Lord Granville is not sensitive about the political fame of
the late Administration, but he is jealous of its repute in the hunting- field. At a dinner given on Tuesday to the Earl of Guildford, the Master of the East Kent Foxhounds, at the Lord Warden Hotel, Dover, Lord Granville quoted with mock indignation the say- ing of a sporting member of the late Parliament concerning the -ex-Cabinet:—" Did you ever see such a lot of muffs? I don't believe one of them has ever seen a run in his life." Lord Gran- vile met the criticism by a challenge : —" Now, without alluding to others in the Cabinet, he ventured to back the oldest member of the last Administration, who was now in his seventy-fourth Tear, and the youngest member of the Cabinet; who weighed about fifteen stone, to ride over four miles of fair hunting country against any four members of the existing Cabinet. They must understand, of course, that the conditions were age for age and -weight for weight." That is,we suppose, a tribute to the great merits of Lord Halifax and the Marquis of Hartington. But Lord Granville was , not satisfied with vindicating the sportsmanlike character of the Cabinet ; he went on to hint that it had, as a whole, some of the virtues which are characteristic of a well-trained hound, —the art of sticking to its work, of never running to heel, of never going on false scent, and above all, of never babbling when there was nothing to give tongue about. On the last point certainly no old hound could boast itself more honestly than the ex-Cabinet. Lord Granville was joking, of course ; but the joke shows how grotesque a social influence is still wielded by the caste of sportsmen,—in other words, men who show less courage and less skill in every way than Alpine-Club men, but who choose amusements confined to the wealthy classes.
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