STATESMEN. No. 235.

COLONEL ROBERT JAMES LOYD LINDSAY, V.C., M.P.

THE Lindsays are one of the very oldest of the Scotch families, and were once so eminent in their own country as to have ranked themselves next only to the Stuarts. South of the Tweed they have not been of late accounted great potentates, and have kept themselves therefore much to themselves. But even in modern times they have been known as good soldiers, and having in more than one matrimonial adventure fallen among bankers, they are now a flourishing clan. Robert James Lindsay was born of this clan five and forty years ago, and was sent to Eton first, and then into the Scots Fusilier Guards while yet but eighteen. The Crimean War soon gave him an opportunity of showing his soldierly quality, and for an act of valour at the Alma and another at Inkerman, he received the Victoria Cross, and returned to England a young Major of twenty-four. At twenty-six he became Equerry to the Prince of Wales, married, and embellished his family name of Lindsay by the addition of that of Loyd, and the next year he retired from the profession of arms with the title of Lieutenant-Colonel. He then established himself in Berkshire, where he has become the largest landowner and cottage-builder in the county and the commander of a thousand Berkshire Volunteers devoted equally to him and to the Glengarry cap. He now discovered himself as a political aspirant to the Legislature, avowed himself a Conservative, and was in 1865 returned to Parliament by the Berkshire electors. Subsequently, and moved by a soldier's sympathy for all soldiers, he came forward as a leader in the adventures of that National Society which offers indiscriminate aid to any cause in any war by relieving both sides of the care of their sick and wounded. In this undertaking he went down to see the battles of the French and Germans, and more recently to those of the Turks and Servians; and coming back from the latter, he told the truth about them in a frank and fearless manner, far from pleasing to those who look for the advance of "civilisation" in the destruction of Turkey. In truth, he is an honest, soldier-like man, sensible indeed to the charms of popularity, yet not disposed to go all lengths for it, and quite ready to recognise plain facts. Withal he is prosperous and rich, yet always ready to face fatigue and danger, handy with his pen and with his tongue, and a professor of military dress and equipment. He has been decorated with the Order of Medjidie, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, the Victoria and the Geneva Crosses; yet is not over-proud, but rather urbane and tolerant.