76 THE ESSEX FOXHOUNDS. 



sporting farmer, had ^loo a year to hunt them, and 

 find his own horse — a primitive kind of arrangement 

 which was not uncommon in those days, and was 

 almost identical with that under which the famous Jack 

 Parker hunted the Sinnington Hounds till shortly before 

 his death a few years ago ; but Jack was huntsman, and 

 not master. 



Such had been Jem Morgan's training when about 

 the year 1833 he became huntsman of the Essex 

 Hounds. Mr. Conyers recognised his merits, and 

 mounted him well ; but even the best of the Copt Hall 

 stud was not always equal to the task set them by this 

 intrepid rider, who delighted in jumping timber, and 

 who, to his latest day, would go out of his line to ride 

 over a stile, while the widest and deepest Roothing 

 ditch — "them Rootheners," he called them — never stopped 

 his course in a likely direction. He had many falls, 

 and on one occasion, put his arm out so badly that his 

 whippers-in could not pull it in, so they had to ride 

 on with the hounds and leave him. However, he was 

 helped on his horse, when a chance pressure of the 

 limb on the saddle sent it once more into its socket. 

 After this he was wont to say that as he could not 

 open gates he must ride over them ! 



