The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-11 00:00:00

THE MARQUIS OF HASTINGS.

The Daily News has an interesting article on the Marquis
of Hastings. " The Earl's year," it says, " has reached a
said climax in the death of its leading actor. The
Spider and the Fly drama is ended. That poor
coroneted youth who had crowded into six years
more Corinthian excitement and weightier Turf cares
than many fast men' know in a lifetime, has
laid down his weary load. He was only 26
in July, and he had frittered away two fine family
estates. Betting is said to be the touchstone of the Eng-
lishman's sincerity, but with the marquis a craving for
the odds had really become a disease. He worshipped
chance with all the ardour of a fanatic. His wits were,
he considered, worth to him in the betting ring at least
£20,000 a year, and he sometimes threaded his way '
through the mazes of trials and public running
with all the sagacity of a wizard. His public coups
were often so brilliant that it was hardly to be wondered
at that he believed in his own destiny and his power to
break the ring. He cared little whether the draining or
other improvements on his Donington estates were
stopped, if he only got fresh supplies for another New-
market campaign. The ring, on the other hand, had
marked him for their own, and never left him. They
would cluster beneath the Jockey Club balcony at
Epsom, holding up their hands to claim his attention, and
catching at his replies like a flock of hungry hawks.
There he would stand, smiling at the wild tumult below,
wearing his hat jauntily on one side, a red flower
in his button-hole, and his colours round his neck,
and cool and calm while the talent' made his horse a
' hot favourite ' at once, and a few slipped back
to the ring to follow his lead. For a time he was a perfect
Cocker; but he fell at last in the unequal strife, and the
men who had drawn' him most copiously were among
those who set their faces most sternly against him
when he wished to see the Heath once more." The
marquis's father (according to the Daily News) wasrather a
hunter than a racer. But his son did not follow in his
steps. " He took quite naturally to the turf from the first,
enfolded under the wing of Danebury. In 1862 not six
people at Newmarket knew who the slim lad was on the
grey cob; but the ring soon saw that he was a veritable
Hampshire ambassador when he put down the money so
unflinchingly on a Danebury pot. To John Day's sugges-
tion that in his position he was morally bound to have a
nice yearling or two of his own, he lent no ungracious
ear. When the rivalry round the Hampton Court and
Middle Park rings almost foamed into madness, and 2,500
guineas and 2,000 guineas were among the yearling prices
of one afternoon, he was never tempted beyond 1,650
guineas for King Charles, and 1,500 guineas for Robespierre.
The former would have been dear at 50 guineas, and the latter
won well in the colours of another. His two best horses, The
Duke (500 guineas) and The Earl (450 guineas), were
among his cheapest purchases. Gradually his stable
swelled to upwards of thirty, and about £70,000 were the
spoils of six seasons. A cycle of barrenness followed
one of profusion, and Mr. Padwick graciously allowed
him, in 1865, to have Kangaroo at, it was
said, £12,000, and he never won as many halfpence,
while The Duke was useless, from influenza, till
half the season was over. In 1866, which produced him a
One Thousand Guinea winner in Repulse, and a Goodwood
Cup one in the Duke, the stable was once more at a dead
lock for a Cesare witch horse, but little Lecturer, a foal
from the Sledmere sale, carried Tat. 31b., and won, it was
said, £40,000 for the Donington party.
"A winter's reflection convinced his lordship that Her-
mit could never win the Derby, and £103,000 was the
price he paid for his thoughts. People were once wont
to tell, almost below their breath, that Davis, the
Leviathan,' had been known to pay away £60,000 on the
Derby. The present age is capable of greater efforts, as
before the Monday the bankers and solicitors had con-
sulted, and the whole of the marquis's losings were found
for him, Thus panic was averted from The Corner,' but
the fair lands of Loudoun passed from his hand. At Ascot
his lucky star rose once more. Lady Elizabeth and Lecturer
were both in form, and his lordship kept backing them,
and piling on the winnings again by a sort of geometric
progression, gambling till he had won nearly half his ain
again.' It was now the turn for reverses. His lordship
rather fancied The Earl, but the stable overruled him in
favour of Lady Elizabeth. The flying filly came back
with a sadly chequered fame a bad fifth for the Middle
Park Plate, and yet the victress in one of the most wonder.
ful of modern matches at 91b. with the three-year-old
Julius. The marquis had now fallen back again to
nearly the same ' agony point' in finance as when he saw
the `all-rose' handed home for the Derby. A weary
winter followed, and he was so driven from pillar to
post by money troubles and turf creditors, that he lost
his interest in turf matters and his head for calcula-
tions with it. The irritable Lady Elizabeth wasted
to a shadow in her training ; and how The Earl was
scratched, and then became the hero of the Parisians
and. the Ascot visitors, and how the few words
that were dropped at York proved the precursor of his
Leger doom, are all dark passages of turf politics, and not
easily forgotten. We saw the last of The Earl when he
was bought in as stout as a burgomaster for £3,900 guineas
at Tattersali's, and then he departed to Findon
with a leg upon whose chances of standing a pre-
paration each man seemed to differ with his fellow.
The late marquis had been abroad all the summer
in his yacht, but no northern breezes could fan
him back to health. He came to Doncaster, from Nor-
way, on crutches, and looking very ill and nervous, and
well he might, as, insteadof having a St. Leger winner, he
had only the lean comfort of a veterinary certificate from
Mr. Mayor. At the First October he was on Newmarket
Heath in a basket carriage, which he only quitted to say
a word to the pretty Athena, which once was mare
of mine,' when she was led back a winner. As at Don-
caster, he did not go beyond a pony' or two. Mind,
I'm to have this paid,' said one ring man when he booked
it to him ; and after that week they saw him no more.
Nearly seven seasons had passed by since be first came, a
lad of nineteen, fresh from Eton to Newmarket, and
he left it a shattered man, only to die. He spent
some time at Folkestone, and visited town for a few days
before he set out for a winter sojourn with his wife on the
Nile. Some few friends dared to hope that he might come
back a new man, and live quietly in his old country home,
and train the foals by The Duke. It was not to be. 'All
the wheels were down,' and now the fourth and the last
Marquis of Hastings only lives in racecourse story."

