ANECDOTES OF THE LATE DUKE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13663, 30 March 1908, Page 5

ANECDOTES OF THE LATE DUKE.

POLITICAL VAGARIES.

The late Duke of Devonshire looked more like a sniall ;country gentleman than the head of a great house. He took full advantage of his; station to dress in a dull conservative fashion, and a' stranger looking at him as he lolled in his seat in Parliament, with his hat tilted oVer his eyes, and nis ieet upi . showing . brigntly-cploured socks, would have hesitated t6 pick him out as a Knight of the Garter and a num-of -ancient-lineage,- .Jaksa_without number were made about his somnolence. Punch, loved tdklepict him dozing £n his seat, and we recollect a sketch, in which -he was depicted, during a tour in Egypt, yawning before h mummy, and envying the deadf princess her long sleep. He delivered a speech j t>n an important question in the House of Lords so listlessly that' an obserrer remarked - tßat far * more interesting than his words was the speculation whether the speaker or his audience would fall asleep first. This phlegmatic peer Had a keen sense of humour. He one© had the audacity to yawn in the middle of a speech in the House of Lords, an# t& a lady who remonstrated With him, ho replied, "Ah, my dear lady, you didn't hear the speech, or you wouldn't say so." During the last state of his active political career som& of his colleagues occasioned him some trouble, and It was delicately suggested to him that he. should use his influence to have the most formidable of them "given a colony," so that ne might be removed from the, sphere where he was such a disturbing element. T>e Duke could not agree. "We don't mind losing x- , he said, according to 'the story, "but we don't want to lose a colony.'' He could be very democratic times. Long.ago, when the fashionable people living in the Westi End were making a fuss about the toleration of democratic meetings in Hyde Park his comment on the grumblings 1 was: "If Hyde Park; is to be at the mercy of a well-dressed mob during the rest* of the week, I really cannot see why a mob that is not quite so well dressed should be shut out of at on the seventh day." It was common sense like j^iis that helped^tjj give him Bttcn j an influence. A vepy , influential 'Ldn-* don personage, when- asked his views ; on the fiscal question at the outset of the controversy, explained that he would have no settled convictions until he saw "what the Duke was going to do." This case is said to .have been typical of many.