He knew their purpose.

What terrible light Thompson and Bairam had thrown on some of them! Heavens! in what a state was the blood of this Empire.
Before commencing his campaign he called on two ancient intimates, Lord Heddon, and his distant cousin Darley Absworthy, both Members of Parliament, useful men, though gouty, who had sown in their time a fine crop of wild oats, and advocated the advantage of doing so, seeing that they did not fancy themselves the worse for it.

He found one with an imbecile son and the other with consumptive daughters.

"So much," he wrote in the Note-book, "for the Wild Oats theory!" Darley was proud of his daughters' white and pink skins.

"Beautiful complexions," he called them.