21 



I therefore wrote to my friend to ask him if he could throw any light on the 

 subject, to which he replied that he only remembered that pony paperchasing was 

 a fashionable pastime in China, at any rate in the middle of the sixties. I have, 

 however, since learnt on the highest authority that not only was this form of 

 paperchasing one of the amusements of the Officers during the Crimea, but that 

 to go still further back it was in vogue in Scotland, at any rate some fifty to sixty 

 years ago ; it would thus seem very difficult to locate either the country or the date 

 of^originjof the sport. Mr. Brancker and Mr. Beebee were, I am told, in any 

 case the moving spirits in introducing it into Calcutta, and it is therefore 

 to the energy and keenness of these two gentlemen some 38 years ago that we 

 owe the present existence of the sport here. I commend these facts to the notice 

 of our historian." 



Before closing this preliminary chapter, it is only fitting 

 that, whilst paying a tribute to those who started the 

 game, we should not forget the names of those who have 

 carried it on since, and been the backbone of the Paper- 

 chase Club. The names readily occur to us of Messrs. 

 Perman (our beloved ''Old Man"), the Andersons, Tom 

 and John, Mr. Tom, alas ! now gone to the happy hunting 

 grounds, killed in a trap accident some few years ago, Mr. 

 John still, we are glad to say, with us ; George Walker 

 "The Squire" than whom few better horsemen ever sat 

 in a saddle ; poor Lawrie Alston whose famous mare 

 "Pilgrim" has given her name to a particularly bad 

 corner near Jodhpore where she met her death ; Latham 

 Hamilton that beait, ideal of G. Rs. now enjoying h s 

 otiitvi cum at home ; Tougall McLeod as hard-riding a 

 man as ever came from the north of the Tweed ; Peter 

 " Saxonbury " West ; the late Jim Petrie who after he left 

 off riding as though he had half a dozen spare necks in 

 his pocket, for many years undertook the onerous duties 

 of Starter; Jerry Prophit ; Ernest Gregory, Butler, Orrell, 

 "Durance" Cartwright ; Verschoyle whose exploits on The 

 Snob still live in our memory ; Mr. Rivers Currie, Reg. 

 Murray, Dudley Myers, Dring, Albert Rawlinson, 

 poor Donny Dickson, Col. Jim Turner, and a host 



