6 INTRODUCTION 



agreed upon, they again met, and each Hebrew emptied the 

 contents of his flask into the allotted receptacle. It happened 

 that the proposer of the one man one bottle arrangement had 

 made that suggestion purely from motives of personal thrift, 

 and accordingly, having provided himself with a black bottle 

 full of water, he decanted the fluid into the barrel, when his 

 turn came round, with the proud feeling that he had saved his 

 pocket without anyone being the wiser, not even his bene- 

 factor, the Head Man, who could not possibly be expected to 

 tell that the wine had undergone such an infinitesimal 

 dilution. After the barrel had with due ceremony been 

 presented to -his Worship, that gentleman drew a glass to 

 toast his kind friends, when lo and behold ! as he put the 

 compound to his lips, he found that it was unadulterated 

 water without a drop of wine in the entire barrel ! Thank 

 goodness, neither English farmers nor English hunting people 

 are Polish Jews. 



The followers of the chase at Melton are mostly birds of 

 passage, among whom there are some fine horsemen. Many 

 however come, not for the sport which the surrounding- 

 country affords, but because they regard hunting from the 

 metropolis as a fashionable function. It was no doubt one of 

 this class who, when out one day, on being told that his horse 

 was lame, and finding that it was going in rather a " dotty" 

 manner, got off and led it ten or twelve miles home. When 

 the groom took the horse over, he of course lifted up the 

 lame foot, from which he extracted, much to the astonishment 

 and chagrin of his master, a stone that had evidently been the 

 unsuspected cause of the lameness. 



I don't want to draw any comparisons with other places, 

 especially those of which I have had no personal experience ; 

 but I have nothing except praise for the first flight hunters 

 and first flight ladies and men of Melton. Mr. "Buck" 

 Barclay had a particularly strong stable, which was in the able 



