Part 37

On the other hand, the most successful Englishman in the present season at Monte Carlo has been a regular Hurlingham and Gun Club pigeon-shooter for many years. This is Mr. Hodgson Roberts, who took the Prix Journu Handicap from the extreme range of 30 metres with 15 straight kills on January 9th, and on January 30th won the Grande Poule d’Essai, an even distance event, with 19 consecutive kills. Nevertheless, the betting for the bigger event favoured Mr. Mackintosh all through the season, although in the last-named event he had killed but four birds, and had not been either lucky or great during the season. His principal triumph was the Prix Myosotis Handicap, which he divided from the 31 metres mark, but with only 7 kills; the famous French shooter, M. Journu, being in with him from the 29½ metres distance. On January 15th Mr. Roberts and Mr. C. Robinson (the latter representing America) had won the Prix H. Grasselli, with a run of eight kills each. This prize is named after the victor in 1902 and 1905, and should have its amount multiplied by three in future years, as an honour to the Italian shooter who has become the first three-times-victor, who also has won twice consecutively, for, in spite of the penalty distance, he has now won a third time. Surely where pigeon shooting counts as a proof of marksmanship he must be held to be the greatest shot in the world. The triumph of Italy was almost a foregone conclusion when Mr. Cave failed for England at his eighth bird, but it was not Signor H. Grasselli who the Italians backed then, but his runner-up last year. This was Signor Marconcini, who, having killed his eleventh bird without a a miss, went to the traps with £1,100 and the trophy trembling in the balance against the life of one pigeon. Nerves were on the side of the latter, which was, however, an easy bird and feathered by both barrels, but fell dead just the wrong side of the boundary, which made all the difference to Signor Marconcini, who was not even amongst the six victors in the end. The betting at the start was 100 to 7 Mackintosh, 20 to 1 against H. Grasselli, last year’s victor, and then 25 to 1 was obtained about Roberts, Robinson, and P. Thellusson. The first named of these three missed his first bird, and the last named his second. Probably the betting really indicates the status of the shooters quite as much as the chances of war and eventual victory, and for that reason it may be added that 33 to 1 was to be had against Journu, Marconcini, Wilder, Lazzara, Habite, Moore, Huet, and F. Thellusson, and 50 to 1 each against Chiannini, Bruce, Moncorge, Hans, Marsh, H. Cave, C. Cave, Webb, Horadetski and Rosslyn, and 66 to 1 against any others. As there were 175 shooters, it cannot be said that the odds were upon the liberal side. The strength of the birds and some wind soon settled the chances of more than three parts of the competitors, but those who had the luck to get to the last day had no wind to contend with, although the birds were of the best throughout. Of course the entry was the record, for in spite of our insular prejudice the event grows in importance. Signor H. Grasselli won with 19 kills in 20 birds; Signor Bordoni killed 18 out of 20 birds and took second, and Dom Luro, from Brazil, with 16 out of 18 obtained third place. The fourth prize was secured by 15 out of 16 shots by three shooters, who divided, these were two Italians and one Frenchman, so that there were four Italian victors out of six. The fourth men were Signor Chirericati, Signor Schianini, and Count Lazzana. The victories are now twelve times for England, all but three of them in the first half of the competitions, twelve for Italy, all but three of these being the last half of the annual events. Four times Frenchmen won. Three times Austria and Hungary have taken the trophy. Twice it has been won by Belgium, and Spain has taken it once, as also has the United States, which was in the year of its initiation. America, for different reasons to England (for game driving is unknown there) seems to have dropped almost out of the competition, although it is probable that the best pigeon shots are to be found in that country. At any rate, the best clay-bird shots are, and the ease with which they overthrew the English team in which Mr. Cave shot a few years ago will hardly be forgotten, and they did it with one barrel against the English two.

GOLF.

The General Election took from the membership of the House of Commons several good golfers, including Mr. Arthur Balfour, Mr. Gerald Balfour, and Mr. Alfred Lyttelton, and made only one notable addition, namely, Mr. Frank Newnes, the new member for the Bassetlaw Division of Notts. The two best players at Westminster, Mr. Eric Hambro and Mr. H. W. Forster, retained their seats.

