110 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. [1883 



reception, and was escorted to Sir Peter Walker's hospitable 

 mansion at Osmaston, where one of the children, of whom 

 he is always so fond, gave him the warmest welcome. All 

 the young ones love " Bill," as they call him, and so do 

 most of the old ones, too, for, whatever his faults may 

 be — and, like the rest of us, he is but human — he is a o:ood 

 specimen of British pluck and physique. He is equally 

 ready to lead a forlorn hope, to charge the most hopeless- 

 looking place on any sort of a horse, or to go to the aid 

 of a friend in distress. 



" So we'll fill him a bumper as deep as you please, 

 And we'll give him a cheer; for, deny it who can, 



Where the country is roughest he's most at his ease ; 

 When the run is severest, he rides like a man ; 



And the pace cannot stop, nor the fences defeat, 

 This rum one to follow, this bad one to beat." 



There was a considerable difference (£500) between 

 the subscriptions for this year and the last — this season's 

 being £3562 4<§. 4(1., while the compensations came to 

 £346 18s. 6d. The new subscribers are : H. S. Allen, H. 

 C. Bentley, poet and penman ; H. W, Boome, J. Cadman, 

 J. R. Eastwood, and Captain Hore. 



For the changes in the committee, see the Appendix. 



The Hunt lost two good friends in Lord Vernon and 

 Mr. Bass. The latter died at the great age of eighty-four, 

 but the former was only fifty-four. His was a busy life. 

 As a boy, he was in the Navy, which he left to go to 

 Oxford. After that he served as lieutenant and captain 

 in the Scots Fusilier Guards. In 1851, at the early age 

 of twenty-two, he retired from the Guards and married a 

 sister of the Earl of Lichfield, by whom he had ten children. 

 In 1866 he succeeded his father in the title and estates of 

 Sudbury, Derbyshire, Poynton, near Stockport, and Wid- 

 drington, near Morpeth. In 1859 he opposed Mr. Mundy 

 as candidate for South Derbyshire, being defeated by one 

 vote — his opponent's. He was a model landlord, spending 

 most of his time on the estates, and started the butter 

 factory at Sudbury for the benefit of his tenants and their 



