BULLOCH (John I.Ialcolm)

The last Baird of Auchmedden

and Strichen

£/ 76 7(32J,

ABERDEEN 1934

National Library of Scotland

*B000 196410*

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2012 with funding from

National Library of Scotland

http://www.archive.org/details/lastbairdlairdofOObull

THE LAST BAIRD LAIRD OFAUCHMEDDEN AND STRICHENTHE CASE OF MR. ABINGTON

BY

JOHN MALCOLM BULLOCH

ABERDEENPRIVATELY PRINTED

1934

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nine counties, ranging from Inverness toDumfries on the west and Berwick on theeast.

Matching the curious fact that greatsoldiers frequently have no male issue,or only poor specimens, four of these eightcaptains of industry had no issue, leavingtheir property to the other four brothers,who had between them only nine sons andeight daughters. Mr. Abington was par-ticularly lucky as a legatee, for his father,George of Strichen, inherited Stichill, inRoxburgh, from his brother David, whobought it in 1853 for £150,000, and he him-self got Auchmedden from his uncleJames, a man of great force of character

—

the last of the eight brothers to die (in1875)—although, unhappily, Mr. Abingtondid not inherit the quality which had madeJames give £500,000 to the Church ofScotland. Before he finished his rake's

GR.

deteriorated, as he undoubtedly did, whenhe gave up having to keep fit for racing—than those writers, most of them jour-nalists, who followed his career as a man-about-town in London, where he was, evenin the early 'nineties, almost the last ofthe Mohicans. They play the Pierce Eganto his career, or, when they moralise, theyperform the function of Holcroft in bring-ing " The Road to Ruin " up to date.Indeed, one peer who knew him well hasbluntly described him to me as a" ruffian," and expressed his surprise thatI should " waste my time " in piecing hisstory together. I do it to show the violentand almost incredible contrast betweenMr. Abington and the remarkably indus-trious and enterprising family from whomhe sprang: the pit from which he was dugwould be an absolutely literal phrase.

If George Baird of Strichen had not diedsuddenly at Strichen House in the autumn

page one

THE LAST BAIRD LAIRD OF

AUCHMEDDEN AND STRICHEN.

THE CASE OF MR ABINGTON.

George Alexander Baird, better knownas " Mr. Abington," the gentleman jockey,laird of Auchmedden, the cradle of thenorthern Bairds, and of Strichen in Aber-deenshire and of Stichill in Roxburgh, whoflickered out his wasted life at New Orleansin March, 1893, at the age of thirty-two,forms a strikingly ironic illustration of theself-defeating contrasts which are constantlyto be found in families. He represented,on an exaggerated scale, everything thathis family, the millionaire mining Bairdsof Gartsherrie, were not. The industryfrom which they drew their millions : andthe land, to, which as hereditary farmersthey were passionately devoted, and inwhich they invested large parts of theirfortune, made no appeal to him. Histastes, wholly uncontrolled, were all forsport—the Turf, the * ring—and riotousliving, all conducted on the most spend-thrift scale.

The story of the Gartsherrie Bairds readslike a modern version of Aladdin. Itbegan with Mr. Abington's grandfather,Alexander Baird (1765-1833), a little crofterin Lanark, who married a hard-headedservant lass, Jean Moffat. In 1809, at theage of forty-four, he began to work a coalmine. Helped all the time by his eightsons, he became an ironmaster in 1828,and in the course of a few years the Bairdswere turning out 300,000 tons of iron a year,and employing 10,000 men, while the for-tunes accumulated by the eight brothersmust have run into several millions, ofwhich £2,000,000 were invested in land innine counties, ranging from Inverness toDumfries on the west and Berwick on theeast.

Matching the curious fact that greatsoldiers frequently have no male issue,or only poor specimens, four of these eightcaptains of industry had no issue, leavingtheir property to the other four brothers,who had between them only nine sons andeight daughters. Mr. Abington was par-ticularly lucky as a legatee, for his father,George of Strichen, inherited Stichill, inRoxburgh, from his brother David, whobought it in 1853 for £150,000, and he him-self got Auchmedden from his uncleJamas, a man of great force of character

—

the last of the eight brothers to die (in1876)—although, unhappily, Mr. Abingtondid not inherit the quality which had madeJames give £500,000 to the Church ofScotland. Before he finished his rake's

progress, Mr. Abington made some of theBaird millions melt like last year's snow.Although a great deal has been written

from first to last about Mr. Abington, itis scattered through the lighter, and some-times scandalous, papers of the period,and in gossipy books by racing folk, men-about-town and journalists. Baird figuresin no book of reference except Boase'scomprehensive " Modern English Bio-graphy "—Burke's " Landed Gentry "

naturally does not mention his racing nameof Mr Abington—and nothing approachinga regular biography has been attempted.One of his neighbours at Kelso, who knewhim as a boy, and who watched his shortcareer with appalled " amazement," tellsme he would like to write a little book,after the pattern of Nimrod's classic bookon the notorious Jack Mytton. Again, aScotsman in Lancaster, a racing expert,who knew him well, informs me that hehas thought of writing a book about him—or " as much about him as can be told."That is just it. A great deal of it cannot

be told, for Baird really belonged in spiritto the eighteenth century, and we havenot got eighteenth century conditions.Again, so far as the later part of his careeris concerned, some of the people withwhom he had associated are still alive.In going over all sources of informationabout him, both in books and unwrittenrecollections—for I have simply made amosaic of them all—I find that the racingmen who knew him take a far more lenientview of him—if only because he had notdeteriorated, as he undoubtedly did, whenhe gave up having to keep fit for racing—than those writers, most of them jour-nalists, who followed his career as a man-about-town in London, where he was, evenin the early 'nineties, almost the last ofthe Mohicans. They play the Pierce Eganto his career, or, when they moralise, theyperform the function of Holcroft in bring-ing " The Road to Ruin " up to date.Indeed, one peer who knew him well hasbluntly described him to me as a" ruffian." and expressed his surprise thatI should " waste my time " in piecing hisstory together. I do it to show the violentand almost incredible contrast betweenMr. Abington and the remarkably indus-trious and enterprising family from whomhe sprang: the pit from which he was dugwould be an absolutely literal phrase.

If George Baird of Strichen had not diedsuddenly at Strichen House in the autumn

page one

of 1870, it is probable that his nine-year-oldmillionaire heir, George Alexander Baird,might have turned out very differentlyfrom what he did, and might probablyhave founded a real live landed family.At any rate, he might not have become ajockey like Mr Abington, and ended sotragically, or, rather, sordidly, as he did atthe early age of thirty-two.

The Gartsherrie Bairds' attempts tofound a family in the North failed on threeoccasions as follows:

—

(1) In 1854, Robert Baird, the fifth ofthe brothers, bought the estate of Auch-medden, the parish in Aberdour, from theForbeses of Newe and Edinglassie. Hedid so with the idea of bringing back intothe possession of a Gartsherrie Baird anestate which had been held for twohundred and fifty years by one of the oldlines of the Bairds, who had footled awaytheir fortune in a. way not unknown tolandowners. An old fret predicted thatthere would be an eagle in the crags atPennan while there was a Baird in Auch-medden. When the estate was sold in 1750to Lord Aberdeen, the eagles vanished,although Lord Aberdeen's son, LordHaddo, had married a Baird of Newbyth,sister of the great Sir David. The sameEarl of Aberdeen bought Gight, of whichanother fateful fret, this time about herons,was whispered. Haddo, at anyrate, waskilled by a fall from his horse at Gight.To return to Auchmedden, the eagles didnot reappear till Robert Baird became thelaird, when they flew back, only, however,to vanish again, when the coastguardsmenat Pennan tried to shoot them. RobertBaird did not enjoy the property long, forhe died unmarried in August, 1855, at theage of fifty.

(2) Auchmedden then passed to hisforceful brother James, who in 1853 hadbought the estate of Cambusdoon in Ayr,and who in 1857 acquired Knoydart inInverness. James also died without issue,in 1876, his will being sworn under£1,190,000.

(3) Auchmedden then went to hisnephew, George Alexander Baird, MrAbington, and he did not even marry.

Besides at Auchmedden, the Bairds hadtaken root at Strichen, for George Alex-ander's father, George, bought it from LordLovat in 1855, the year after Robert boughtAuchmedden. He paid £145,000 for it,which was from £20,000 to £30,000 morethan it had been valued a few years before,when it was offered in three lots. TheNorth had been further favoured by them,for Alexander, the third of the eightbrothers, bought TJrie in 1854, the sameyear as Robert bought Auchmedden, andthey hold it still in the person of LordStonehaven, one of the very few membersof the family who still own an estatebought by the eight brothers. Curiouslyenough, Urie had also been frittered awayby a sportsman—from whose trustees Bairdbought it—Robert Barclay Allardice, the

pedestrian, who was a sort of Mr Abingtonof his time.

In addition to Strichen, where he foundonly eight slated houses, George Baird, asnoted, had also come in for the estate ofStichill in Roxburgh. In all he owned17,000 acres, bringing in £20,000 a year.Thus, with two estates to his credit, GeorgeBaird decided to settle down and becomesomebody of the " county " type. So atthe mature age of forty-eight he marriedan Irish gentlewoman, Cecilia, elderdaughter of Vice-Admiral Villiers FrancisHatton of Clonard, Wexford, M.P. for hiscounty. I do not know how or where hemet her. She was five-and-thirty at thetime and had little or no fortune. Butshe belonged to the Quality, and had knownthe great Duke of Wellington—a friend ofher father—who had written her letterswhich she used to show proudly to herfriends: I wonder what has become ofthem. She suited Baird, for though hisneighbour at Kelso, Sir George Douglas,Bart, of Springfield Park, a great friend ofthe late Sir William Robertson Nicoll, saysit was a "marriage of convenience," yetshe fitted' the frame, for what the laird ofStrichen wanted was a "lady who couldtake the head of his table with credit andrule his household in the great manner."The marriage ceremony was certainly per-formed in the "gr^at manner," and dulyannounced in the "Times": "On the 15thinst. [Nov., 1858], at St George's, HanoverSquare, by the Rev. John Rashdall, in-cumbent of Eaton Chapel [of which StGeorge's was the mother church], GeorgeBaird, Esq., of Strichen, to Cecilia,daughter of Vice-Admiral Hatton." EatonChapel, which stood on the Sloane Squareside of Eaton Square, has been replaced bya block of flats. Mr Rashdall, who becamevicar of Dawlish, and died in 1869, wasthe father of the late Dean Hastings Rashdall, the learned historian of mediaevaluniversities.

