FIFTY YEARS OF A SHOWMAN'S LIFE 



embraced in the interval, is far more distant than 

 the years denote. I have always had some 

 pleasure in remembering that I was brought into 

 personal communication with one so typical of 

 a time now dead and buried. The present age 

 could not produce his exact counterpart the 

 conditions of life nowadays do not admit of it 

 and so I feel very much as if I had held converse 

 with the denizen of a world other than the one 

 in which I live. 



At a later date, I had the fortune to see some- 

 thing of one who loomed large upon the political 

 stage for awhile, and who was the very antipodes, 

 in temperament, of the level-headed, placid- 

 minded embodiment of all that was stable, to 

 whom I have just referred. The Oxfordshire 

 Agricultural Society wanted to hold its 1879 show 

 in Blenheim Park, and it was thought that the 

 best way to bring this about was to invite the 

 rising hope of the Marlborough family, Lord 

 Randolph Churchill, to accept the Presidency of 

 the Society, which he consented to do, and it was 

 as secretary that I was brought into communica- 

 tion with his lordship. The latter had a somewhat 

 chequered University career that is to say, he 

 did well in the schools, but was not infrequently 

 in revolt against authority, which last was probably 

 due to his mental activity needing a vent. He 

 was returned to Parliament for the family borough 

 of Woodstock which had been represented by 

 his father before he succeeded to the dukedom 

 in 1874, but, up to the time of his election to 

 the presidency in question, had not shown any 

 particular aptitude as a speaker, or any special 



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