THE PARTRIDGE 



A Day with the Partridge 



HOWEVER inclined we may be to hold 

 tenaciously our own opinions, we surely 

 should recognise, in common fairness, that the 

 ideas of other men are worthy of respect. But 

 nowadays, even in field and covert, sport 

 threatens to partake of the nature of an exact 

 science, and many good sportsmen rebel against 

 the change, and long for a return of methods and 

 conditions associated with the past. Rather 

 ungenerously, perhaps, these sportsmen blame 

 the Master of Foxhounds who hunts his fox 

 in a way to please a fashionable crowd that at 

 ail costs will " go the pace."' An enthusiast 

 of the old-fashioned school is wont to protest 

 that there is nothing in fox-hunting nowadays 

 but " pace." When he was young he loved to 

 see the hounds match their intelligence against 

 Reynard's many wiles, and to enjoy the winter 

 beauty of the countryside, as much as he loved 

 the long, hard gallop and the excitement of 

 leaping bank and ditch. Now, in his opinion, 



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