Chapter XIX 



YIELDING PLACE TO NEW 



1888-1896 



THE death of the sixth Duke of Rutland left a great 

 blank in the hunting world and in the hearts of his 

 friends, for no more justly beloved man ever lived than Will 

 Goodall's " kind Lord Duke." 



Firm and consistent in his political principles, he was 

 careful of the interests of those who followed him in State 

 matters, and faithful to his pledges. The agricultural party 

 lost a natural leader when he passed away. The Duke had 

 all the variety of tastes which give charm to a man in society, 

 and if his heart was more completely with his hounds than 

 with any other sport, he yet loved yachting and shooting, 

 more especially when age and infirmity — for he was always 

 a martyr to gout — made an active share in the working of 

 his pack impossible. 



But he passed away, and with him the social conditions 

 which had been so favourable to fox-hunting. The owner 

 of the chief of those family packs which have enabled 

 the fox-hound to be bred to the perfection it has now 

 reached, his home was the social centre of the best of the 

 hunting world, and exercised, as we have seen it had done 

 from the first, a great and useful influence on the manners 

 and customs of the hunting field. Some years before the 

 Duke's death he had, with whatever reluctance, taken a sub- 

 scription of ;^i,500 a year from the Lincolnshire side of his 

 country. The evils foreseen by himself and his father, when 

 they resisted the concessions made by their own party, had 



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