The Walton Heath Club has inaugurated a competition which promises to excite much interest among London golfers. The competition is for a challenge trophy presented by the club, and is confined to clubs whose headquarters are within thirty miles of Charing Cross. Each club will provide a professional and an amateur player, or two amateurs, and the couple will play a two-ball foursome on a neutral green, until the final round is reached, when the play must take place on Walton Heath. If the response to the invitation for entries is at all general there will be fine play, for the London clubs include some of the best players, amateur and professional, in the country. The latter include Harry Vardon, James Braid, J. H. Taylor, Jack White and Rowland Jones; while among the former are Mr. H. H. Hilton, Mr. Harold Beveridge, Mr. W. Herbert Fowler, and Mr. T. R. Pinkerton.

Four professionals from this country, Jack White, Alexander Herd, Andrew Kirkaldy and Rowland Jones, went to Mexico and took part in the championship meeting there. They, however, found the conditions far from their liking, and made an indifferent show. The championship was won by Willie Smith, an old Carnoustie player, who has been some time in America, and can play on sand greens. A team competition was arranged, but in this the home professionals did no better than in the championship play. Andrew Kirkaldy had for opponent Bernard Nicholls, the young professional who beat Harry Vardon twice in America. Nicholls on this occasion defeated Kirkaldy by two holes.

Harry Vardon is staying at La Touquet this winter for his health, and has distinguished himself by making a record score for the course of 68. This indicates surely that his health is mending.

A scheme has been started for the laying out of a full golf course at Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, and the conversion of Norris Castle into a clubhouse, with bedrooms for the accommodation of golfers as well as yachtsmen.

“HIS HOUSE IN ORDER,” AT THE ST. JAMES’S THEATRE.

Following the great success of “Nero” comes the marked success of Pinero, and Mr. George Alexander is to be congratulated upon the reception which his recent production has received from public and critics alike.

Mr. Pinero rising, phœnix-like, from the ashes of “The Wife without a Smile,” has, according to many intelligent playgoers, soared to a greater height than ever before, and people have not hesitated to declare “His House in Order” to be a finer play than “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.”

A few years ago Mr. Pinero was reported to have said, upon some public occasion, that what a dramatist requires is praise. Our leading playwright ought just now to be like the little boy in the advertisement, “He is happy now he has got it.”

With everybody loud in their praises of the play, we have to ask for sympathy in the disappointment we suffered on seeing it. We have always been full of admiration for Mr. Pinero’s genius, and having been told to expect so much of his latest work, we were discontented with what we saw and heard. To begin with, we could not find in the play one single character with whom we could sympathise or whose cause we could espouse with any enthusiasm.

Nina is presumably meant to appeal to the sympathies of the audience, but, after all, her only claim to this appears to be that she is mortified and distressed by the brutality of the relatives of the first wife of her husband. Nina Jesson seems to be just a middle-class little thing who, entering the Jesson household as governess, marries Jesson on the death of his first wife.

She is devoted to ill-mannered dogs, which she would love to encourage about the house; she is a confirmed cigarette-smoker, having been instructed in this accomplishment by her father, the clergyman, and she appears to be untidy, unpunctual, and generally impossible; whilst she is sneak enough to read other people’s letters and to use them for her own ends. And so to keep Jesson’s house in order, the deceased wife’s sister acts as hostess instead of the unpractical Nina—and that is the grievance. She and the other three members of the Ridgeley family do not hesitate to enlarge on the shortcomings of the second Mrs. Jesson, and hence our tears are invoked on behalf of the ex-governess.

We may say, however, that for Miss Irene Vanbrugh, who plays Nina, we have nothing but the warmest admiration. She plays the part for all that it is worth, and her performance is the finest feature of the play.

The members of the Ridgeley family are, to our mind, like nothing in the world except themselves, and they certainly are so much like one another that Nina might have drawn them at any time by saying: “There are not four Ridgeleys but one Ridgeley.”

