THE " C.C. CLUB." T 39 



about fifteen men who hunted trom London, keeping 

 about forty or fifty horses between them at Jem 

 Cassidy's inn, tlie .Sun ,uk1 Whalebone, near Harlow 

 Bush Common, a coaching-house in olden times, and a 

 house of note during Mr. Joseph Arkwright's mastership. 

 The annual meetings of the hunt were held there, as 

 well as the more convivial gatherings of a club formed 

 by the London contingent, and known as the "C.C. 

 Club " ; the members of that coterie having their own 

 cellar of wine, and carrying out the idea of good- 

 fellowship introduced into the county, in the form of 

 a club by Colonel Cook, as already mentioned. 



Hunters had been stabled at the Sun and Whale- 

 bone, by Jem Cassidy, in the later years of Mr. Conyers's 

 mastership. One of the early patrons of the house was 

 the late Mr. Raincock, whose widow — a sister of Mr. 

 George Hart — now living at Ashdon, is as keenly 

 interested as ever in the doings of the Esse.x Hounds. 

 Half a century ago Mr. and Mrs. Raincock lived at 

 Thornton Heath, near Croydon, and it is related of Mr. 

 Raincock that on one occasion, when hounds met at 

 Canfield Hart, he rode in the morning from -Surrey 

 through London to the meet, followed hounds into 

 Suffolk, and, changincr horses at Thaxted and at the 