In 1860, George Baird became still moreimportant by inheriting the estate ofStichill in Roxburgh from nis youngestand unmarried brother David. Stichill hadformerly belonged to the Pringles, of whomthe late Lady Gordon Cathcart was one.

MR ABINGTON'S BIRTH.Three years after the marriage a son was

born to the Bairds, the event taking placeon September 30, 1861, at Barry's BritishHotel, 70 Queen Street, Edinburgh—theEdinburgh Ladies' College now stands onthe site—for their huge house at Stichill,replacing an unpretentious structure, hadnot yiet been built, and it was probablythought that Strichen was too far off; sothat the boy was not a Buchan loon inany sense of the phrase. By a curiousirony, George Alexander Baird, born in ahotel, ended his strange and sad career ina hotel at New Orleans thirty-two yearslater, and in between times the word homewas unfamiliar in his vocabulary.

page two

The child's arrival gave George Eaird thehope of raising a landed family, and heset about building a home for it at Stichill,much as Scott did at Abbotsford, ten milesaway. The foundation stone was laid ingreat style by Susanna, Duchess of Rox-burghe, who outlived Mr Abington, forGeorge Baird had' been accepted by "thecounty,"which pressed him, without suc-oeas, to stand as a Conservative; all theBaird brothers were strong Tories, thoughtheir grandmother had been a Radical, andGeorge had been defeated for the FalkirkBurghs in 1357. The building, in the Scotsbaronial style, which took three years toerect, being completed in 1866, cost £34,000and its size may be guessed from the factthat it contained forty-three bedrooms andhad a tower 100 feet high, surveying theCheviots and the Tweed, while the policiesooveTed 62 acres. When it was completedit was opened with a gTeat house-warmingball, to which everybody who was anybodyin the neighbourhood was invited. Theend of the house, nearly seventy years later,was less glorious, for it was bought inOctober, 1930. by Mr George W. King, nowin Sidcup, an enterprising Londoner, who,starting life at zero, lived many- yeaTS atGalashiels, where he was an active mem-ber of the Free Kirk congregation, pre-sided over by a charming Aberdeengraduate, the Rev. W. S. Matheson. Ahouse breaker offered £800 for the house,which was bought by Mr King for £2000and sold by liiin at a very small profit inJune, 1931. to the Leith Holiday Home.The last phase of Stichill House is a sortof ironic symbol of the failure of this

branch of the Bairds to establish a family.

A MILLIONAIRE AT NINE.The dream of George Baird vanished, for

he was found dead in his bed at Strichen,where he had gone shooting, on August 24,1S70, leaving his only child, then a boyof nine, to the care of his Irish mother andfive trustees. They were his nephews,William Baird of Elie and AlexanderBaird, yr. of Urie, father of Lord Stone-haven; Alexander Whitelaw of GartshoreHouse, father of the present chairman ofthe L.X.E.R., and William Weir, Crooked-holm, Ayr, who afterwards bought Kil-donan, sons of the testator's sister Janet;and David Wallace, Lochwood House,Lanark, who had married Janet's daughter,Janet, Weir, and who afterwards boughtthe estate of Glassingall, Perth. The por-traits of the trustees—all of them exceptthe laird of Elie, who sported a horse shoein his tie, had Victorian whiskers—showpurposeful looking captains of industry ofthe life-is-real-life-is-earnest type. But,though they could' mine and manipulateKing Coal and Iron, they could makenothing of their half-Irish and whollyhobbledehoy young kinsman, as we shallsee. He must, indeed, have seemed quiteinconceivable to most of them, with hisavid sporting tastes—though his uncle

David of Stichill had been a hunting man

—

and later with his prodigal escapades.Under a trust settlement, a document of

44 foolscap pages, which was made onJanuary 15, 1870, a few months before hisdeath, George Baird left his widow the useof Strichen House, together with anannuity of £1500 under her marriage con-tract of November 13, 1858, though on herremarriage she was to get only the £1,500.In case her son predeceased her she wasto get £4.000 a year. He left £25,000 forreligious, benevolent and charitable pur-poses, ordered the lands of Cuningholm tobe sold, and left the residue in favour ofhis son, George, on attaining the age of 25.The amount of George's estate was con-firmed on October 8, 1870, at £918,457 17s 3d.But £3,000,000 are popularly believed tohave come to Mr Abington in one way oranother, though, frankly, I do not under-stand how the figure is arrived at.In some articles he wrote in 1926 to the

" Weekly Scotsman " on old Border life,Sir George Douglas tells us that, thoughMrs Baird was " an estimable woman, shewas not a conspicuously amiable one," forshe had " something of the martinet ordisciplinarian," especially as regards heryoung women guests. She had, however,no skill in the management of children.The result was that from a very earlyperiod young George was a handful. Onlyone of the family, a Hatton relative, madeany attempt to control him—I am assured,with a hunting crop. The truth seems tohave been that the hoy had some of theBaird determination in him, though whathad been force in them became selfwill inthe boy, who probably was quite well awarethat he had inherited nearly a million inhard cash, which accumulated during hisminority—a feeling that must have beenincreased when he also came into theestate of Auchmedden, which he did at theage of twenty-five on the death of hisuncle James. Sir George Douglas alsotells us that his mother's house partieswere mostly made up of " crocks," andyoung George wanted " some more exhil-arating evening's entertainment than anexcellent dinner, followed by a quietrubber or a round game."

HIS PASSION FOR HORSE FLESH.Not unnaturally, he found more amuse-

ment in the grooms' room. That was tobe another symbol of his career. The boyhad certainly something of the uncon-ventionality of his race, for a Kelsocorrespondent, who knew him well, tellsme he would go about looking like a tramp,wearing old clothes and old boots. Buthe was mad about horses—had not hisfather built twenty stalls for them atStichill 1 Sir George Douglas remembersGeorge as a boy of eight mounted on askewbald pony and trotting up and downthe King's Road, Brighton—where hismother was to die—beside a coachman,who held a leading rein. When he startedracing he filled all the twenty stalls, a

page three

fact which the " Sportsman " said on hisdeath the Kelso people " remembered witha sigh." At one time he also keptgreyhounds at Stichill.

A " ROYT LOON."For a time George was in the hands of

a tutor. Then he was sent to Hawtrey'sfamous private school at Aldin House,Slough, from which he went to Eton atMichaelmas, 1874, boarding at Carter's,while Merriott was his tutor. Neitherestablishment tamed George, for he fell outwith the authorities, and without askingleave went off, apparently for Christmas,1875, to his mother's London house at42 South Street, Park Lane, at the cornerof South Audley Street, seven doors fromNo. 35, where Florence Nightingale wasthen living, and ultimately died. Nego-tiations were opened up with the head-master, who agreed to take him back oncondition that he would take a thrashing.But George refused point blank to returnunder such conditions to the fabulousplaying fields, where we used to be toldWaterloos were won. I have not been ableto discover where he acquired the rest ofhis education, if, indeed, he ever didacquire much more. Four years afterleaving Eton he went to Magdalene Col-lege, Cambridge, where he was admittedon July 15, 1879, and where he spent sixterms till June, 1881.

HE TAKES TO THE TURF.Baird's bent, however, lay not in the

region of books, but of bookies, for he tookto the Turf, and began riding races whilestill in his teens. He had displayed apassionate love of horses and riding fromboyhood. Alexander Scott in his " TurfReminiscences of Sixty Years " (1925) tells

us that he would have " discussed horseswith a dustman." Baird's Teal racinginspirer was Charles J. Cunningham, agreat sportsman who lived near his homeat Kelso; Cunningham is dealt withenthusiastically by Mr George Lambton in" Men and Horses I Have Known." Scotttells us that Baird began riding as a mereboy in Scotland, Galloway races andhunters' flat races claiming his attention.

Although I am told Baird never sawStrichen after his early boyhood, it is aninteresting fact that his first appearance

on a race course, so far as I have dis-covered, was on the Aberdeen Links onAugust 27, 1879, and, even more strange,this was the first racecourse I ever saw,for I watched it as a little loonie from theBroad Hill. I still remember theraucous voices of the bookies shouting the

odds, especially on a horse they would call" Huberdeburg," by which they reallymeant Hubert de Burgh, named, of course,though I did not know it at the time, afterthe inveterate plotter who was outlawedexactly seven hundred years ago, and whomarried a daughter of Alexander II ofScotland.

