assbcton Smitl) ^r, 



I imagine that, like his friend Arthur Wellesley, Duke 

 of WeUington, Thomas Assheton Smith was harshly 

 treated in his early childhood ; for he has left it on 

 record that once, in a fit of rage and indignation at 

 some act of injustice, he knelt beneath a yew tree in 

 the churchyard and vowed never to do anything under 

 pressure of violence and compulsion. He was but seven 

 }-ears of age when he made that solemn vow, but he 

 kept it most rigidly to the end of his life. 



A few months after this display of a high spirit in revolt 

 he was sent to Eton. The most remarkable event in 

 his life during the eleven years he was at school there 

 was his great fight with Jack Musters, afterwards his 

 lifelong friend. That desperate battle is still spoken 

 of with bated breath among Etonians, and the tradition 

 thereof will never die. Musters was seventeen and 

 Smith eighteen. In strength, courage and skill they 

 were equally matched, both famed for their proficiency 

 in all athletic sports. For an hour and a half they 

 fought with the fierce and dogged fury of two thorough- 

 bred English bull-dogs. Neither had a thought of 

 giving in — each was grimly resolved to go on till he 

 dropped, and both were so fearfully punished that in 

 the last round they could not see one another ; yet, 

 blinded and bruised and bleeding though they were, 

 they would have gone on had not their seconds 

 humanely interfered and insisted on their shaking 

 hands. Assheton Smith's nose was broken, and he 

 used in after days to describe himself as the 

 plainest man in England, always adding, 'Jack 

 Musters, the rascal, spoiled all my beauty.' Among 

 the great fights at Eton that between Jack Musters 

 and Tom Assheton Smith holds a high place. It was 



