272 THOUGHTS ON HUNTING 



be found elsewhere. If this, upon a nice investiga- 

 tion of the matter, should appear to be strictly true, 

 the conclusion that would necessarily result from it 

 might prove more than I mean it should ; therefore 

 we will drop the subject. Should you, however, differ 

 from me in opinion of your town-life, and disapprove 

 what I have said concerning it, you may excuse me, if 

 you please, as you would a lawyer who does the best 

 he can for the party for whom he is retained. I think 

 you will also excuse any expressions that I may have 

 used, which may not be current here; if you find, as I 

 verily believe you may, that I have not made use of a 

 French word, but when I could not have expressed 

 my meaning so well by an English one. It is only 

 an unnecessary and affected application of a foreign 

 language, that is deserving of censure. 



To those who may think the danger which attends 

 upon hunting a great objection to the pursuit of it, I 

 must beg leave to observe, that the accidents which 

 are occasioned by it are very few. I will venture to 

 say, that more bad accidents happen to shooters in 

 one year, than to those who follow hounds in seven. 



You will remind me, perhaps, of the death of T k, 



and the fall of D 1 ; but do accidents never happen 



on the road ? The most famous huntsman and boldest 

 rider of his time, after having hunted a pack of hounds 

 for several years, unhurt, lost his life at last by a fall 

 from his horse, as he was returning home. A surgeon 

 of my acquaintance has assured me, that, in thirty 

 years' practice in a sporting country, he had not once 

 an opportunity of setting a bone for a sportsman, 



