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To say the least of it the occasion was ill-chosen and the 

 *' hare " put his friend off by shouting that he was a 

 "hare " and had no time to stop and talk about elections. 

 The well-meaning tortoises who interrupt us when we are 

 busy, doubtless have their uses, but when one is "on an 

 engagement" to ride they are apt to be voted a nuisance. 

 In the Crimea, also, it is said that '' paperchasing " was 

 popular, as unlike their more fortunate brethren in arms 

 who served with Wellington in the Peninsula, they could 

 not arrange to have hounds. In France, also, it is claimed 

 that this form of sport has long been in vogue, and the 

 French sporting press now and again contains accounts of 

 things very similar to the Calcutta paperchase of to-day 

 as being held by various sporting Cavalry corps. The 

 Editor has been assured that such a thing has been known 

 •even in the Bois de Boulogne and at Fontainebleau, where 

 it is said the country is excellent for this class of adven- 

 ture, artificial fences being erected to supplement anything 

 that may be offering in the way of natural obstacles. In 

 Spain also they have to-day a form of paperchase, or at 

 any rate a pursuit of some one who acts as a " hare " and 

 carries a rosette on his shoulder, which has to be torn oft 

 by the "hounds" ere a ''kill" is registered: and in 

 Malta, as Mr. Dudley Myers, the President at many paper- 

 chase dinners, has told us, the garrison go in for it. There 

 was recently a picture in one of the illustrated journals 

 of Lord Charles Beresford, who was as plucky, if 

 not as finished, a horseman as his brethren. Lord 

 Marcus, and the ever-to-be-lamented Lord William, 

 laying the paper in a paperchase organised by the ofticers 

 of the Mediterranean Squadron, whilst it was at anchor 

 in the beautiful harbour of Valetta, Perhaps Byron, 

 who was a sportsman to the back-bone, meant something 

 like this when he referred to "the joys of La Valette." 

 The Editor does not know : this is merely a surmise ! 



:4.Ai* 



