Wilfrid Scawen Blunt - Egyptian Garden Scandal

Egyptian Garden Scandal

In 1901 a pack of fox hounds was shipped over to Cairo to entertain the army officers, and subsequently a foxhunt took place in the desert near Cairo. The fox was chased into Blunt's garden, and the hounds and hunt followed it. As well as a house and garden, the land contained the Blunt's Sheykh Obeyd stud farm, housing a number of valuable Arabian horses. Blunt's staff challenged the trespassers - who, though army officers, were not in uniform - and beat them when they refused to turn back. For this, the staff were accused of assault against army officers and imprisoned. Blunt made strenuous efforts to free his staff, much to the embarrassment of the British army officers and civil servants involved.

Read more about this topic:  Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

Famous quotes containing the words egyptian, garden and/or scandal:

    “What greater light can be hoped for in the moral sciences? The subject part of mankind in most places might, instead thereof, with Egyptian bondage expect Egyptian darkness, were not the candle of the Lord set up by himself in men’s minds, which it is impossible for the breath or power of man wholly to extinguish.”
    —John Locke (1632–1704)

    “When I go into my garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health, that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.”
    —Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)