The races at Aberdeen had been triedthree times, in 1793-99, 1816-28, and 184347.Then in 1875, after a lapse of twenty-eightyears, they were revived by Mr AlexanderCook (1874-1904), wine merchant in theUpperkirkgate. In passing, let me notethat it is curious that no attempt has beenmade by local chroniclers to deal with thehistory of racing in Aberdeen. Fortun-ately, Mr Cook's daughter, Miss Jessie E.Cook, has some of the records, including acopy of the poster advertising the racemeeting of 1825.The meeting at Aberdeen on August 27,

1879, held on a wet, dismal day, was notunder Grand National regulations, thoughthe " Journal " of the day said it was" conducted in accordance with the bestrules of English racing." It was what isknown as a " flapping " meeting. Baird,who was just eighteen, did not ride in theadvertised races, for had he done so hewould have been disqualified under theRules for a year. What " Mr Baird ofStrichen," as the " Journal " announced,did was to ride a " match " on a horsecalled Fenvoy against Mr Wilson, a Fifeironmaster, on Holyrood. Baird, who" displayed good horsemanship, came inan easy winner." The " Free Press," whichcalls the horse " Fonvoy," was moreenthusiastic, for it stated that he " wona walking race from start to finish, andshowing all the art of a professional jockey,won very cleverly by two lengths." He mayhave been one of those who dined at thePalace Hotel at the meeting under thechairmanship of Viscount Arbuthnott. ButI am told he did not go to Strichen when inthe north. Indeed, a local legend states thathe used to say he believed he had a " peatbog" in Aberdeenshire. He probably did notknow it was a highly cultivated area. FromAberdeen he went on to Perth, where onSeptember 26, 1879, in a selling hunters'flat race he finished second on a mareSkirmisher out of Rosalba. He went on toEdinburgh, where he was second withLadybird on October 7, and next dayfinished third on Syren. In the 1880 racesat Aberdeen he was represented by a six-year-old horse called Kinsman, which, withM'Ewen up, won the Golfers' Cup and theInnkeepers' Hurdle.

BAIRD BECOMES " ABINGTON."The veteran racing authority, a Scot by

the way, who writes in the " SportingChronicle " of Manchester, under the nameof " Mankato," stated in a recent issue ofthat excellent journal, that as Baird wasdependent on his trustees for pocketmoney, " he managed to tap his motherfor further supplies, and, as there seemedto be a desire to, check his further racingproclivities, he decided to register underGrand National Hunt rules, using the nameof ' Mr Abington'," apparently from theLanarkshire village of that name. He rodefor the first time under this name onOctober 20, 1879, at Lincoln, being unplacedon the aforesaid Syren. He registered his

page four

A correspondent -writes :—Mr. GeorgeAlexander Baird di d a wee bit of qnietflapping ere he can?, e ont in what might becalled the top flfit of flat-racing, and,

perhaps, a litt'e of that was what causedhim to touch th

horse, which ha

il'fljjpas b,:,^1

fact which the " Sportsman " said on hisdeath the Kelso people " remembered witha sigh." At one time he also keptgreyhounds at Stichill.

A " ROYT LOON."For a time George was in the hands of

a tutor. Then he was sent to Hawtrey'sfamous private school at Aldin House,Slough, from which he went to Eton atMichaelmas, 1874, boarding at Carter's,while Merriott was his tutor. Neitherestablishment tamed George, for he fell outwith the authorities, and without askingleave went off, apparently for Christmas,1875, to his mother's London house at42 South Street, Park Lane, at the cornerof South Audley Street, seven doors fromNo. 35, where Florence Nightingale wasthen living, and ultimately died. Nego-tiations were opened up with the head-master, who agreed to take him back oncondition that he would take a thrashing.But George refused point blank to returnunder such conditions to the fabulousplaying fields, where we used to be toldWaterloos were won. I have not been ableto discover wheTe he acquired the rest ofhis education, if, indeed, he ever didacquire much more. Four years afterleaving Eton he went to Magdalene Col-lege, Cambridge, where he was admittedon July 15, 1879, and where he spent sixterms till June, 1881.

HE TAKES TO THE TURF.Baird's bent, however, lay not in the

region of books, but of bookies, for he tookto the Turf, and began riding races whilestill in his teens. He had displayed apassionate love of horses and riding from

in

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boyhood. Alexander Scott in his " Turf /M __^5ltfQ. ^b-,.,Reminiscences of Sixty Years" (1925) tells «0- I *«« %„,„, . Wjjck^

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us that he would have "discussed horses Jai /jffr. a ,. eh« juH.wW; m™'.-it* . *,.*,*,«,.. Baird's real racing/b^V^ -^^^^^^^Wn,,!

J. Cnrmineham. flat/ .itl.of . J ortW,;,-;-;.-. '

colours as a cardinal jacket and Cambblue cap, changing in 1884 to greenplum cap.In 1881 he became a subscriber

giving him the name of " The Squireany rate, Scotland saw comparativelyof him from this time onwards,Strichen nothing whatever, his intdthere being looked after by Mr John SIwho had come from the south andone of his sons George Baird Sleigh,who took his M.A. in Aberdeen inalmost at the same moment Mr Abiwas dying at New Orleans. The lattenot visit even Stichill during the Ias»Byears of his life, although he was ridingat Edinburgh in September, 1892.

;

yaiiu a yuiauuiuiy Will D6 Very SUiall, II,indeed, there is any surplus after all thedebts have been paid. The estates areheavily charged, and will have to be sold,

'j but it is not expected that they will realisemore than 6nough to cover the mortgagedebts. It is understood that the racingRacing Calendar, and went to live at > ftnJ hrpprh'nw et„Aa will ha „„1J »* xt

tington Hall, Lichfield, this move prolanQ Dleetfing StUdS Will be Sold at New-

^ market very shortly.' When Mr. Bairdcame of age in 1881 he entered into posses-sion of nearly three-quarters of a millionof ready money, his annual income beingabout £100,000. One of the leadingScotch papers states that "all this princelyfortune has been squandered on harlotry,horseracing and prize-fighting." / '

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THE SQUIRE'S TANTRUMS.I am quite unqualified to deal with Mr

Abington's career as a racing man. Thosewho are interested in racing will find by farthe most connected account of it by " Man-kato " in the " Sporting Chronicle " ofSeptember 16, 1933, an article, I may say,suggested by my curiosity. But someepisodes in his riding career illustrate histemperament. When the coloured cartoonof him by " Lib " (Sig. Perosi), as a jockeyin his green jacket and straw-coloured sidewhiskers, appeared in " Vanity Pair " onOctober 6, 1888, the writer of the accom-panying letterpress described Baird as " avery strong and resolute rider," going onto say: "He has been reproached morethan once for treating the other jockeysin a race as if they were hostile cavalryand might be charged with impunity."This tendency appears to have developedat an early stage, for Alexander Scott tellsus that Baird fell foul of the stewards atthe Ayr meeting, some time before he cameof age. The same tendency resulted in hisincurring the displeasure of the NationalHunt stewards, who warned him off for twoyears for foul riding at Four Oaks Park,Birmingham, on April 11. 1882, in a racehe won by eight lengths on Billy Banks,hut he was disqualified for carrying wrong

The second day's sale of the late Mr.airds furniture, &e„ at 36, Curzontreet, was well attended, and m someues unexpectedly high prices were ob-lined. An old English escretoire intahogany, full of artful little drawers and\?eon-holes, fetched 81 guineas. A*jming clock in Chippendale case realisedguineas. For an oak lounge, coveredKiorocco bound," someone gave.guineas. The billiard, pool, and pyra-

:onballs averaged fifteen shillings apiecerata big black bear holding an electrickirn was knocked down for 12 guine.ua.

k'er theteshire,

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s

lost

curious stories of the Turf," wmen snowedthat he had some of the Baird shrewdness.He got to hear that the Limekilns at New-market belonging to a Mrs Tharp were forsale. " I can see him now " [1930], hesays, " sitting in a chair looking at theman telling him about the Limekilns.'They can be bought?' he asked reflec-tively. ' But I wonder what the stewardswould say if they knew I was the owner.'Imagine the position! The famous Lime-kilns owned by a man who had beenwarned off! Of course, all Newmarket heldup its hands in horror at the idea of theSquire being able to prevent anyone fromgalloping their horses there." Mortondoes not know what actually took place,but it is certain that within a very shortspace of time, the Limekilns definitelypassed under the control of the JockeyClub. In any case, Morton is convincedthat Abington could not have been keptoff the Turf for long.

HIS GREAT WINNERS.The ban on Baird lasted for two years,

and when it was removed by the NationalHunt, and ipso facto by the Jockey Club,he registered his assumed name of MrAbington, abandoned his cardinal jacketfor green, and began to buy horses heavily,including Busybody, bought for him byTom, Cannon the trainer, for £8800 at LordFalmouth's sale, where he spent £16,000.He won the Two Thousand Guineas andthe Oaks with the mare, which at MrAbington's death fetched 3500 guineas andproved a most remunerative stock getter.In 1884 he himself rode twelve winners,beating Fred Archer himself in one race.In 1885 he bought at Doncaster for 3100

guineas Merry Hampton, which won himthe Derby of 1887—the colt's first race inpublic. His crony. Sir George Chetwynd,in his " Racing Reminiscences " (1891),tells us that Mr Abington was " highlydelighted," at winning his first Derby, andadds that his victory was " highly popular"as no man had spent more money in buyinghorses or " raced more straightforwardly.I verily believe," he goes on to say, " thathe would have given half his fortune tohave ridden Merry Hampton." On theother hand, Alexander Scott declares thatafter winning the Derby Abington said

:

page five

fact which the " Sportsman " said on hisdeath the Kelso people " remembered witha sigh." At one time he also keptgreyhounds at Stichill.

A " ROYT LOON."For a time George was in the hands of

a tutor. Then he was sent to Hawtrey'sfamous private school at Aldin House,Slough, from which he went to Eton atMichaelmas, 1874, boarding at Carter's,while Merriott was his tutor. Neitherestablishment tamed George, for he fell outwith the authorities, and without askingleave went off, apparently for Christmas,1875, to his mother's London house at42 South Street, Park Lane, at the cornerof South Audley Street, seven doors fromNo. 35, where Florence Nightingale wasthen living, and ultimately died. Nego-tiations were opened up with the head-master, who agreed to take him back oncondition that he would take a thrashing.But George refused point blank to returnunder such conditions to the fabulousplaying fields, where we used to be toldWaterloos were won. I have not been ableto discover where he acquired the rest ofhis education, if, indeed, he ever didacquire much more. Four years afterleaving Eton he went to Magdalene Col-lege, Cambridge, where he was admittedon July 15, 1879, and where he spent sixterms till June, 1881.

