The Life of a Great Sportsman 



brother Maunsell elected to go to Magdalen College, Cam- 

 bridge, then the sporting college par excellence at the 'Varsity, 

 and I am told by those "in the know" that its reputation for 

 sport still stands as high as ever. I have already recalled that 

 Maunsell, on being given his choice as to whether or not he 

 should go to the University, elected to go to Cambridge. My 

 eldest brother refused to go to either of these seats of learning 

 and elected, on the contrary, to stay at Limber, at any rate 

 until the time came when I was twenty-one, three years later, 

 and our inheritance could be divided, when we could each 

 determine what was to be our future course as to the old home 

 and the bent of our own lives. Again there can be little doubt 

 that Mr. Southwell's advice was in the right direction. 



With his Harrow reputation as commendation my brother 

 Maunsell was at once put into the cricket Eleven, and played for 

 his University in their matches against Oxford in 1866 and 

 1867. That he made no conspicuous success at Cambridge as 

 a cricketer is not surprising, for here he could indulge in the 

 sports he loved the best, such as hunting and racing, whilst at 

 Harrow he was not able to get any hunting, excepting during the 

 holidays at Limber, and could only race by proxy, so to speak. 



It is small wonder, therefore, that, once settled down, we 

 find him well to the fore in all matters appertaining to sport, 

 especially to horsemanship, with the result that in 1867 he was 

 unanimously elected to that most coveted position the Master- 

 ship of the Cambridge Drag Hounds, a post regarded at the 

 'Varsity as an honour only paralleled by the coveted position of 

 M.F.H. to a popular Hunt. Mr. Finch Mason will tell of 

 the " Cat's " racing achievements at the time of his sojourn at 

 " Alma Mater," which no doubt formed the prelude of what he 

 was to become in later years. 



Two very characteristic anecdotes of him during his stay at 



68 



