This is difficult enough, and when some creditors become anxious and ask for their capital to be paid off the Voysey business is in a worse way than ever. However, the greatly harassed Edward is consoled by an avowal of love from the young lady to whom for a long time he had been accustomed to offer his hand without success, and the end of the play leaves him engaged to be married, although still weighed down by the inheritance. The play is like all productions under the Vedrenne-Barker management, admirably acted throughout. Mr. Fred Kerr gives an excellent study of Voysey père, so plausible in his defence of his grave irregularities, and so benevolent when we see him in the bosom of his family. Mr. Charles Fulton is at his best as Major Booth Voysey, a very flamboyant and truculent warrior who commands attention whenever he speaks. The author himself plays Edward Voysey, and his interpretation of the part must be correct, although for ourselves we would have felt more sympathy for a hero who seemed a little less like a model boy from the Y.M.C.A. With all his nobility of nature we must not forget that Edward Voysey is a solicitor of some years’ standing.
The ladies of the company are all admirable, and the performance of Miss Florence Haydon, the dear deaf old mother of the Voyseys, is simply charming. And a proof of the merit of “The Voysey Inheritance” is that people generally seem to want to see it again.
Sporting Intelligence.
[During February-March, 1906.]
At a largely attended meeting held at the Royal Agricultural Hall on February 13th, Mr. J. Sidney Turner, the Chairman of the Kennel Club, presented Mr. E. W. Jaquet, who has been the Secretary since 1901, with a cheque for 400 guineas, an address on vellum, and a silver tea and coffee service, together with a tray, which had been subscribed for by over 400 members of dog clubs and ladies and gentlemen who are interested in the exhibition and the breeding of dogs.
According to the Reading Mercury and Berks County Paper, the South Berks on February 15th had an exciting and unpleasant experience. Hounds met at Woodley, and hunted a fox on to Bulmershe Lake, then covered with ice of very unequal thickness. The fox apparently ran across in safety, but two of the pursuing pack, going over thin ice, went through and were at once in imminent danger. The couple, however, managed to get their fore-feet on the ice, and the Hon. Secretary, Mr. W. J. Henman, with some assistance, launched an old boat and proceeded to smash through with the aid of crowbars. Proceedings were, naturally, somewhat slow, but, happily, the hounds were reached in time and taken ashore.
We have to record the death of the Right Hon. A. F. Jeffreys, M.P., which occurred on February 14th at his residence, Burkham House, Alton, Hants. Mr. Arthur Frederick Jeffreys was born in 1848. At one time Vice-President of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, and President of various agricultural societies, Mr. Jeffreys was recognised in the House as an authority on topics connected with the land. The deceased gentleman was a good all-round sportsman; at Oxford he played in his college eleven (Christ Church), and later for the M.C.C., and also for the Hampshire team in the seventies. He gained his blue at Oxford for athletics, and won the quarter-mile against Cambridge in 1869; he was a good shot, fond of hunting, and a keen preserver of foxes.