The last number of the Berlin Kladderadatsch,
or Punch, has been seized for the publication of a caricature
against the deficit in the Prussian budget.
INDISPOSITION OY LORD AMBERLEY. Lord
Amberley is suffering from an attack of jaundice, which,
though slight at present, prudence demands that he should
keep his bed for two or three days at least.

A somewhat extraordinary engagement has been
made by Mdlle. Nilsson. An English concert society has
engaged this charming vocalist for a space of two months,
at the rate of two concerts a week. She is to receive
£B,OOO, one-fourth to be paid in advance, besides the
expenses of herself and three persons.

At the Court at' Windsor, the 7th day of Novem-
ber, 1868, present the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty
in Council.—This day, Colonel Thomas Edward Taylor,
M.P., was, by her Majesty's command, sworn of her
Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, and took
his place at the board accordingly.— Gazette.

The mail-diligence was lately attacked between
Ketskemet and Izsak, in Hungary, by some malefactors
not yet discovered. The money, amounting to about
2,840 florins, as well as the letters, were carried off and the
vehicle burnt. An infantry soldier, the postilion, and a
shoemaker's appearance lost their. lives by a discharge
from the robbers' firearms. This is the third occasion on
which a similar occurrence has taken place near the same
spot.

PROPOSED INTERVIEW I3ETWEEN THE VICEROY
OF INDIA AND SHERE ALL—It has been arranged that the
Viceroy and Shere Ali Khan should have a meeting at
Peshawur. " There seems to be already a good under-
standing," the Bombay Gazette says, " between the Ameer
and the Government of India, mid we anticipate the best
results. If the Black Mountain problem should be solved,
and friendly relations established with Afghanistan, Sir
John Lawrence will leave India with no little prestige.
His frontier policy—the policy of masterly inactivity'—
has been a strong point against him."

A. pastoral from Cardinal Cullen, with reference
to the elections, has been read in all the chapels of Dublin.
His eminence exhorts the electors to avoid drunkenness
during the period of popular excitement. Ho trusts that
none will be so weak or unprincipled as to accept a bribe,
either directly or indirectly. "Never, perhaps (says Car-
dinal Cullen), in the history of this country, were so many
vital interests at stake, and never was it more necessary that
every citizen should discharge faithfully the duty which his
reason and conscience dictate." "No lasting good," the
Cardinal adds, "can be secured by violence of any kind, and
no efforts of ours ca❑ merit the blessing of God, unless they
bear with them the impress of peace, order, and religion."
Lord Mayo, in a farewell address to the electors of
Cockermouth, before leaving for India, rays :—" Splendid
as is the post, and difficult as will be :my duties, I go forth
in full confidence, and hope God will give me such strength
and wisdom as will enable me to direct the government of
India in the interest and for the welfare of the millions com-
mitted to our care. In the performance of the great task 1
ask no favour ; let me be judged according to my actions ;
but I know that efforts honestly made for the maintenance
of our national honour, for the spread of civilisation, and the
preservation of peace, will always command the sympathy
and Support of buy CQUlltrYlueu."