The Penn's Grove record., 1883-12-22

Inc late LORD hlilnOIey, was NCs
ninety years old when he died. He had
been in the Guards, and twas with SiI
John Moore's army in the advance from
Salamanca to attack Soult, and in the
subsequent disastrous retreat to Corun-
ma and had seen as much of travel,
sport. and adventure. as much of life in
its various phases. good and evil, as any
man Of his generation" But it was
not advisable to dwell upon the earlier
part of his career. In later life he had
a passion for buying places ON the
Thames, improving and then selling
them. On one occasion, it being ne
cessary, for his projected Improvement
that he should add a scrap of waste
land to his property, he at once fenced
it in. At night the fence was pulled
down.
she put it up again, and again it laid
low, the work of r~eparation and demo
lition being repeated several times. AT
length he devised a plan of his own to
meet the case. He wrote at the top of
half dozen separate sheets of foolscap
pap 4. Lord Kilmorey proposes to
give next Christmas to the poor of tn
parish e200.' These sheets of paper he
distributed about the parish, n sheet
at the public honse, another at the
butchers. a third at the chemists, and
so ON at other places of resort. He then
proceeded to put up the fence again.
That night it was levelled again. The
next morning he went The ronnd OF the
places where the foolscap cheets had
been lodged, and made the following
entry in each:-'To cost of putting up
fence pulled down last night, e5, to be
deducted from the above e200'"
A disturbance the next night was
treated in the way, and then the fence
was allowed to remain, and at Christ
mas the Earl distributed the goo with.
out deduction. Another coveted cornel
he was unable to obtain, thoughhe tried
even more high-handed measures. The
piece of land belonged to a laundress,
who refused to accept another piece in
exchange or double its value in money.
So the Earl waited till the laundress'
linen was hanging out to dry and the
wind blew off his own land towards the
drying ground, and then he lighted a
bonfire of green wood and kept the dense
smoke blowing upon the linen for many
hours. But ''the laundress held to her
own, and the Earl's quick resentment
ere long ~evaporated with the smoke OF
his own bonfire The Earl was equally
unsuccessful In his attempts to force a
charitable institution forfemale orphans
to sell him a triangle of land which he
coveted. His own property ran close up
to the entrance gates of the institution,
and there he established a marine store.
festooned with unsightly vessels, in
hope to annoy the governors into sub
mission, When he was nearly eighty
he had a fall at a wayslde railway sta
ton and broke two ribs, but he insisted
on continuing his journey. AT the ter
minus he refused TO leave the carriage,
which was shunted on to a siding, and
there he remained for more than a week.
Some of his friends will remember
having visited him in his extemporized
hospital. At the authors office, in Lin
coins Inn Fields, the Earl one day met
another client who was eighty-two and
as proud of his age as the Earl himself,
who was then e~ighty-fve. The Solici-
tor said:-
"Let me introduce a gentleman of
e~ighty-five to a gentleman of eighty
two E~ighty-two, sir echoed the Earl,
slightly raising his hat to Mr.. Levien,
IN run you around the square for a
iiver.' Some days afterwards Mr.. Le-
wien called on the writer again, and re-
marked slowlyand withmuch solemnity,
I've been thinking a great deal about
that bet. l wish l had taken it,"