PARSON PARKES 273 



with Mr Dickson of steel fame. For him, as soon as 

 the war was over, he set about training horses once 

 more, and made good with Piraeus and Orange William, 

 both of whom I was the means of sending into their 

 stable. But poor Parkes did not last long. An attack 

 of pneumonia, after being at Salisbury Races on a cold 

 day, carried him off, and Mr Dickson had to carry on 

 as best he could. 



Probably there is no one of any account on the Turf 

 who did not know Parson Parkes and was not pleased 

 to hear his hearty laugh. It is impossible to conceive 

 that he ever had an enemy, though he gave short shrift 

 to such chance opponents as he came up against as 

 once, for instance, in a billiard-room at Epsom. 



Though he was all things to all men, he nevertheless 

 was a true parson to the end. In one of his later 

 years, when there was a dinner at a British Empire 

 Club in Piccadilly, with Lord Curzon as the principal 

 speaker and all the necessary surroundings, including 

 a pompous toast-master, there was no parson present 

 but Parson Parkes, and as someone had to say grace 

 there came forth in stentorian tones : 



" PRAY, SILENCE, FOR THE REV. A. W. PARKES ! " 



Good old Parkes, of course, did the needful there 

 never was any humbug about him in such matters but 

 the contrast between him and Lord Curzon dwells in 

 my memory. 



Parson Parkes was a man who had obtained degrees 

 at both Dublin and Durham universities First Class 

 in one of them and that reminds me of a time when 

 I went up from Newmarket to London, during a 

 December sale, to vote in the Strand Division, and get 

 back in time to speak. I had six or seven mares to sell 

 s 



