CALCUTTA PAPERCHASING RECORDS. 



CHAPTER I. 

 The Old Calcutta Hunt„ 



"HPO attempt to accurately fix the date of the origin of 

 •■• paperchasing, as we know it in Calcutta to-day, is 

 possibly a task beyond the capacity of man. The records 

 of the past tell us that wherever youth and bravery have 

 been in company, and the pursuit of some beast of 

 venery has not been possible, a substitute of some sort or 

 another has quickly been found. The fox, as we like to 

 think, and parenthetically his brother the "Jack," stands 

 top of the class in the category of things created 

 to teach mankind how to ride and hounds how to 

 hunt ; and though history tells us that in the days when 

 they knew no better, the stag was the Royal beast of the 

 Chase, we may take it, that as soon as the fox was dis- 

 covered, the stag receded in popularity, till to-day, as 

 anyone may see from, an inspection of the Hound List, 

 the packs that pursue him are few indeed in comparison to 

 those devoted to the hunting of the '' Thief of the World." 



The sporting people who lived in Calcutta in the 

 early part of last century and from whose organisation the 

 old Calcutta Hunt, the present Calcutta Paperchase Club, is 

 lineally descended, were quite of this way of thinking, and 

 it was in those days that we boasted a pack of hounds 

 which was sent out every year and sold at the end of the 

 season. The exact date when the Calcutta Hunt first came 



B, CPR I 