Mr. Pinero has probably met a Ridgeley somewhere, but we hope there are not many of them about. Hillary Jesson, in one of his flights of declamation, denounces the Ridgeleys as “individually and collectively one of the pests of humanity,” and this line got the most hearty applause of the evening. Obviously the Ridgeleys never go in front at the St. James’s Theatre, and it is not at all a bad device of stage-craft to direct all your slings and arrows against a class of people who, if not absolutely non-existent, are certainly never to be found amongst the audience in a theatre. The middle-class Puritanical goody-goody must always be a safe butt for the player and playgoer.

But there are much worse people than the Ridgeleys in the play. There is a Major Maurewarde who seduces the wife of his friend, sneakingly claims the only offspring of that marriage as his own natural son, and after the death of the lady contrives to enjoy the hospitality of the cuckold and the affection of the bastard—a nice specimen of an officer and a gentleman!

Then there is a British Minister to some foreign republic, unfortunately home on leave, who must have a finger in every pie and put the whole world straight. He espouses the cause of Nina, but when she is going to use the compromising letters of her predecessor in the affections of Jesson, Hillary Jesson, his brother, the meddler, prevails upon her to do no such thing, but to hand over the compromising documents to his safe keeping, with the result that he loses little time in handing them himself to his brother, the deceived husband.

As a reward for having nearly talked her to death, her self-elected champion asks Nina to present him with her cigarette case that he may add it to a very bizarre collection of curiosities he has made, including “the blood-stained handkerchief of a matador, and a half-smoked cigarette that has been pressed by the lips of an empress—one of the noblest of her sex.” To our mind, the man who can talk such rot as this is likely to be a much more troublesome creature than any of the despised Ridgeleys.

Then the husband Jesson would not be everybody’s choice; he certainly treats his second wife very unkindly, and as far as we can see the only reason for his kicking out the Ridgeleys, and allowing his wife to resume the proud privilege of keeping house for him, is that he becomes aware of the infidelity of his first wife and wreaks his vengeance upon her relatives.

We are told that two wrongs cannot make one right, and there seems no reason why the accidental revelation of the infidelities of a dead woman should suddenly transform a bad housekeeper into a good one, as probably Mr. Jesson soon discovered.

Upon the theme of this interesting play one might wander on indefinitely, but space fortunately forbids our saying more now, except that everybody should go and see “His House in Order,” and everybody should be interested by it; but we cannot think that anybody ought to call it Mr. Pinero’s masterpiece, for Mr. Pinero has written some very fine plays indeed.

Sporting Intelligence. [During January—February, 1906.]

On January 17th Her Majesty the Queen attended the meet of the West Norfolk Foxhounds, at Rougham Hall, in a motor car; the Princess Victoria, and the Princes Edward and Albert of Wales were present on horseback. The Queen showed great interest in the pack, and photographed the hounds.

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While out hunting with the Woodland Pytchley Hounds, on January 17th, Mr. John Thornton, of Pilton, Northamptonshire, when jumping a high fence, was thrown from his seat and came down on the point of the saddle, sustaining severe internal injuries, to which he succumbed on the following day.

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Mr. J. G. Blanshard, who had been for some thirty years secretary of the Wetherby Steeplechase Meeting, died at his residence, Walton, near Wetherby, on January 18th, at the age of seventy. Mr. Blanshard was a well-known judge of horses, and bred many good hunters in his time.

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On January 18th there died at his residence, Wynnstay Gardens, Kensington, Mr. Thomas Hughes, aged eighty-three years. Mr. Hughes was, in his day, a well-known personage on the turf, and so far back as 1859 he did well when The Brewer won the Liverpool Autumn Cup; and in 1864 he won the Chester Cup with the eight-year-old Flash-in-the-Pan.

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The Croome Hounds had a good run on January 20th, during which the pack got upon the railway and had the misfortune to lose a hound.

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At the early age of forty-two years, Sir James Percy Miller, Bart., died at Manderston, Duns, Berwickshire, on January 22nd, as the result of a chill taken while out hunting the previous week. The deceased baronet had a very successful career on the Turf, and in 1903 won the Derby with Rock Sand; he was also well known in the hunting-field, and had been from 1897 Master of the local pack.

