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62 Old Memories of East-Bourne. [Chap. V.
our garden. July 14, 1898, July 19, 1899, and July 4, 1900, were three such occasions. It was most interesting, and in some cases amusing, to see how the old people enjoyed their outings. Some, however, preferred not to have their earnings spent in the ordinary way of eating and drinking. They found their greatest happiness in fly drives round the town !
Lord Colchester, as is mentioned elsewhere, was many years ago a Conservative Candidate for East Sussex, but it was to speak at a Primrose League Fete that he stayed with us in 1887. This Fete, a great success, was carried out partly on our lawn and partly on the Manor House lawn. The tea-tables were erected on our side of the road, whilst the speech-making and the dancing took place on the other side under the kind supervision of Mr. and Mrs. Davies Gilbert.
Lord Stalbridge's antecedents and present high position need no amplification, but I am tempted to record one thing he said to me on April 17, 1886, when he and Lady Stalbridge were having tea at our house. As Lord Richard Grosvenor, he had been one of Mr. Gladstone's " whips" in the House of Commons, and received a Peerage by way of reward. He said that one of his reasons for accepting it was that he was glad to be put out of touch with so many old associates in the House of Commons with whom he had acted for so many years, but with whom he could act no longer in consequence of their having gone wrong on the subject of Home Rule.
Lord Glenesk was the great journalist who had bought and regenerated the Morning Post. I believe that he had also had a hand in the departed Owl. Probably most people who ever knew it have forgotten the Owl, and the present generation never knew it. It was a satirical sheet of 4 pages, published weekly at the price of sixpence, which revealed many Cabinet and Parliamentary secrets to the great alarm of old-fashioned and proper people. Everybody wondered whence it obtained its political and society gossip. I took it in for a long time from its commencement in 1864, and |
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