HE TAKES TO THE TURF.Baird's bent, however, lay not in the

region of books, but of bookies, for he tookto the Turf, and began riding races whilestill in his teens. He had displayed a _passionate love of horses and riding fromboyhood. Alexander Scott in his " Turf

,

Reminiscences of Sixty Years " (1925) tells *fa

us that he would have " discussed horses'"

^mmmThe radthree timeThen in^years, thLCook (lflUpperki'*/that it i»t I

madhistory 4b|

.?• Wood;JTs> ta'*,

*****&*». usClian.

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" °T nflBTi iromro-V m, '^Tuu »*|->colours as a cardinal jacket and Cambridgeblue cap, changing in 1884 to green and aplum cap.In 1881 he became a subscriber to the

Racing Calendar, and went to live at Whit-

'

tington Hall, Lichfield, this move probablygiving him the name of " The Squire." Atany rate, Scotland saw comparatively littleof him from this time onwards, andStrichen nothing whatever, his intereststhere being looked after by Mr John Sleigh,who had come from the south and calledone of his sons George Baird Sleigh, a ladwho took his M.A. in Aberdeen in 1893,almost at the same moment Mr Abingtonwas dying at New Orleans. The latter didnot visit even Stichill during the last tenyears of his life, although he was ridingat Edinburgh in September, 1892.

THE SQUIRE'S TANTRUMS.I am quite unqualified to deal with Mr

Abington's career as a racing man. Thosewho are interested in racing will find by farthe most connected account of it by " Man-kato " in the " Sporting Chronicle " ofSeptember 16, 1933, an article, I may say,suggested by my curiosity. But someepisodes in his riding career illustrate histemperament. When the coloured cartoonof him by " Lib " (Sig. Perosi), as a jockeyin his green jacket and straw-coloured sidewhiskers, appeared in " Vanity Fair " onOctober 6, 1888, the writer of the accom-panying letterpress described Baird as " avery strong and resolute rider," going onto say: " He has been reproached morethan once for treating the other jockeysin a race as if they were hostile cavalryand might be charged with impunity."This tendency appears to have developedat an early stage, for Alexander Scott tellsus that Baird fell foul of the stewards atthe Ayr meeting, some time before he cameof age. The same tendency resulted in hisincurring the displeasure of the NationalHunt stewards, who warned him off for twoyears for foul riding at Four Oaks Park,Birmingham, on April 11, 1882, in a racehe won by eight lengths on Billy Banks,but he was disqualified for carrying wrongweights. His foul riding consisted inthreatening to pit Lord Harrington over therails. The late Lord Suffolk and Berkshire,in the " Badminton Magazine " of 1896,tells us that Mr Abington remarked ofthe occasion: "How could I know thathe was a lord ? I thought he was a

farmer. 1

Morton, his trainer, who is rather vagueabout the episode, does not think that MrAbington should have been warned off." Rather do I think," he says, " thathis wild behaviour generally somewhatincensed the stewards," for " all hisescapades were harmless enough if oneregarded them in their proper light." Asit was, Baird, he thinks, would probablyhave been pardoned by the stewards if hehad apologised, but this he refused.While still under the ban, he transferred

his horses to his crony Ross (" Stiffy ")

Smith, a Scotsman like himself, andallowed Smith to run them in his ownname. Mr Abington himself went off toFrance, where he did his bit of racingfor twelve months.He also raced at Aberdeen at the 1882

meeting, although both local dailies calledhim simply " Abington," as if he were anordinary jockey. He rode in six of theeight races—with other people's horses

—

winning the Merchants' Plate, the Golfers'Cup, a pony race, and the Ladies' Cup withJames Campbell's Miss Baldwin. He wassecond in the Patrons' Cup and fourth inthe Traders' Cup.Morton also tells us that Mr Abington's

return to the fold was " one of the mostcurious stories of the Turf," which showedthat he had some of the Baird shrewdness.He got to hear that the Limekilns at New-market belonging to a Mrs Tharp were forsale. " I can see him now " [1930], hesays, " sitting in a chair looking at theman telling him about the Limekilns.'They can be bought?' he asked reflec-tively. ' But I wonder what the stewardswould say if they knew I was the owner.'Imagine the position! The famous Lime-kilns owned by a man who had beenwarned off I Of course, all Newmarket heldrip its hands in hoTror at the idea of theSquire being able to prevent anyone fromgalloping their horses there." Mortondoes not know what actually took place,but it is certain that within a very shortspace of time, the Limekilns definitelypassed under the control of the JockeyClub. In any case, Morton is convincedthat Abington could not have been keptoff the Turf for long.

HIS GREAT WINNERS.The ban on Baird lasted for two years,

and when it was removed by the NationalHunt, and ipso facto by the Jockey Club,he registered his assumed name of MrAbington, abandoned his cardinal jacketfor green, and began to buy horses heavily,including Busybody, bought for him byTom Cannon the trainer, for £8800 at LordFalmouth's sale, where he spent £16,000.He won the Two Thousand Guineas andthe Oaks with the mare, which at MrAbington's death fetched 3500 guineas andproved a most remunerative stock getter.In 1884 he himself rode twelve winners,beating Fred Archer himself in one race.In 1885 he bought at Doncaster for 3100

guineas Merry Hampton, which won himthe Derby of 1887—the colt's first race inpublic. His crony. Sir George Chetwynd,in his " Racing Reminiscences " (1891),tells us that Mr Abington was " highlydelighted," at winning his first Derby, andadds that his victory was " highly popular"as no man had spent more money in buyinghorses or " raced more straightforwardly.I verily believe," he goes on to say, " thathe would have given half his fortune tohave ridden Merry Hampton." On theother hand, Alexander Scott declares thatafter winning the Derby Abington said:

page five

" I would rather win a selling plate if Icould ride the winner"; while NathanielGubbins, writing in 1903, after saying thata worse set of horses had rarely competedin a Derby, remarked that Abington " tookno pride in leading in Merry Hampton."But " Mankato," for his part, assures usthat it is " certainly not true " that hewould rather have won a hunter's flat thana classic winner, for, though he was" desperately keen to ride winners," hewas still more keen after 1884, when hewas restored to the Turf, to win goodclassic races under Jockey Club rules.

MR ABINGTON AS A RIDER.All the racing experts—who knew him in

the days when he was still keen on racingand riding—are agreed that he was anexcellent horseman. True, Lord Suffolksays he " taught himself to ride by powerof the purse." Again, " Mankato " statesthat as " a callow youth he was far frombeing a good horseman." But he set him-self to learn the business thoroughly.Indeed, Lord Suffolk tells us his aim andobject were to look like and ride likea jockey among jockeys. Certain it is hewas the first amateur who obtained specialpermission from the stewards to ride amongprofessionals. His " Vanity Fair " com-mentator says he had not " a particularlyelegant seat, and would be better in thisrespect if he took a lesson in deportmentfrom the jockey Watts," who rode MerryHampton in the Derby for him, and thepriority of whose services was retainedwith a fee " such as the most popular ofQueen's counsel would be proud to secure."On the other hand Alexander Scott calls

him a " superb rider," and says that hewas " noi only the crack gentleman riderof his day, but the best I have ever seenin my sixty years' connection with theTurf." Indeed, he " suffered nothing bycomparison " with great professionaljockeys like Archer, Watts, and TomCannon. Charles Morton, who trained forhim, calls him in " My Sixty Yeais onthe Turf " (1930), " easily " the finestamateur jockey in England, who " alwaysaspired to be a second Archer." Again,Arthur Yates, the trainer and gentlemanrider, declared in his autobiography:—"Ido not think I ever saw his equal amongamateur jockeys. Some of his perfor-mances could not have been surpassed bythe finest professionals of the day." Thenthe late Alfred E. T. Watson, as " Hot-spur " in the " Daily Telegraph," declaredin his obituary of Baird in that paper, that" few amateur horsemen attained a greateramount of proficiency," and he saw noreason to change his opinion when hewrote his autobiography a quarter of acentury later, for there he says that Baird," an excellent judge of a horse," was " soadmirable a rider that he often held hisown against the very best of the profes-sional jockeys."According to " Vanity Fair," he under-

went " far more fatigue than any profes-

sional jockey," for, as he had a tendencyto put on flesh, he was compelled to bevery abstemious tin his habits, and toresort to " heroic methods for keepingdown his riding weight to under tenstones." Mr J. B. Booth in his entertainingbook, " ' Master ' and Men," tells us thatat Newmarket at a race time Baird was oneof the earliest on the Heath of a morning,and would ride in ten or twelve trialsbefore breakfast.

It has often been said that Mr Abingtonliked to ride winners anywhere. At onetime, says Lord Suffolk, he would havegiven " almost anything " for the chanceof being a winner. According to his trainer,Charles Morton, he would travel hundredsof miles and spend thousands of poundsmerely for the honour and glory of gettingfirst past the post. "And, by Jove, didn't lielove beating one of the crack professionals

!