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Owing to the death of Sir George Shiffner, which occurred on January 23rd, in his eighty-sixth year, at his residence, Coombe, Lewes, the Southdown Foxhounds did not meet for several days.

A painful incident occurred with the Meynell Hounds on January 25th. The meet was at Brailsford Bridge, and Captain Frederick Livingstone Campbell, superintendent of the Sheerness Dockyard, who was out, suffered a seizure just as the fox was killed, and fell from his saddle, dislocating his neck; hounds were at once called off.

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The death occurred at Mython House, near Shrewsbury, of Mr. Alfred Roqueir Candon. The deceased, who was an old member of the Cotswold Hunt, was this season hunting with the Shropshire hounds. On January 30th, while exercising a hunter, after taking several fences the horse bolted and threw its rider at a gate: Mr. Candon broke his neck, death being almost instantaneous.

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One of the best-known writers on natural history and country life subjects, Mr. Charles John Cornish, died at Worthing on January 30th, aged forty-seven years. The deceased was a keen lover of field sports and wildfowling, and his experiences were most agreeably related in many books and articles contributed to the _Spectator_ and other periodicals.

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Lord Newlands, who was in his eighty-first year, died at Maudslie Castle, Lanarkshire, on January 30th. For many years he was a keen supporter of coaching, and was a member of the Four-in-Hand and also of the Coaching Clubs, being elected President of the last-named in 1902. Lord Newland was a prominent supporter of the Lanark Races.

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On January 30th the death occurred of a well-known Yorkshire sportsman and ex-M.F.H., Mr. John Hill. He was in his eighty-fifth year, and passed away suddenly at the Low Hall, Brompton, Yorkshire. Mr. John Hill and his father before him, Mr. R. Johnson Hill, hunted the country around Scarborough, now known as Mr. Sherbrooke’s, from the year 1808. Mr. John Hill took over the Mastership upon the death of his father in 1855, but sold the hounds in 1862 to the Duke of Grafton. Frank Beers was well pleased with the pack, and their blood is to be found, says _Horse and Hound_, in the Grafton Hounds to-day. Mr. Hill was succeeded in the Mastership of the Scarborough country by Mr. Harcourt Johnstone (the present Lord Derwent), for whom he hunted them for many seasons, and another member of the family, Mr. Robin Hill, is at present acting as amateur huntsman to Mr. Sherbrooke.

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Mr. John Bell Irving, of Whitehill, Dumfriesshire, died on January 31st in his ninety-fourth year. The deceased was the oldest Justice of the Peace in Scotland, having been on the commission for sixty years. He was a famous breeder of stock and a prominent coursing man, having owned many well-known greyhounds, and was the only survivor of a band of county gentlemen which started the Dumfriesshire Foxhounds. Last year, at the age of ninety-three, he was present at the annual races. His wife, who predeceased him eighteen months ago, was the sister of the late Sir Robert Jardine.

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On February 3rd Charles Littleworth died at his residence at Crediton, aged seventy-six years. The deceased, who was born in Hampshire, entered hunt service in 1854, when he became second horseman to the Earl of Portsmouth, then Master of the Vine; later he went with Lord Portsmouth to Devonshire as first whipper-in to the Eggesford, and was soon after promoted to huntsman. He remained on active service in the country for nearly forty years. In 1890 he was presented with an illuminated address and a purse of 200 guineas. Charles Littleworth took a great interest in the breeding of fox-terriers, and often acted as a judge at shows.

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On February 3rd there passed away Major T. H. Preston, of Moreby Hall, near York, in his eighty-ninth year. Very keen to hounds and a fine shot, Major Preston was one of the few survivors of the disaster to the York and Ainsty Hounds on February 4th, 1869, when Sir Charles Slingsley, the Master, and other members of the Hunt lost their lives through the capsizing of the ferry-boat on the River Ure.

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Mr. John Arkwright, who was for many years Hon. Secretary to the North Warwickshire Hunt, died on February 12th at his residence, Hatton House, near Warwick, aged eighty-two years. Mr. Arkwright was presented with his portrait a number of years ago, when there was a great gathering of hunting men at Stoneleigh, and the late Lord Leigh made the presentation on behalf of the subscribers. The present Master of the North Warwickshire, Mr. J. P. Arkwright, is elder son of the deceased gentleman.

