THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 9120, 4 June 1890, Page 6

THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.

REJECTED AT THE TURF CLUB.

A London despatch dated Match 23 says:—The tit-bit of the week in Club circles is the treatment of the Duke of Marlborough by the Turf Club, which is the exclusive swell sporting club of England. The other day the Duke was put up for election. He had a strong backing, among othersEandolph Churchill, who, as it was a family affair, was assisted by other members of the Club in advocating the Duke’s claims, but whether it was Randolph’s attack upon the Government, or the hostile action of the Duke’s former wife’s relatives, or a sudden excess of morality on the part of the sporting fraternity, or all three reasons condensed, the Duke was given to understand the day before the election.that he was almost certain to be blackballed. Thus, in his interest as well as their own, his friends withdrew his name at the last moment, and he was not submitted to the ordeal of a ballot. That the Turf Club should set itself up as a censor of morals has thrown clubland into convulsions of laughter. Another proof of the deep-rooted phsriseeiem of the English aristocracy coupled with this is the social gossip concerning the departure of the Duchosa of Marlborough for America on the Teutonic, with twenty trunks and a man servant. Though the Duchess’ experience with her titled husband since she came here has not been pleasant, and her life has been anything but a bed of roses, she probably gob along with him quite as happily as she expected. So far as can be learned,.there is no truth in the current rumour that her sudden departure was the result of a family quarrel. The reason probably is to raise more money. Since the Duke married the rich widow he has been going through the Hammersley millions in fine stylo. Not only has the late Mr Hammersley’s fortune repaired the dilapidated Blenheim mansion, but, in addition, the Duchess has purchased and richly furnished at a cost of nearly a .£50,000 the residence in Carlton House Terrace, which she has settled upon the Duke. She also paid up fully another fifty thousand of the Duke’s debts, contracted before his marriage. At the Secretan sale m Paris and large art sales in England the Duke, since his marriage, has been a heavy purchaser. This is popularly attributed to his acknowledged taste and a desire to replace the pictures he sold years ago from the Blenheim gallery, but no one knows better than the Duke that good pictures are commodities easily turned into cash.