STORIES OF " LABBY."

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 26, 31 January 1912, Page 11

STORIES OF " LABBY."

Speaking of the late Mr. Labouohete, whose death at Florence was reported last week, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, in a. recent issue of his weekly magazine, eayfl:— The most constant smoker in my time in the House of, Commons was Labby. He never had a cigarette out of his mouth if he could help it. It was, curiously enough, his one passion and one self-indulgence. This extraordinary man, always wealthy and. always able to have anything he liked, had simpler tastes than most peasants. He .rarely touched wine, and when he did it was a glass of claret and water, and this he took with palpable dislike, and ueually either because he was ordered by his- doctor to do co or because on the Continent h» thought wine less dangerous than water. As to food, he best described his feelings by this anecdote. He returned unexpectedly home to the charming riverside house he had on the Thames. — Pope'o famous villa — and found^ that there was no dinner ready for him. "Go to the nearest ham-and-beef shop," he said, quite eeronely, to the affrighted butler, "and get me eoino slices ot hsm and beef." And then he said : - "I enjoyed this co much that I seriously thought of dismissing my cook." I have eeen him, when 1 stopped with them in J?ope>'» villa, gulping down an egg and a cup of tea in two minutes, and then immediately put a cigarette in his mouth, and v cigarette was there every moment afterwards throughout the day. When he was a member of the House of Commons he never could remain in his seat more than a quarter of an hour ; he had to rush off to the smokerooms to have a whitt of his oi^arette. It k difficult to realise, but jt is true, that this man, knew Daniel Webster .intimately before .the war. - anil gives some inside stories of that brilliant orator that do not figure in print. -And it is also incredible, but true, that Labby knew BiMnarck in '.the days , when, a* Prussian Minister in Frankfort, Bismarck was* unknown outside* the world of diplomacy, and Labby gives racy descriptions ot Bismarck in thos* days when the obscure Prussian squire was chiefly remarkable to his contemporaries by his love of all-night sittings and copious mugs of beer. It is perhaps even more incredible, but it is also true, that LabTby knew the debauohe nobleman who stood for the portrait of the Marquia of Steyne ,in Thackeray and Lord Monmouth in Disraeli's novels. Finally, Labby was the employer, in the days when he was owner and manager of a theatre in London, of Henry Irving, Charles Wyndham, Ellen Terry, and scores of others. "And to .think, ".said ' Henry Irving to Labbjr one night when,- at »the very top of h& profession, Irving sat at the head of a bangue^ he was giving to all who were distinguished in London, "ihab 'I 5I 5 was once getting- £5 a 'week 'froni'you.?'"Three pounds, Henry," said- Labby, •