Mr. J. M. Richardson's Writings Collated 



experience, will soon become inveterate hare hunters. The 

 natural instinct of the run of a fox is a gift given to few, and to 

 grasp a difficult situation at the moment is where a huntsman 

 should excel. Not a moment must be lost, and above all his 

 motto must be " Rebus in arduis cequam servare mentem" for 

 directly he loses his temper it is ten to one on his losing his 

 fox. A huntsman is placed in a very responsible public 

 position, and the members of the hunt, especially of a sub- 

 scription pack, feel it their duty to criticise him, though the 

 chances are that those who are loudest in their opinion know 

 rather less about hunting a pack of hounds than the man in the 

 moon. Frequently the best of masters and first-rate whippers- 

 in signally fail in ever attaining the gift and aptitude required 

 to take the supreme command. In no profession that I know 

 of is the old Latin quotation, "Nascitur non jit" more applicable 

 than that of a huntsman. In fact, the M.F.H. who, when a 

 clerical visitor, in his astonishment at the large salary the other 

 paid his huntsman, exclaimed, " Why it's nearly double what 

 my living is worth," replied, " That may be true enough, but 

 you must recollect that a good huntsman is not to be met with 

 every day in the week," was not very far out, though doubtless 

 his way of putting it grated somewhat on the other's ear. 

 Huntsmen, not unnaturally perhaps, think that a gentleman, 

 not having gone through the same apprenticeship as themselves, 

 cannot possibly know much about hunting hounds. I had an 

 example of this only, last year, when a man who had been 

 whipper-in for ten years to quite the best gentleman huntsman 

 I ever saw, was appointed in that capacity to a well-known 

 pack in the Midlands. On my asking a well-known huntsman 

 if he thought the other would be a success, his reply was : 

 " What could he learn under a hamateur ? " 



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