COL. ANSTRUTHER THOMSON 35 



and may know that the manager of the periodical 

 he patronises could supply the material for this sport 

 on economical terms out of the copies regularly re- 

 turned by the newsmen. 



" Envy and detraction will never cease ; they 

 are of ancient growth, and have pursued eminent 

 sportsmen scarcely less keenly than great generals. 

 Mr. Assheton Smith was in his best days positively 

 detested by many of the gentlemen in pink, whose 

 successors now appear with nosegays in their button- 

 holes by the covert side on fair weather mornings. 

 With these carpet sportsmen such Masters of Hounds 

 as Assheton Smith and Anstruther Thomson never 

 will be really popular ; for, as some of the speakers 

 at the Northampton dinner seem to have said, these 

 exquisites * hunt to ride,' but do not ' ride to hunt,' 

 and are seldom popular with the farmers. It is no 

 unimportant qualification in a Master of Hounds that 

 he should stand well with the farmers ; they have a 

 good deal to do both with the land and the water 

 of the midland, as well as other counties, and have 

 scarcely less to do with the preservation of foxes — 

 a very unimportant item in the opinion of Land and 

 Water, who, but for the name of the thing, might 

 be satisfied with a drag, should his supply of paper 

 run short, owing to the excessive popularity of his 

 periodical. We do not presume to know upon whose 

 production we have been commenting ; but we cannot 

 help regretting that, in these days, when gentlemen 

 in pink form an increasingly large disproportion to 

 genuine sportsmen, scribes should be found to decry the 



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