COL. ANSTRUTHER THOMSON 31 



Unfortunately, he cut his speech very short. Tom 

 Firr, late second whip to Captain Thomson, now 

 huntsman to the North Warwickshire, sang an 

 amusing song. The Right Hon. G. W. Hunt, 

 M.P., spoke very well, though he trod on rather 

 dangerous ground when he complained of Mr. 

 Gladstone lifting his pack too much. Mr. Hunt's 

 temper, however, is so imperturbable, that no one 

 could quarrel with him if they tried. Sir Francis 

 Grant's picture is considered a great success. It 

 represents Captain Thomson on ' Iris,' the horse 

 he bought in at ^500 ; the hounds ' Singer,' ' Rally- 

 wood,' ' Dragon ' and ' Bondsman ' being round him." 

 — From Land and Water. 



" Sport e^. Flash. — 5th March 1870. — There is 

 something consolatory in the remembrance of former 

 pleasure and of former woe ; a sort of satisfaction in 

 the consciousness of having enjoyed the one and of 

 having survived the other, which is better than the 

 languor of satiety or the verjuice of remorse. The 

 number of a publication for the 19th of last month, 

 which calls itself Land and Water, has fallen into our 

 hands. Our eye wandered on to the second column, 

 and there it fell upon ' Hunting ' with ' Leicester- 

 shire ' beneath. ' Naturally enough,' the notice begins, 

 ' after twelve days' incessant frost, we have little or 

 nothing to recount,' and then something about ' being 

 puzzled to condense our subject ' ; for which the be- 

 ginning of the sentence sufficiently accounts, as well as 

 for ' yawning over the fixture card ' ; while the writer's 

 apparently unsuccessful attempt ' to conjure up visions 



