22 THE HUNTING FIELD 



every one they come thwart of. If a shooter was to 

 make himself as unhappy about a bad day's sport 

 as some foxhunters do, what a booby we should think 

 him. "Better luck next time," is a fine consoling 

 axiom, cheering alike to the foxhunter, the gunner, 

 and the fisherman. Foxhunting is but a species of 

 game, and whether a fox is killed, or a fox is lost, 

 or a fox is mobbed, or a fox is earthed, makes no 

 difference in the balance at the banker's that con- 

 verging point to which so many anxious earthly 

 hopes turn. 



Gentlemen, when they begin to do a thing,- are 

 very apt to do too much. They think if they take 

 the Mastership of hounds that they must slave and 

 toil like servants. Then we have a lot of babblement 

 about "science," "condition," "generative economy," 

 " ^Ethiop's mineral," and we don't know what. Can 

 science make a scent? "Kennel management," and 

 all that sort of thing, is very necessary ; but experi- 

 ence proves that a man may be a first-rate sports- 

 man without troubling himself about minutiae. Mr. 

 Masters, if we mistake not, was no great kennelman, 

 and we should like to have a look at any one with 

 the boldness to deny his prowess in the field. The 

 best gentleman-huntsman of the present day never 

 feeds his hounds. We have even known paid hunts- 

 men who never saw their's except in the hunting 

 field. 



The well bred hound the well bred sporting dog 

 of any sort will always leave the man who feeds it 

 for the man who shows it sport. 



All economists, political ones and all, agree in the 

 inexpediency of keeping a dog and barking one's- 

 self ; neither is it of any use a Master keeping servants 

 and doing their work. The more trouble a man 

 takes the more anxious he gets, and the more he 

 expects ; hence a great deal of that nervous irrita- 

 bility in the hunting field which is almost its only 



