The Foxhound. 69 



side of the straw stack, where she rears her whelps far better than in 

 any kennel. It is customary in most hunts to have the young unentered 

 hounds judged during the summer, when prizes, which take the shape of 

 silver cups, silver teapots, or handsome silk dresses, are awarded to the 

 lady of the house where the best looking puppy has been walked in the 

 previous year ; so that every farmer's wife wants to have charge of a 

 good looking one to qualify her chance for the next show day. 



"Draft hounds are such as can be spared from the pack, and are drawn 

 for size as above or below the desired standard of the kennel, or for 

 some fault, real or imaginary. These are the perquisites of the hunts- 

 man, and usually fetch three to four guineas a couple. Drafts from the 

 best packs are in great request, being often bespoke long before the time, 

 and command higher prices. 



" Promoters of monster dog shows must have been profoundly purblind 

 when they placed Foxhounds in their prize schedule, or they would have 

 foreseen that M.F.H.'s of important packs would never send hounds to 

 be cribbed, cabined, and confined for the week about, running the 

 gauntlet of all the ills that dog flesh is heir to ; to be poked and 

 provoked by the canes of incipient man-milliners, and submitted to the 

 judgment and criticism of lapdog fanciers the Whitby deadlock of '75 

 to wit. ' What's that lang chap, wi'd fine gleaves on keep leaking inta 

 their e'en for ?' asked a Bilsdale jet miner, who had tramped ten miles 

 on foot and thirty-six by rail to back ' oor Charlotte, ' and had lost his 

 money in the first over. 'E'en,' replied his companion in travel, 'he's 

 leaking up their noases, mum, to see which has the sharpest scent.' 



" From the Waterloo year to the advent of the Russian campaign may 

 be termed the Homeric period of foxhunting. Fields were more select 

 and less crowded, first-flight men had less difficulty in recruiting then, 

 studs, as thoroughbreds too slow for the turf were then drafted to the 

 hunting stable, instead of being, as of late, degraded into steeplechasers, 

 timber-toppers, and instruments of cheating and robbery. Fallows were 

 not generally gridironed by drain-pipes and ' catch 'em up ' wire fences, 

 and asphalte had not taken possession of the country. Coverts were not 

 yet sacred to St. Pheasant, nor was there then a branch railway to cross 

 the line of every fox. However, things look brighter in the north, for 

 the engine drivers on the Richmond branch line, who have mostly one or 

 more crosses of the sportsmen in them, have decided to respect the 