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A veteran Irish sportsman has passed away in the person of Mr. Philip Blake, who died at his residence, Ladyrath House, Navan, aged eighty years. He was well known with the Meath and the Louth Hounds, and in the sixties was Master and owner of the Meath Union Harriers.

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Some good prices for hunters have been obtained at the Leicester Repository. Lord Chesham sold three: Patrick, 160 gs.; Goodman, 170 gs.; and Dulcimer, 230 gs. Three sent up by Captain G. E. Belleville sold as follows: St. Maur, 210 gs.; Oatmeal, 185 gs., and Samuel, 150 gs. Mr. Alex. Browne, M.F.H., realised an average of £283 10s. for eleven hunters; The Dub, 600 gs.; Daly, 500 gs.; Silver Cloud, 400 gs.; Galway, 350 gs.; Ludlow, 260 gs.; Grantham, 200 gs.; Leicester, 175 gs.; The Chef, 160 gs.; Tinker, 130 gs.; Benjamin, 125 gs., and Jedburgh, 70 gs. Other properties included Bay g. 125 gs.; Hall Weston, 200 gs.; Lady Sissie, 120 gs.; Nimrod, 100 gs.; Princess Osra, 180 gs., and Buller, 110 gs.

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Amongst the more important sales by Messrs. Tattersall at Albert Gate during the last few weeks may be mentioned: Mr. E. W. Bradbury’s Starlight, 105 gs.; Imperial, sent up by a lady, 130 gs.; Major Sherston’s bay, 110 gs. From Mr. H. Thompson, Crossgar, the following made three figures: Nine Pins, 100 gs.; Mullingar, 140 gs.; Gentleman, 105 gs.; The Stag, 120 gs.; Ebony, the property of Mr. J. Blackburn, realised 130 gs.

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Owing to her great age and increasing infirmity, it was found necessary to destroy the famous old mare, Mowerina, at the Hunciecroft Paddocks, Welbeck. Herself and her children have won just over £87,000 in stakes, the offspring including Modwena and her brother Donovan, a very good horse indeed, who won £55,154 in two years’ racing. Mowerina’s daughter, Semolina, was a good early two-year-old; she won the Brocklesby Stakes; and Semolina’s brother, Raeburn, was the only horse to ever beat Isinglass, and is now in Hungary, having been purchased at the last Newmarket December Sales by Baron Harkanyi.

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Harvester, by Sterling-Wheatear, who ran a dead heat with St. Gatien in the Derby of 1884, when the stakes were divided for the first time, recently died at the Zabola Stud, in Hungary. Bred by Lord Falmouth in 1881, Harvester won as a two-year-old the Thirty-sixth Triennial at Newmarket, and the Clearwell Stakes, and in the spring of 1884 was sold to Sir John Willoughby, for 8,000 gs.

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SHIP-BUILDING SURGERY.—The steamship _Forth_, one of the Carron fleet running between London and Scotland for passenger and goods traffic, is at present laid up for an extraordinary operation which will lengthen the boat by 40 feet. She was hoisted on a large cradle and cut right through just forward of the bridge deck. The cradle was also sawn asunder, and the two parts with their respective portions of the ship were drawn apart to a distance of 40 feet, which space was then built in. The alteration will enable the _Forth_ to carry about 200 tons more cargo, and her steaming capabilities will not be impaired. On the contrary she will now rank amongst the finest steamers on the East Coast.

TURF.

MANCHESTER SECOND JANUARY.

January 17th.—The Manchester Handicap Steeplechase of 200 sovs.; two miles. Mr. C. Bower Ismay’s b. h. Theodocion, by Marcion—Minthe, aged, 12st. 3lb. A. Newey 1 Mr. C. R. Hodgson’s b. m. Do be Quick, 6 yrs., 11st. 13lb. Mr. Payne 2 Mr. A. Coats’ b. m. Felspar, 6 yrs., 11st. 6lb. R. Cowe 3 3 to 1 agst. Theodocion.