He liked nothing better than the thrill ofbeating one of the crack professionals! Heliked nothing better than the thrill ofhaving £5000 on a horse in a tin pot sellingrace." This is borne out by Sir GeorgeChetwynd, who in 1886-7 was a partner withBaird in running four horses, and whosays that his " greatest pleasure was toride himself." He goes on to state thatMr Abington is " quite indefatigable intravelling all over England to ride races,and has constantly lost large sums ofmoney by riding horses belonging to otherpeople in selling races, and making theowner a present of the surplus money ithas cost him to buy his horse back again."Similarly, Lord Suffolk tells us that someof Baird's selling plate triumphs must havecost him " a small fortune, where part ofthe bargain was that, in addition to thestable being on to nothing, he was to buyin the winner, an arrangement by whichthe owner of the second, perfectly cog-nisant of the terms, was not unwilling toprofit largely." Sir George Chetwyndreminds us that after Mr Arthur Coventrygave up riding, Mr Abington in 1891headed the list of gentleman riders notonly in winning mounts, but in ability.His obituarist in " Baily's Magazine," afirst-rate authority, stated " there werefew professionals who could beat him."In short, he displayed on the Turf themastery which the Bairds had shown intrade.

AN INCALCULABLE MASTER.Trainers had difficulties with him. Prom

first to last he had a great many, includingTom Cannon, Arthur Yates, Gurry, andMorton. The last tells us that sometimesBaird had more horses than he knew of,and that they were scattered over manystables in England, and were sometimesrun under the names of his differenttrainers. Stevens and then Gurry trained'Merry Hampton. Then after a great dealof urging Charles Morton became histrainer at Bedford Lodge, Newmarket, from1888 to 1892, and found him an exigentand incalculable master. His purchases,

which are fully described by " Mankato,"were certainly not all of the best. ThusGallinule, a persistent blood-vessel breaker,never won a race for Baird, but his stockwas so good that he sired seven winningtwo-year-olds in one season, though Bairddid not live to see the feat.Baird was master of the Newmarket Drag

Hounds, succeeding poor Fred Archer, whodied in 1886. Curiously enough, like FredArcher and some other professionaljockeys, Baird, when not in the pigskin," hated any horse that was not as quietas an old sheep," and the " Pink 'Un,"repeated by Mr J. B. Booth in " ' Master 'and Men," tells an extraordinary story ofhis once giving away a horse in the Parkwhen it did not please him in point ofmanners.Mr Abington betted heavily and some-

times recklessly, but he won £20,000 in theCambridgeshire of 1886, which broke theheart of Fred Archer, who rode the Duchessof Montrose's St Mirin, while his winningsduring the years 1888-1892 totalled £40,116.After his death his eighty-six horsesfetched between them £14,490. I may notethat his cousin, Douglas Baird, was alsokeen on the Turf.

BAIRD AND THE PRIZE RING.Augustus Feverel, in Meredith's phrase,

lost his leg and ceased to be an officer ofthe Guards. B|y the same token, theSquire lost his interest in the Turf, andceased to be Mr Abington. He trans-ferred his main enthusiasms from racingto the ring; he exchanged jockeys andtrainers for prize fighters; and the generalimpression of the commentators on hiscareer, especially the racing ones, is thathe made a bad deal in this, his secondphase.The obituary notice in "Baily's Maga-

zine" is typical of the general attitude tothe subject: "It would have been well ifhe had confined his attention to horse-flesh, and not squandered the money onpeople and pursuits hardly desirable."Morton, his trainer, draws the samemoral: "All might have gone well withBaird if he had stack to the Turf. Buttowards the end of my time with him(1892) he became associated with the prizefighting fraternity." He even stoppedgoing to race meetings. Morton also saysthat many people "tried their utmost toprevent him from coming a cropper, butalas, he would listen to none of them."George Lambton tells us that Baird, who"was not a bad fellow at heart and good-natured to a fault, made one or twoattempts himself to break loose from hisprize fighting cronies, but failed." Cer-tain it is his last year or two of life wasso racketty that his end in the spring of1893 did not take onlookers by surprise,for when he ceased to gallop on the race-course he galloped' to destruction, creatingan extraordinary legend of recklessnesswhich Tecalls the eighteenth rather thanthe nineteenth century. Indeed, in many

respects Mr Abington was a completeanachronism.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to decidewhere Baird's racing stage ended andwhere the prize ring one began. Whatseems to have happened was that the twomerged into one another imperceptibly.At that time fighting men were more con-nected' with the turf than they are to-day,and Baird was much more likely to meetthem than he would have been to-day.Indeed, one of his boxing mentors tells usthat he received his summons from Bairdby telegram at Tattersall's at Warwick, towait upon the Squire in his London house,which he duly did. Furthermore, MrAbington, at least to begin with, usedthese people to keep himself fit. But inaddition to that, the "Sportsman" assuresus that Baird was "a passionate lover of'the art' in all its phases, and that one ofthe most sighed-for pleasures of his lifewas to see a keen set-to," wherein hetransferred the fight for business, whichhad inspired his ancestors, to the ring.The kind of fighting he preferred was theold-fashioned type of the pugilist, as dis-tinguished from the boxer as we knowhim: which only showed again that theSquire was an anachronism. The oldpugilism practically came to an end in1889, when his friend Jem Smith drewfor the championship with Frank Slavin.Baird's friend, Charley Micthell (1861-1918) belonged to the older school.

Certainly the recklessness with whichbe plunged into the ring and the wildlife of a man about town in London, weremore marked after he got control of hisfortune, which he hid on attaining theage of twenty-five in 1886. Till that timehe lived in chambers at 5 Pall Mall Place,above a hairdresser. Then, on cominginto his money, he took a whole house,in 1887, at 3 John Street. Berkeley Square,which runs at right angles into SouthStreet, where his mother was still livingin 1886, and where Florence Nightingaledied. No. 3 had been occupied by HoraceFlower, who was the brother of LordBattersea and of Lady Oxford's friend,"Peter" (Lewis) Flower, and who died asthe result of a hunting accident in 1885,leaving over £90,000, and making LordHuntly's brother. Lord Douglas Gordon,one of his trustees.

ONGOINGS IN JOHN STREET.John Street at that time was, and it still

remains, a very quiet thoroughfare, and'its inhabitants must have been shockedmany a time at the ongoings at No. 3

—

quite a modest house: it has not beenaltered since his day'—where Baird livedriotously till his death, visited by hisfighting friends. Ralph Nevill tellsus in his "Man of Pleasure" that he usedto get together three or four piano organsin his drawing-room, and let the grindersplay against each other. I may say that Itook a look at his house the very day

page seven

(November 4, 1933), when Gordon Richardsequalled the 246 wins record of FredArcher, whom Baird had beaten on occa-sion.

But though Baird came into his money,and often squandered it, he could also bevery careful about it, for his "Vanity Fair"commentator noted in 1888 that, while hehad a "number of hangers-on," yet he was"too shrewd to be victimised to any con-siderable extent, and did not allow theparasite to devour his substance." Histrainer, Morton, who took post with him inthat very year, corroborates this by sayingthat Mr Abington did not like losing money"any more than the rest of us" ; while J. B.Booth in "Old Pink 'Un Days" says thatin certain moods it was "a sheer physicalpain to him to have to part with hismoney."

HIS DEBUT AS BACKER.According to the obituary notice in the

" Sportsman," Mr Abington made his debutas a backer of prize fighters in the fightbetween Edwin (" Nunc ") Wallace, ofBirmingham, against W. Goode, of Batter-sea, for the 8 stone 2 lb. championship for£100 a side. This fight, which took placeon March 5, 1889, in the Exchange Club,Queen Street, Cheapside, London, createdan immense amount of interest, and wasreported in the " Sportsman " to the extentof two columns. Eight rounds were fought,when the partisans broke up the ring ingreat excitement, the timekeeper being" bullied and hustled just like a ball ina Rugby football match." But the decisionfell to " Nunc " Wallace (age 22: 5ft. 2in.

:

7 stones 11 lbs.), who inflicted " terriblepunishment" on Goode (age 27: 5ft. 3in.

:

7 stones 10 lbs.). The seconds of Wallace,who escaped with scarcely a scratch, wereJack Baldock, the grandfather of TeddyBaldock of to-day, and Baird's friend, JemCarney, who, like Wallace, was born (in1856) in Birmingham. A few days later

I

we find Mr Abington and Lord Huntly'sbrother, Lord Granville Gordon—what atale of life he could have told '—among thepatrons of a boxing tournament which tookplace at the Agricultural Hall, Islington,on March 11-16, 1889. From this pointonwards Baird backed many fights, andit was in one of these backings that hecame by his death.

A BOXING MENTOR.Baird employed Jem Carney, the veteran

bareknuckle fighter, who is still very muchalive, to keep him fit. Carney, who tellsus he was installed in the Tavistock HotelCovent Garden, went round to Baird'shouse at eight o'clock every morning." We used to take a turn in the Park "Carney told " Empire News " readers in1929, " returning to the house, and after agood rub down, don gymnasium togs andhave three hot rounds with the gloves—and, let me tell you, when it came to usingthe mufflers, the Squire was nobody'sfool. ' Carney also tells us that when

page eight

Baird took Sir Frederick Johnstone's placeat Windsor, he turned the harness roominto a gym. On the other hand, Mr J. B.Booth, in " Old Pink 'Un Days," says thatBaird's " one great vanity was his belief inhis tremendous hitting power, and thatheaven had designed him to be championof England, a belief that cost him tens ofthousands of pounds."One of the fights he was connected with

was that between Jem Smith and FrankSlavin, which took place on December 23,1889, at a chateau near Bruges, tenantedby a retired captain of the Cameron High-landers. This encounter, which is describedby Mr Booth in " ' Master ' and Men,"cost Mr Abington his membership of thePelican Club, which he had joined on itsformation in March, 1887. The committeeof the club summoned him on January 7,1890, when he denied that he had ledroughs in favour of Smith. The committee,however, declared that he used abusivelanguage to Slavin. On January 29 LordQueensberry, who drew up the famousrules for boxing, moved, and Lord Lons-dale seconded, that he be ejected, and thiswas carried unanimously. On February 3the club decided that " the conduct ofMr Baird at the ring side on the occasionof the Smith and Slavin fight was, in theopinion of the committee, unbecoming agentleman and a member of the PelicanClub " : so he was called on to resign.Next day he wrote a letter, quoted by MrBooth, to John Corlett, editor of the " Pink'Un " :—"Knowing that I am perfectlyinnocent of the grave charge against me,I am sure I may rely on you to assist mewith reference to the attempt to expel mefrom the Pelican Club." In the same letterhe states that he had received sympathyfrom Robert Martin of " Ballyhooley

"

fame. A week or two later, Baird raisedan action in the Chancery Court before MrJustice Stirling, a native of Aberdeen, ask-ing that the club, of which Cecil Raleigh,the dramatist, was secretary, should berestrained from expelling him. His casewas presented by Sir Charles Russell andSir Horace Davey, but the judge decidedon March 7 against Baird in a learnedjudgment reported at great length in the" Sportsman," to which Baird was alwaysa matter of prime interest. The case wasthen carried to the Court of Appeal onApril 23, but was not proceeded with, forBaird stated through counsel that he didnot wish to continue his membership.

