The Merry Past 



Fox-hunters' dinners were then of a very soHd 

 though simple kind. 



The following is the menu of a typical dinner 

 which was given at Calverton in honour of a Notting- 

 hamshire sportsman in the early part of the last 

 century. 



Course the first : a salmon and a quarter of lamb, 

 flanked by every vegetable in season. Course the 

 second : a goose, a ham, and a leash of chickens, 

 flanked as above. Course the third : a couple of ducks 

 with green peas, turkey poults, and three hunting 

 puddings. The display of cheese was the finest of 

 the season— Alfreton and York, Colwick and Stilton. 



The only thing which seems to have interrupted 

 the harmony of this evening for a second was the 

 expression by two or three of the diners of a wish for 

 claret, after the consumption of a couple of dozen of 

 port. The chairman, having declared his intention 

 of sticking to the truly British liquor then before him, 

 said "he should not object to the introduction of 

 claret late in the evening, but he had no idea of any- 

 thing of the sort being usual in good society until 

 each gentleman had completed his three bottles of 

 port." This excited a little hubbub at the other end 

 of the table where a gentleman rose, with more heat 

 than the occasion demanded, and said "he did not 

 know what the chairman meant by his insinuation 

 about low company ; that the gentlemen then 

 assembled represented South Notts, and no man 

 should cram ' Day and Martin ' down their throats." 

 This speech was received with loud cheers ; and the 



4» 



