PRESENT DAY. 297 



Our fields, as a rule, are small. If one hundred are 

 out it is a large number for the country. Very few ot the 

 farmers (who in the days when the Union was divided 

 into two countries were almost the only people in this 

 part of Essex) are, alas ! able to hunt in these days, so 

 that the field is composed of the resident subscribers to the 

 hunt, the officers from Warley and Shoeburyness, and an 

 occasional gunner from Woolwich. At the present time 

 there are not three men hunting from London. L^p to 

 within the last few years, perhaps, there have been few 

 hunting; districts more free from the " iron horse " than the 

 Essex Union country ; but there are now two new railways 

 running through it, which naturally at times do not improve 

 sport, but they are of the greatest benefit in saving hounds 

 and horses long distances when meeting in the Dengie 

 Hundred country, the extreme portion of which lies twenty- 

 five miles from the kennels, and entailed the staff frequently 

 lying- out over night at Latch ingdon, about five miles from 

 Maldon. Reader, I will not ask you to bear with me 

 any longer, even if you have borne with me up to this 

 point. My say is done. I have put down in a casual 

 way my impressions of the country next my heart. 

 M\' ha]i|iiest davs have been, and I trust e\cr will be, 

 spent in it. 



