ATTITUDE TO HIS PARENTS 91 



I think, on the Monday in Doncaster race-week. On 

 this occasion Lord George, writing to his trainer, said : 

 ' As my mother will be buried before the races, the event 

 will make no difference to the running of my horses, so 

 take them as before arranged.' In being prompted to 

 this course, it is, perhaps, difficult to discern the exist- 

 ence of the tender susceptibilities of a mother's favourite 

 son, in respecting the memory of the parent from whom 

 he derived the greater portion, if not the whole, of his 

 income. Nor will it be said there was greater evidence 

 of filial respect in his conduct to his father, in keeping 

 horses and running them in fictitious names, after he 

 had solemnly declared that he had sold them to his ducal 

 friend. 



In his early life, we shall find an example of how he 

 studied etiquette and those rules of good-breeding which 

 mark the different grades of society, and distinguish the 

 educated from the unlettered. No doubt at a youthful 

 age his innate inclination to rule others was discovered 

 by his parents; and hence, probably, the army was 

 selected as a profession wherein he might be taught 

 respect to his superiors and behaviour at home, ' where 

 most he owed obedience.' But he seems to have defied 

 restraint. 



Whilst holding a subordinate commission as a cornet, 

 he disobeyed the orders of his superior officer and in- 

 sulted him, for which discourteous act he (Lord George) 

 ought to, and assuredly would, have been cashiered, but 

 for being the son of a duke a degradation imposed on 

 the captain instead of the cornet. The following extract 

 on the subject is taken from * The Bye-ways and Downs 

 of England ' : 



'During his short service in the army, Lord George had an unfor- 

 tunate misunderstanding with his superior, Captain Kerr a personal 