After he was expelled from the club hetook over his old friend, Sir George Chet-wynd's house, 36 Curzon Street, apparently,as Ralph Nevill suggests, with the idea ofmaking a club of it. The house, I may say,is almost opposite Lord Crewe's spaciousmansion, and almost next door to Sunder-land House, which was built for the presentDuke of Marlborough. The story, as toldby Nevill, is that Baird happened to bedining one night with Chetwynd, and madean offer for the house, lock, stock, and'barrel, and as it was accepted, he installed

himself right away, and was astonishednext day to find himself in a strange bed.

BAIRD'S LIFE IN LONDON.The escapades engaged in, or attributed

to, Baird, are simply legion, forming some-thing like the story of Benson, the" Jubilee Plunger," whom Baird knew.Some of them, indeed, almost seem to indi-cate that on occasion " the Squire," as hecame more and more to be called, was notall there.

When in London he painted the townred. His favourite howff was the famousRomano's, in the Strand, where he in-dulged in all kinds of horse play. The" Man of the World " states that people,who tolerated having their hats bashed inby him, or being drenched with whiskyand soda, had " no difficulty in touchinghim for a good round sum." Mr Boothtells us in " ' Master ' and Men " that atthe Squire's house strange characters weregenerally to be found " comfortably domi-ciled. The expense of maintaining thesedelectable guests and providing them withpocket money used to cost the host, so heboasted, over £1500 a week. His devicesto make money fly were numerous andingenious, a typical one being to openseveral dozen of the finest champagne,drink, with his companions, one glass outof each bottle, and throw the rest away."As an example of his extravagance, Baird,we are told by Ralph Nevill, used to havea bill for fresh fruit, of which he was veryfond, running into £2000 a year.Jem Carney, in his autobiographical

sketches in the " Empire News," tells usthat one of the Squire's favourite placesfor entertaining his friends was the BluePost, not far from his solicitors' office inthe west end, a house long famous for itsmarrow bones. After dinner he wouldtake his party to the Empire or theAlhambra, going on after the show to theCriterion or the Cafe Royal. And then," with just enough liquor under his belt tomake him adventurous," he would have a" look round the East End," or visit CoventGarden in the early hours of the morning.Sometimes, Carney goes on to say, he wentround the Seven Dials, " where you didn'twant any wings sprouting on your shoulderblades at three o'clock in the morning. Iwas no chicken." adds Carney, " and couldstand as much as the next fellow, but theSquire's idea of fun, and mine, did notalways go together, and many a time Ihave trotted off home to get away from theSquire's idea of what a little excitementshould be."

It was just the same when he went outof London. Thus Carney tells us that whenMr Abington was hunting at Ascot he com-missioned him to get up a prize fight in abarn in the early hours of the morning,for which two Birmingham pugilists wereimported, and gave a " terrific slam." Anattempt was also made to get up a cockfight.

Summing him up, Carney describes the

Squire as " the most eccentric, wild, yetbig-hearted Scotsman " he ever met. " 1should think," he adds, " that the Squirewas the funniest mixture of a man thatever lived. One moment he would dosomething that was enough to get himhanged, and the next he would do some-thing that would make his name be everblessed by someone or other. Those whosaw only the wild side of this gentleman,"he goes on to say, " could never imaginethe hours he sat with me for this and that,and I never found him far wrong." RalphNevill mentions as an example of his good-heartedness that when the wife of one ofhis friends, Captain X., came to ask helpfor her husband, who was very ill inFrance, Baird sent over a doctor and savedthe patient's life.

HIS LADY FRIENDS.Baird also had a " romantic " side, and

many stories are told of his lady friends.Thus Ralph Nevill, who span out thegossip about Baird through several of hisrattled-up books, tells us that Baird oncemade a dead set at the wife of a well-knownsporting man, and asked her to elope withhim. It was arranged that she shouldget £100,000, which she duly did—andshared it with her spouse, never seeingBaird again. Another piece of gossip tellsus that he gave £100,000—the figures seemfar too large even for a millionaire, to beeven approximately true—to a lady, borrow-ing it at 10 per cent, from a moneylender.Notwithstanding, she jilted him. That"hurt the Squire to the quick," and Mortontells us that he got back on her by sendingher a dead cat as a Christmas box.His expenditure is certainly exaggerated

by the " Kelso Chronicle "—which gave anamazingly frank account of him, for a localpaper, on the occasion of his death—for itstated that " one fashionable beauty whoplaced herself under his protection waseventually rewarded with a broken jaw.She, however, took compensation in herway and surgical aid with £50,000 withwhich she had despoiled her drunkenprotector." This is an exaggerated ac-count of the affair,, which was the talk "

of London. I have reason to believe thelady, who was not so severely damaged assuggested, was mollified with £30,000. Afriend of mine tells me he saw its entryin her pass book.

MAKING MRS LANGTRY " MR JERSEY."One of his great friends was Mrs Langtry,

of whom Dame Kendal recently wrote, " Iwonder where in God's great universe sheis." Morton says Baird was " desperatelyfond " of her. You will, however, look invain for any mention of him by name inthe lady's adroit autobiography, " TheDays I Knew." She merely speaks of himas " an eccentric young bachelor with vast !estates in Scotland, a large racing stud,a racing stable, and more money than heknew what to do with."One day towards the close of 1891, while

r K

lunching at her house, Baird offered her" abruptly " his two-year-old chestnut colt,Milford. The offer was at first hastilyrefused, till one of the guests with racingpredilections urged her to accept the colt.But the horse continued to be housed inthe donor's stables, and she forgot allabout it till Weatherby, the publishers ofthe Racing Calendar, wrote requesting herto register her colours, which she did. Thiswas her start in racing, which she took upas " Mr Jersey." Milford was very success-ful, and on the day it won the Royal Two

^Year Old Plate, she refused £10,000 for it,IMr Abington also gave Mrs Langtry her

I

famous yacht, the White Lady . He wasalso interested, I believe, in some of hertheatrical ventures. Mrs Langtry lived atthis time in Pont Street. It is not withoutits irony that at the other end of the streethis uncle, James Baird, had helped to buildSt Columba's Church with a handsomedonation.

1890, MR ABINGTON'S LURID YEAR.It was another theatrical lady who

introduced Mr Abington to the most excit-ing year of his life, 1890, for within onemonth he made appearances in the DivorceCourt as a co-respondent, in the Court ofChancery as a plaintiff, and in the PoliceCourt as witness in a lurid assault case.In fact, the actual hearing of the caseswas simultaneous. His appearance in theDivorce Court on February 27 was as co-respondent in the divorce suit brought byFrancis Darbishire, the actor, claiming£10,000, against his wife, Agnes Hewitt,actress, who had made a hit at theOlympic Theatre, London, in " The Points-man," by R. C. Carton and Cecil Raleigh,the latter of whom, as noted, was secretaryof the Pelican Club, which Baird wasfighting at the very moment of the action.Having got into financial difficulties at

the Olympic, Miss Hewitt went on tourwith her husband in Violet Melnotte'scompany in Manville Fen and J. H. Darn-ley's farce, "The Barrister," which visitedAberdeen a few weeks later without her,and was to cause resort to several barris-ters. They played at Liverpool during therace week, opening March 25, 1889. MrAbington was at the meeting, having twohorses in the Grand National, Bellona,which came in fourth, and Roquefort,which was sixth with his friend Mr E. P.Wilson " up." The race was won byFrigate, followed by Why Not, ridden byMr C. J. Cunningham, who had reallyintroduced Mr Abington to the Turf. MissHewitt, who had met Baird three or fouryears before at a theatrical ball in the EyreArms, St John's Wood, London, before shemarried Darbishire, and who may, as afirst-rate swimmer, have appealed to hissporting instincts, renewed her acquain-ance with him in a box at the great raceon March 29. She apparently came toLondon with him on the following Sunday,after the week's, engagement was over. Shestayed with Mr Abington, both at John

Street and at his racing place, BedfordLodge, Newmarket. In the divorce caseAbington, who was represented by SirCharles Russell and Mr Inderwick, saidthat he did not know she was married, asshe had been in 1887, in which he wassupported by his London housekeeper,Maggie Leask. But he was judged guilty,and had to pay £500 damages. A littlelater she married the son of a famous Scotsminister.

