful system of " rdntigimt" that is, of
backing horses for elleMlollFl 'A lihili he may
almost be said to have invented, was (it natural ri sun
if his disposition. lie would always, mini ahoy,
his own opinion for tiny money. In this point hi,
ilack was indisputable ; he never waverod, wba' ever
others nrght say to him. Everybody will remember
how he went fur " the Marquis" for the Leger, 14 ite
of the horse's previous defeats. This quality, as long
as success attended him, made h;m almost dreaded by
the Ring. Hit the result could never be doubtful.
and when the tide turned against Inn., he found as he
expected little mercy at the hands of those whose hard-
ea rned money he had won and dissipated. If any man
wishes to study the Ring, he cannot do better than
read the history of the Marquis of Hastings ; if, after
such a warning, he chooses to throw himself into the
power of such brutalized selfishness and grasping
avarice, hi, is worthy of his fate. . . .