1890] LOED WILLOUGHBY KESPONDS. 187 



lioi)e, may to a oertain extent speak for tlieniselves ; l)ut, gentlemei), to 

 Avlioin is the improvement of these honnds due, if sucli improvement has 

 taken phice P It is not to me, but to those who liave so kindly come 

 forward and lielped me during- all these years, hi the walking- of jjuppies. 

 and hi many other ways. (Applause.) When I stand, as I do sometimes, 

 on the high ground near Wolford, or on the Ilmington hills, perhaps, and 

 look over the magnificent ocean of grass which reaches all the way to 

 Shuckburgh. and when I think that the foxhounds are free and welcome 

 over the whole of that stretch of country, and that, as I believe, not a single 

 wire fence or a single enemy to our sport could be found througliout the 

 whole of that district, then surely I may be pardoned for thinking that I 

 have lived all my life in the best county in England. (Cheers.) Surely we 

 may say. in the Avords of the old poem of Serjeant Govdliurn. written now 

 nearly ninety years ago : 



Then let Leicestershire boast of her far-renowned speed, 



Let them jostle or crowd for a start or a lead, 



The blood of old Harper is all one requires, 



Then give us the hounds of the Warwickshire squires. 



F(n- of eourse, we (night never to forget, and I hope that I shall never 

 forget, tliat these hounds are not my property. They are yours, gentlemen, 

 the property of every nobleman, every gentleman, and every farmer who 

 comes out with the Warwickshire pack. They do not belong to me ; they 

 belong to the country. I think this is hardly the time or the j)lace for me to 

 enter into a long defence of foxhmiting. Of late, foxhunting has been, I 

 will not say attacked, because it has not been attacked, but it certainly 

 seemed at one time to be in the position that Turkey was in at the time 

 of the Crimean war — it had rather too many friends. (Hear, hear, and 

 laughter.) There Avere too many remedies proposed. Some of those 

 remedies — w-ell, I won't go into them just now. l)ut I will only say that they 

 were quite enougli to make a foxhunter smile. Still, in others of those 

 suggestions tliere was a good deal of common sense, and 1 think they were 

 l)roductive of a certain amount of good, and I believe they are being acted 

 upon. (Hear, hear.) I lielieve that most of the hunting gentlemen of the 

 country are fully alive to the fact that they ought, as far as they possibly 

 can, to purcha-e their oats, their hay, and their straw for their horses from 

 the farmers over whose land they ride. (Applause.) I believe that of late 

 that principle has become very much more widely recognised. I huxe 

 always held, gentlemen, that foxhunting is a sport which ought to be free and 

 open to everybody— (hear, hear)— and that if once that free and open spirit is 

 done away with, and we l)egin to draw disthictions as to who is to come 

 out hunting and who is not, we takc^ a course which will certainly tend 

 to weaken the popularity of the chase. (Hear, hear, and applause.) But I 

 will go so far as to say this, gentlemen, that a man who goes out hunting 

 and feeds his horses on that abominable mixture called foreign oats— 

 (laughter)— or beds them on that nasty stuff called moss litter— (laughter) — 

 should not lie allowed to go out hunting at all. (Hear, hear.) How can I 

 thank you sufficiently, not only for the kind reception you have given me 

 this evening, but for your kindness through all these years ? Mr. Knott has 

 spoken of my having been at some little trouble in coniiectiou with the 

 pack, but I do not deserve any thanks on that account. Whatever T may 



