170 mings of tbe 1f3untina*3riel& 



spot, by tying up the femoral artery which had been 

 severed.' 



Fanny Kemble was present on that memorable day 

 when the first railway in England, from Manchester to 

 Liverpool, the masterpiece of George Stephenson's genius, 

 w^as opened, and witnessed the terrible accident to 

 which she refers. Mr Huskisson, ex-President of the 

 Board of Trade and a Cabinet Minister, was shaking 

 hands with the Duke of Wellington at the door of one 

 of the railway carriages when there was a cry that the 

 engine was coming. Mr Huskisson stepped back, was 

 knocked down by the engine (the famous ' Rocket '), 

 and received injuries from which he died a few hours 

 later. According to Fanny Kemble, Lord Wilton 

 himself, who was standing with Count Batthyany 

 talking to Mr Huskisson, had a very narrow escape 

 indeed of sharing the awful fate of the statesman. 



As Commodore of the Royal Yacht Club, Lord 

 Wilton was a not less conspicuous and familiar figure 

 at Cowes than at Newmarket or Melton, and that he 

 was no mere fair-weather sailor he proved times without 

 number by his long cruises in the Palatine, and other 

 famous yachts which have carried his pennant. It has 

 been suggested that the sobriquet of 'the wicked earl,' 

 so incongruously applied to him, derived its origin from 

 certain scandalous traditions attaching to his celebrated 

 schooner, the Zarifa, which had been originally a slaver, 

 and was supposed to retain something rakish and 

 piratical about her which she imparted to her noble 

 owner, whom some persons persisted in regarding as 

 a sort of corsair Don Juan when afloat in that tainted 

 craft. But, so far as I know, there was not the slightest 

 ground for suspecting the highly moral and decorous 



