THE EIGHTH DUKE 



The young Lord Worcester was popular, and he 

 threw himself heartily into the gay life open to a 

 subaltern of Hussars in the late forties and early 

 fifties. All through his life he was distinguished 

 by a real kindness of heart, that made him 

 one of the most thoughtful of hosts, the most 

 considerate of landlords, and the most genial of 

 companions. He had too, as we have seen, a 

 sterner side to his character, that made him very 

 apt to succeed in all he undertook. Possibly in 

 racing he was less successful than at anything else 

 into which he threw himself But his career on the 

 turf belongs to a period that was certainly not the 

 brightest in the history of racing. The resolute 

 rush to ruin of a few reckless men, and the flourish- 

 ing condition of the parasites who clustered round 

 them, gave to racing an ill name it has not yet lost, 

 though heavy gambling on the turf is now a thing 

 of the past. The influence of men like Lord George 

 Bentinck and Charles Greville, to whom racing was 

 purely a gambling speculation, soon bore fruit, and 

 men less able and more unscrupulous recognised 

 that the sport might be treated as a business. This 

 made it at once more expensive and less satisfactory 

 to those who, like Lord Worcester and the third 

 Lord Exeter, raced for the love of sport. It made 

 the Marquis, and his friend and contemporary Sir 

 John Astley, often the victims of blood-suckers 

 and parasites masquerading as sportsmen. The 

 generous, frank nature of the former laid him open to 



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