Six days after the divorce case MrAbington's name figured much more sen-sationally in the newspapers, for a fiercefight took place in his house in John Streetat two o'clock on the morning of March 5.On March 6, the day before Mr Justice Stir-ling delivered judgment in the Pelican Clubcase, Baird's crony, Mitchell, was chargedwith assaulting Arthur Cockburn, a profes-sional backer, described as " gentleman,"and William Joseph Goode, a prizefighterknown as " Chesterfield " Goode—quitedifferent from the featherweight, W. Goode,who figured in the first fight backed byBanrd in 1889. Cockburn had a contusedeye, and Goode's head had been so badlybattered that he had to be taken to StGeorge's Hospital. The inhabitants ofJohn Street must certainly have beenroused out of their sleep at two o'clockthat March morning, when the streetresounded with cries of " Police ! " for ascene had been enacted recalling in somerespects the lurid episode dramatised bythe late John Lawson in the melodrama," Humanity," which used to be played byhim in Aberdeen. The case occupied themagistrate at four sittings, at the last ofwhich, on April 2, Mitchell was chargedonly with assaulting Goode.So much loose, and sometimes exagger-

ated, writing has been expended on MrAbington that I quote the report of hisown evidence at the last sitting of the courtas given in the " Times," which reportedit at great length, though it cannot becalled a sensational journal. Far morevivid details were printed in the " Sports-man," which also interviewed Cockburn.The account of the affair by George Alex-ander Baird, as the "Times" in its accurateway called him, stated:

—

" On the morning in question he invited(Charles Henry) Hannam (commissionagent, Bradford) and (Samuel) Hodgson(bookmaker, Bradford) to his house. Cock-burn and Goode came there uninvited andforced their way in past the servant(Maggie Leask). He quarrelled with Cock-burn and some blows were exchanged. Toavoid a bother, and for quietness sake, hewent to his bedroom and retired to rest.Mitchell came to his room and asked' himif he wanted Cockburn to come to the room.Witness said, No. He then heard a scuffle.Cockburn came into the room, took up thepoker and tongs and jumped on to thebed. Cockburn tried to put the poker intohis eye. They both fell off the bed. Whenthe witness got out of the room he sawboth Goode and Mitchell on the first land-

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ing. Mitchell complained thai Goode wasa coward because he had struck him twiceunawares. The witness went to the bottomof the stairs and saw Goode come out ofthe dining room with a poker in his hand.Goode struck at Mitchell twice with thepoker, Mitchell avoided the first blow, butthe second one hit Mitchell on the arm,causing the poker to bend. Mitchell didnot have the poker in his hand. There wasnot the slightest doubt that Goode firstpicked up the poker. During the wholeevening Mitchell had acted as peacemaker.After Mitchell received the poker, he tookthe poker from Goode and threw it to theground. Mitchell then gave Goode apunch. Gockburn and Goode left the house.Goode had the poker in his possession,ami the witness's housekeeper informedhim that Goode broke it by knocking itagainst some railings in the street. Heshould say that Goode received the woundon the head [which necessitated his re-moval to St George's Hospital] hy comingin contact with some projection when hewas falling down the stairs. The witnesshad known Cockburn for some years, butonly as an acquaintance in racing matters.

" Maggie Leask, the housekeeper, saidthat on the morning in question Mr Bairdordered Cockburn and Goode not to beadmitted. Goode and Cockburn forcedtheir way in, and Goode caught Mr Bairdby the collar of the coat. They went intothe diningroom, and Cockburn was veryoutrageous and took off his coat and wentfor Mr Baird. Mitchell separated them,and Goode incited Mr Baird to hox. Cock-burn's nose was bleeding, and Mitchell,seeing that there was likely to be a row,asked Mr Baird to go to his room, and hedid so. Cockburn followed Mr Baird, andthe witness tried to prevent him fromdoing so. Cockburn then struck her onthe breast, and she called out . . ."

A policeinspectorhad previously declaredin evidence that when the police werecalled Mitchell, who was fully corroboratedby several witnesses, said :—" We were allvery drunk." The presiding magistrate,Mr Hannay, said he had come to the con-clusion that it would be useless to sendthe case for trial, as no jury would convict;so Mitchell, for whom his father-in-law," Pony " Moore of the Moore and BurgessMinstrels, had stood bail for £500, wasdischarged. It was also announced thatGoode had accepted compensation.

A FALL AT LEICESTER.All this racketty life was certainly not

good for a jockey, and yet Mr Abingtonhad twenty-three wins on thirty mounts in1890. and as noted, Sir George Chetwynd,writing in 1891, stated that he headed thelist of winning gentlemen riders. He camein second, but was disqualified, on LordGerard's Bransdale in the High Peak Plateat Leicester on April 2, 1892—at whichmeeting his cousin. Mr E. W. Baird, had ahorse running—although the "LeicesterPost," in reporting the race, declared that

(In 1 horse should have won "with ordinaryjockcyship." Just after passing the post.Mr Abington fell off, and was badlyshaken, lie also rode in the Edinburghmeeting at the end of September, 1892.Baird won the Edinburgh Gold Cup withAlice, and was second on Norval in theAll Aged Selling Plate, and he was thirdin another case with Remote, entered' inthe name of Mr E. P. Wilson, but believedto be Abington's own property.

I think his last appearance as a jockeywas at the Liverpool meeting of November,1392, when he rode in three races. Hisown horse, Lady Roscbery, came in thirdin the Liverpool Autumn Cup—Watts up.MR ABINGTON'S LAST ADVENTURE.

It was, however, the ring and not theracecourse which closed the lurid careerof Mr Abington at New Orleans, a yearalmost to a day after his spill at Leicester.He went to America to arrange the world'schampionship fight of his friend CharleyMitchell, whom he backed to the extent of£8000 and £2000 a side against Corbett.Some of the gossips suggest that the Squirecame to like the limelight. He certainlygot enough of it when he left London forLiverpool on February 7, 1893. The"Sportsman," which "went all out" ontheir departure, tells us an enormouscrowd went to Euston to see the party off."When the saloon carriage was unlocked,the officials made a futile attempt to keepthe crowd back, but the sightseers wouldnot be denied, overpowering a gang ofporters who were reinforced by a posse ofthe railway company's constables. Theiyrushed pell-mell down the platform."Mitchell's father-in-law, "Pony" Moore,brought the Moore and Burgess band fromthe St James's Hall, and it played "Thesong that reached my heart"—sung by atenor named Stewart—while "Rule Britan-nia" and "Auld Lang Syne"—probably forBaird's special benefit—followed. TheMoore family turned out in force, includ-ing "Pony's" wife and his daughters

—

Victoria, who was married to Mitchell;Bella, the widow of Fred Vokes, of thefamous Vokes family; and Annie, whomarried the charming coon singer, EugeneStratton, who held up Mitchell's fair-h, lived little boy to the saloon window asthe train steamed out. Among otherspresent were, as the reporters used to say,Arthur Cockburn and Jem Carney. Bairdtook with him as secretary his hotelierfriend, E. W. Baily, whose brother-in-law,Sir Han-y Preston, tells us in his book,"Memories," that he was equally fond of"cock fighting, badger baiting, rat killing,rowing, boxing, and billiards." Baird'svalet, William Monk, also travelled' withhiin.

Ten stops were made en route, and ateach halt little crowds appeared to get apeep at the redoubtable Charley. Afterslaying the night at the Alexandra Hotel,the party sailed on February 9 on the

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K*S0t-^

L(Y

Cunarder Majestic. Seven weeks later thesame vessel brought the Squire back toLiverpool—dead.One wonders if Baird had any pre-

monition, for on the veryi day he leftLondon he added a codicil to his curiouswill, to which I shall duly refer. Not-withstanding that he had been ridingthrough the previous racing season, he wasapparently not in the best of health.That it should have been "undermined,"as Hotspur stated, is not to be wondered at,after his racketty life. His friend Mitchellstated that Baird had intestinal trouble,and had suffered from asthma for years.On the voyage out Baird felt so ill that,

according to a statement made by RalphNevill to a friend of mine, he offered thecaptain £50,000 to turn back, which was,of course, impossible, as the vessel wascarrying mails. The story may not be true,but it is worth recording as an index tothe extraordinary saga which has risenround the Squire. The party landed atNew York—after some little legal difficulty'over Mitchell—on February 16.Before the Mitchell-Corbett fight could

come off, Abington attended the fight be-tween Jem Hall, the Australian, and BobFitzsimmons, the Cornishman, who wasexactly the same age as Mitchell andAbington, in the Crescent City Athletic

Club, New Orleans, on March 8, 1893. Thebuilding was packed with 12,000 people, tosee Hall knocked out in the fourth round.

THE END OF MR ABINGTON.According to the "Times Democrat" of

New Orleans, Baird had, "by indiscretion,"caught a bad cold on the voyage out, andaggravated it by his "extraordinary im-prudence" at the fight. He acted as oneof the seconds of Hall, and wore nothingover his chest but a light undershirt thatleft his neck fully exposed to a wintrywind which whistled through the amphi-theatre. The other seconds of the two menwere similarly attired, but nearly all of

them had some exercise in the matter ofrubbing down the men. On the otherhand, the Squire, whose position wasrather that of an auxiliary second thananything else, did nothing except handover the necessary articles. Besides

which, he had to stand in the draughtsfrom the cold weather outside, and thelittle breezes made when Jack MAuliffeand Charley Mitchell were fanning Hall.The cold, indeed, was so intense that thereporters sat heavily muffled, and thespectators shivered.

As soon as the fight was over, says the"Times Democrat," the Squire and hisfriends "commenced a round of dissipa-tion." Reuter's correspondent — whosemessage, by the way, was not used by theLondon "Times"—tells us that the entireparty started for a "lark," and a generaltour to various places of amusement.Even here Baird was unsuitably clothed,for he had taken off his heavy clothing.

