The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-12 00:00:00

Mr. Harcourt Johnstone.

(From Baily's Magazine.)
To the list of Yorkshire Masters of Hounds, which have
appeared in our pages, we now append the gentleman who
for some time has hunted the Pickering country with a
success that has brought it into note, and given him a posi-
tion which he is well able to support.
Mr. Johnstone is the eldest son of Sir John Johnstone,
and was born in 1829, at the Palace of Bishopthorpe,where
his grandfather, the Archbishop of York, resided. The
son of a man, who, bordering on 70 years of age, manages
to be with hounds four days a week, and the great-grand-
son of the celebrated Lord Vernon, the owner of Wood-
pecker, a famous horse of the last century, cannot but have
been born a foxhunter,und a sucking M.P.H. Mr. John-
stone was educated at Eton, and on leaving it entered the
2d Life Guards in 1816, when they were commanded by
Colonel M'Douall, who used to let the cornets off the riding
school if they pledged themselves to go hunting, and it is
needless to add the obligation was invariably respected,
until they one day got into trouble by the Inspector-
General of Cavalry complaining of their stirrups being
too short ; in this experience has proved him to be wrong
in practice.
Mr. Johnstone remained in the . regiment until 1850,
when, on his marriage with the second daughter of Mr.
Charles Mills of Hillington Court, he quitted it; and, Cin-
cinnatus like, turned his sword into a ploughshare, and
settled in Yorkshire.
The Pickering country, in which Mr. Johnstone has
commenced his career as 31.F.H., extends from the village
of that name to Robin Hood's Bay, and from thence to
Scarborough, and was formerly hunted by Mr. Richard
Hill, who, with his son, Mr. John Hill, presided over it
for half a century. Their hounds, which boasted of
a very staunch strain of blood, and for very many years
before they were broken up showed wonderful sport,
passed into the hands of the present Duke of Grafton, and
added much to the strength of the Wakefield hounds.
Consequently, Mr. Johnstone had to get together a fresh
pack, which he formed by buying the old and young
drafts from the Bramham, Lord Middleton, Mr. Fitzwilliam,
and Mr. Foljambe. These, by the aid of a very clever
huntsman, Dick Christian, who was worthy of his name,
and the recommendation he had from the Duke of Beau-
fort, managed, during the three years he was with them,
to show the country excellent sport; and those hunting
men who wintered at Scarborough were perfectly content
with the gallops they enjoyed with them. Dick Christian
also took honours as a breeder of hounds, and showed that
Sebright's early lessons had not been lost on him, as he
bred Caroline, by the Duke of Beaufort's Hotspur out of
Mr. Lane Fox's Constant, that took the second prize at the
Doncaster Hound Show. The subscriptions falling short
of expenditure, as, alas! is too often the case, Mr. John-
stone took to hunting the hounds himself, and in spite of
his weight, in a most hilly and rough country, with large
woodlands and deep valleys, he contrived to kill plenty of
foxes, and gave satisfaction to the owners of covers as well
as tho subscribers to the hunt, who appreciate his gentle-
manlike conduct in the field, as well as his keenness for
sport. And although the Pickering is neither a loge nor
a fashionable country, more unanimity and good-fellow-
ship exists in it than in those with greater pretensions,
for the gentlemen and farmers know every hound that is
out, and take a personal interest in all that concerns the
well-being of the hunt.
In all the duties of a country gentleman Mr. Johnstone
takes an active part, and although a Liberal in politics, and
a candidate for St. Stephen's, he is as great a hater of the
Beales school as of vulpecides and poachers.

Liverpool Cotton Market—This Day.
Market nearly closed in consequence of snow,
balling on Change. Sales probably 5,000 bales.

MR. GARTH, Q.C., AND MR. BRIGHT.--Mr.
Bright has now ttgren up the cudgels on his own behalf,
and called Mr. Garth to strict account for his unfortunate
speech at Guildford, challenging him to the production of
his authority and declaring all the charges to be without
foundation. Mr. Garth has answered, admitting that ho
had no better source of information than rumour, and the
uncontradicted statements of speeches by Mr. Pope
.Hen-
nessey and Mr. Ferrand. A speech on an Irish hustings
must be acknowledged to be a very insufficient foundation
on which to base such grave charges as were preferred
against Mr. Bright in his character as a manufac-
turer and master. The heat and licence of an election
will excuse a great deal, and this escapade would have
been readily forbidden on that account if only the com-
plaint had been received and answered ink, befitting spirit.
As it is, Mr. Garth has subjected himself to the severest
rebuke that even Mr. Bright has ever uttered, and a lead-
ing article in the Times has seized the opportunity to point
the moral and to indorse the protest we ventured to put
in last week against the growing practice in political war-
fare of attacking persons instead of principles. No public
man has more offended in this manner than Mr. Bright' •
but that does not excuse Mr. Garth, who should have
avoided, and not followed, the example. This little Christ-
mas story will, however, not be without value if it should
direct attention to the subject, and induce for the future a
more careful abstinence from personalities. Mr. Garth is a
gentleman highly respected in his profession, and wholly
incapable of the deliberate misrepresentation imputed to
him by Mr. Bright.—Law Times.

VORACITY OF THE STARLING.—During the snow-
storm of last week, Sergeant-Major Collins, of the Dorset
Militia, observed a common starling (sturnus vulgaris)
perched upon the top rail of a fence in the neighbourhood
of the barracks. Suddenly it pounced upon something in
the snow, and evidently swallowed it. The sergeant-
major resolved to see what this was, and immediately shot
the starling, when, on wringing off the head after the most
approved style of doing execution on these peculiar birds,
what was his surprise to find projecting from the thorax
of the bird thus decapitated the sharp head and eyes with
the two fore-claws of a nimble lizard (lacerta agilis) throo
or four inches in length, which the starling had swallowed
entire. The sergeant-major exhibited the lizard alive iu
Dorchester market on Saturday ; for, strange to say, after
remaining dormant for 21 hours, it revived.