PAST TIMES AND PASTIMES

Evening Star, Issue 18159, 27 December 1922, Page 5

PAST TIMES AND PASTIMES

RACY MEMORIES,

A BOOK OF GOOD STORIES,

[By E. C. Bentley-, in the ‘Sunday Chronicle.’] t

“ Well, I have had a happy life.” Tim words might very well standi as motto for the Earl of Danrayen’a delightful memoirs, just published. As a tact, they were the death-bed words of William Hazlitt, whoso actual circumstances had been far from fortunate. But iho had, like Lord Dunraven, the great secret—-a vivid interest in iho world about him, and a keen capacity for enjoying whatsoever fun was to be extracted from it.

Guardsman, war* correspondent in Franco and Abyssinia, big-game hunter, yachtsman, steeplechase ndor, racehorse owner, naval hospitaller in the Great War, author, and last, but not least, statesman —truly, Lord Dunraven has made good use of his eighty years on this planet that lias suited him so well. Let mo pick out at random some of the experiences that ho records with most satisfaction. Next to yachting Lord Dunraven would seem to have revelled most in tho pursuit of great game; more especially in tho Wild West—tho real thing as it was fifty years ago. when countless herds of buffalo and. wapiti, along with “ very bad Indians,” roamed tho plains. No man who attached any value to his scalp went out hunting promiscuously.” Lord Dunraven carried with him to Nebraska a letter of introduction to Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack, then at tho zenith- of their career as hunters and frontiersmen. "As Bill cantered up, with his flowing locks and broad-brimmed hat, he looked like a picture of a cavalier of olden times.”

Under these tutors, the traveller knew the joys of “running” elk and bison, and stalking big-horn in tho mountains. Ho describes ono mad gallop after a flying herd, when, single-handed, ho shot so many elk that "for two or three miles they lay thick upon tho ground ”; yet there was never enough venison to satisfy the garrison at the neighboring military post. By way of contrast with Buffalo Bill, with corduroys tucked info high boots, blue flannel Shirt, sombrero, rifle and revolvers, let me here insert Lord Dunraven’s precious memory of Joseph Chamberlain, as ono of an Ascot house party, “playing lawn tennis in a closelybuttoned black frock coat and tall hat.” Only in a passing half-sentence does ho reveal this vision; and such is often his tantalising way. Let mo introduce a few quaint characters out of Lord Dunraven is unexcelled collection. Cranfield, his East-country skipper, Jor whom his own village of Eowhedg© was the centre of the universe. Captain Cranfield was not much impressed with Rome when he visited it. “What did you think of the Coliseum?” “ Very big; but its’s been let got awfully out of repair. Now dose to our village there’s . . But hero Lord Dunraven breaks off the story.’

A New York friend of his was found by him one afternoon lying in bed. “What’s the matter?” “Oh, nothing; but I’m not going to get up any more. What’s the use? I get up in the morning, and have all the trouble of dressing, loaf about my rooms, go out, loaf about, and have a cocktail and lunch somewhere; come home and shift into another kit, pay a visit or two, have tea; home again, undress, and dress .all over again; go and dine at a club; come home, undress, and go to bed. T am sick and tired of it. I have gone to bed, and there I mean to stay. ’ And so, Lord Dunraven believes, ho did for the rest of his life.

Then there is a queer little Irishman, calling himself Mr Mahogany Bogstick, encountered in the wilds of Montana. “He was very diminutive, could drink six to eight quarts of milk at a sitting, never touched 'beer, spirits, or tobacco, was partial to petticoats, and held that, if England would, only legislate justly for the Sister Isle, all the Irishmen in the world could reside comfortably and happily at home, with plenty to eat and drink, lots of land’ to live upon, and not a hand’s turn of work to do.”

A certain Canadian hunting guide passes across the scene. “I have often seen him come in, too tired to bo bothered to cook, and eat a couple of big. potatoes raw, drink a pint of strong black tea, smoko a pipe of strong black tobacco, and sleep like a baby.” Which reminds mo that Lard Dunraven, in addition to finding donkey tolerable food, positively enjoyed the chief luxury of the Abyssmiaus—raw beef with pepper sauce. “It sounds beastly, but it is not.”. It is made plain that lie has at all times had a full appreciation of good tilings to eat and drink, and he cheerfully admits that his many years of suffering from gout are the wages of imprudence at an earlier age. And, most characteristically, he makes an interest, and almost a pleasure, of the study of his own gout. “ I have had a large experience of gout,” he writes, “and 1 know more about it than all the doctors in Harley street.” Among -his axioms on the subject is: “If you must exceed, it is better to exceed in drink than in food.”

And his wisdom on the subject. of “cures” is worth the attention of any fellow-victim. “My experience of water-ing-places, foreign and domestic (and as a professional exponent of gout I have seen many), is that after a couple of weeks you get very all. This is called a ‘ crisis.’ lifter a couple of weeks more you get better’, nearly as well as when you arrived. This is called a ‘cure.’”

In politics, it is pretty well known, Lord. Dunrav'en has been one of the staunchest and most enlightened friends his Irish countrymen have ever had. The policy of the treaty has bad his active support in his old age. Twenty years ago his admirable management, as chairman of the Land Conference, led to the adoption of the report that was the foundation. of the Wyndham Act, Ho lias been identified with every Irish interest, from archeology to tobacco-growing. Ever since he began in politics rather under protest, some forty years ago, he has been doing unostentatiously tho most valuable public work. When he had concluded his maiden speech in the House of Lords he sat down, in his nervousness, on the Front Bench, "until Lord Emly gently suggested that I was a little premature.” Apart from Irish affairs, he is proudest, I think, of his chairmanship of tho Sweated Industries Committee of 1888-89. His draft report went much too far for his colleagues, who rejected it; but "I am justified,” ' he writes, "in thinking that my report laid tho foundation upon which much valuable labor legislation bas been based.” Few men of our time have lived so full a life. Still fewer are they who have taken life in such an amiable spirit. And at the end he can say, in the whimsical mood that makes his pages so delightful, u Youth is joyous, hut it has no monopoly of happiness. With the changing years we change our toys; that is about,, all that happens.”

■Dickens .found the name Pickwick on the old Bolt-in-Tun Inn, according to “ Audax,” in ‘John o’ London’s Weekly. Mr Landfear Lucas has in Ins possession an 1858 posterßolt-in-Tun, Royal Mail and Coach Establishment, Fleet street, London. Day and night coaches to Bath and Bristol, through Marlboro and Devizes, White Hart Day Coach, Morning, 7. Regulator Coach. Evening, 6. Proprietors, Robert Gray and Moses Pickwick and Co.” Talk meters aro being installed on telephones, and it is claimed they mesuro conversation after the same fashion that other meters in the house measure gas, electricity, and water. The new instrument is known as the telechoraoter, and as fully 50 per cent, of all telephone conversation is either unnecessarily long or frivolous, the new invention will work a saving to the operator. Every time the receiver is taken off the hook on a party line the meter begins to operate. The eavesdropper will be charged as much as JA he had made the call