The result was that he had to be put tobed in the £t Charles Hotel, which wasthe best in the town. His temperaturerapidly rose to 104 and then to 106, and hewas soon found to be suffering from pneu-monia, which made him delirious. Twodoctors warned Mitchell about Baird'scondition, but he told one of them to"jolly him up," and he would soon bewell. But the unhappy Squire got worseinstead of better, becoming so deliriousthat, as Reuter's man said, he had con-stantly to be watched lest he should dohimself injury. Two other doctors, Elliottand Miles, were called in, for BairdJsrelatives had got into touch with UieBritish consul.Fitzsimmons, the successful fighter,

called twice a day, and Baird was lookedafter by his secretary and valet. Mitchellwent off to New York, via Buffalo, toarrange for the voyage home in theMajestic on March 22. As a matter of fact,the vessel brought home Baird's body, forthe Squire died at eight o'clock on themorning of Saturday, March 18, leavingthis world, as he had entered it, in a hotel.When the news reached this country the

papers were full of it, for Reuter had senta long telegram, which the " Times " didnot print, nor did it biograph him. Therewere column obituaries in the " Standard"and the " Telegraph," and two columns inthe " Sportsman." Naturally, the Kelsoweeklies dealt with him at length, theKelso " Chronicle " being extremely out-spoken, while the " Kelso Mail " permitteditself to say that " his want of moralcourage, combined with a lack of earlytraining, and the acquisition of enormouswealth, made him what he was. Too earlyto become ' lord of himself and heritage ofwoe,' caring for little beyond riding andboxing, not associating much with men ofhis own class in life, he too soon fell intothe hands of sycophants and rogues."That note was struck only in a few

London papers, though London had rungwith scandal about him for years, and hadseen a great deal more of him than Kelso.The " Man of the World " declared thathe had had " a most dissolute career, andsuffered his brute passions to dominate hiswhole life. His best epitaph," it added," will be, ' It's the pace that kills'." Again," Baily's Magazine," staid though it was,said he was " surrounded by hangers-onand parasites from the first; and, likingto be king of the jovial company, hesought that company, we fear, among hisinferiors. Many were the scandalousrumours as to how the poor, weak, easy-going man was plundered." It ended upby speaking of his short career as " thepitiful story of a wasted life."

The same sort of comment had beenpassed by several writers who have subse-quently referred to him in their auto-biographies. But Alfred E. T. Watson, inhis life story, spoke of him as " particularlyquiet and modest," though he once fell outwith him, and Arthur Yates always saw

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" the best side of his nature, which was atbottom very gentle and pleasant." Yatesalso speaks of him " conversing in his quietway with his head slightly cocked on oneside." The " Times Democrat " of NewOrleans described him as narrow chested,though he also had broad shoulders, andcertainly the " Vanity Pair " cartoon ofhim does not give the impression of a well-set-up man. He was not to be comparedto Archer, on whom he modelled his style.

MR ABINGTON'S GRAVE.While all the newspapers were comment-

ing on Mr Abington and telling just asmuch as they dared, the body, which hadbeen embalmed—and, according to theAmerican custom of the time, clothed inevening dress—was being brought home onthe Majestic, which landed at Liverpool onMarch 29—the only fact about his deathwhich the " Times " permitted its statelyself to make, and that only in three lines.Poor Baird was buried in a polished pinecoffin beside his father in Stichill church-yard on Saturday, April 1. The funeralwas semi-private. His friend. CharleyMitchell, who sent a wreath, stood on theoutskirts of the kirkyard during the inter-ment, and created great interest among theinhabitants of Kelso. Sir George Douglasspeaks of him as being " by a long waythe best of all poor George's fightingassociates." Baird's secretary and valet alsotravelled north, but do not appear to haveput in an appearance. Among manywreaths there was one from Strichen:another from New York representing apillar of flowers surmounted by a dove.Sir George Chetwynd also sent a wreath.The funeral service was conducted by theRev. George Gunn (1851-1900). the parishminister and historian of Stichill. whospoke from the text in Philippians: "ThatI may know him and the power of hisresurrection and the fellowship of hissufferings being made conformable unto bisdeath."There were eight pall bearers, including

his cousins. Mr J. G. A. Baird. M.P., ofMuirkirk; Mr William Baird of Elie, andMr E. W. D. Baird. Baird's mother didnot travel north from Brighton, where shelived and died. Hundreds of peoplevisited the graveyard next day. which wasSunday, for never had such an array ofwreaths been seen. Baird is commemoratedwith a stone bearing the text from Hebrews:" He liveth to make intercession for them."The texts on his father's memorial are:" We brought nothing into this world, andit is certain we can carry nothing out "(I Timothy, vi, 7), and " The Lord gaveand the Lord hath taken away. Blessed bethe name of the Lord " (Job, i, 21).

HIS STRANGE WILL.Baird, then at 9 York Terrace, Regent's

Park, made his will at Lumleys' office onNovember 14. 1891. and added a codicil onNovember 30. 1891. and a second codicil onFebruary 7, 1893, when his address was36 Curzon Street—Sir George Chetwynd's

house. He first designed the money to beheld in trust for his mother, and thenafter her decease for the children of hisfirst cousins on attaining their majority.In the codicil of November 30, witnessedby his valet Monk, he changed this to" the children of my first cousins as shallbe alive at the decease of the survivor ofmy mother and myself." Under the mainwill the children would have taken a vestedinterest in their shares of the estate, andbeen, therefore, competent to dispose ofthese shares by will or otherwise imme-diately on Baird's own death. By thecodicil, however, he provided that thebequest should fall only to such parties asshould be alive " at the decease of thesurvivor of my mother and myself."According to the codicil, vesting of theshares would take place, and the legateesbe competent to dispose of them only onthe death of Baird's mother as well ashimself. In other words, vesting wouldbe postponed until the death of both.Baird's mother survived him, and thenvesting was postponed until her death.What the reason of this change may havebeen, of course, one can only surmise, butthat is the legal effect of it.His executors were Walter Temple,

barrister, and Walter Lumley, his solicitor.The latter's brother, Theodore Lumley, hiscommissioner, read the will to the familyat Stichill House after the funeral. Theirnephew is Mr Adrian Lumley, of theTorry Fishery Research Station. Notwith-standing his extravagances, Baird's will wasproved at £846,051 12s lid, though that, too,might have gone if he had lived longer.There were. I believe, seventy portioners,and, as he knew few or none of them per-sonally, Mr Abington, as Sir George Douglasremarks, had an original if somewhatdistorted sense of humour, a commentdoubly true, if, as has been stated, Bairdwired to Mrs Langtry on leaving England

:

"Made my will yesterday: have lefteverything to you." Sir George Douglasalso states that when his mother heard ofihis death she remarked that she would have£30.000 a year. She did not survive himlong, for she died of influenza at Brighton,where Baird as a boy had ridden his skew-bald pony, on March 5, 1895, at the age ofseventy-three, her stone at Stichill beinginscribed with the hope—" May she rest inpeace." ner son's career must havebrought anything but peace for the poorlady.

After Baird's death, the management ofthe estates, including Strichen. was carriedon by his trustees, Walter Lumley andWalter Temple, and with the former'sbrother, Theodore Lumley, as commis-sioner, a position which he had held inBaird's lifetime, in succession to SirtVilliam Laird, Glasgow. This arrange-ment continued until the youngest childof Mr Abington's first cousins reached theage of twenty-one, when, after an attemptto sell the lands, the management wastransferred to the Midland Bank TrusteeDepartment. In November. 1925, after

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having been held by the Bairds for seventyyears. Strichen was sold, along with Auch-medden, the original Aberdeenshire cradleof the Bairds, to a London speculator,the late Mr B. C. Pairweather (died1932), London, who sold the farmsseparately, and later on broke up the Bit-four estate in the same way. Thus notonly was no house of Baird founded in thecase of Mr Abington's branch of the greatGartsherrie group, but Strichen ceased asa unified estate, and is now the geograph-ical name for several separately ownedfarms. In this way the desire of the Gart-sherrie Bairds to find a footing in the shirewith which they had long been associatedwas finally defeated.

HIS UNCLE'S DOUBT.I cannot help wondering whether his

uncle, James Baird, from whom he in-herited Auchmedden, did not feel uneasyabout Mr Abington. At anyrate, Jamesgave expression to this sentiment in agrateful tribute to his masterful mother,printed in the rare history of the Bairdsof Gartsherrie, which was privately printedin Glasgow in 1875, when Mr Abington wasfourteen years old. James stated that,thanks largely to his hard-headed mother,Jean Moffat, the whole family becameimbued "with the best principles andtrained in the practice of industry andeconomy." He then went on to cite a"modern philosopher's" version of thefamiliar "clogs-to-clogs" axiom. "Indig-ence and obscurity are the parents of in-dustry and economy : these of riches and

honour; these of pride and luxury; thesesensuality and idleness; these of indigenceand obscurity: such are the revolutions oflife."

James Baird went on to say that thechildren of bis father, Alexander Baird,were "certainly born in 'indigence andobscurity' : and never did a family prac-tise with more earnestness and energy thevirtues of 'industry and economy.' Thereward of these virtues—nameljyi, 'richesand honour'—has seldom, perhaps, beenmore bountifully vouchsafed by a kindProvidence than in their case. None ofthem condescended to the vices of 'prideand luxury.' " Then he goes on to add

—

rather uneasily, one feels: "Whether futuregenerations of the family will complete theround of the philosopher's axiom remainsto be seen; but that some of them may doso is far from improbable." Was Jamesthinking of young George? Or was hecomparing the boy's Irish mother with hisown managing, be-mutched mother, JeanMoffat, the strong-faced old lady who diedten years before Mr Abington was born ?Even as an old woman, she looked as ifshe would have been quite capable ofapplying her stick to him, and might havebeen able to thrash some sense into him.

Lucidity1, James Baird, a powerful old'fellow, did not live to see his fears con-firmed, for he died in 1876, when, by abitter irony, his estate of Auchmedden fellinto the hands of the boy who had endedbis career at Eton ignominiously just sixmonths before his uncle passed away.

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