2 CENTURY OF ENGLISH FOX-HUNTING 



to write for The Sporting Magazine, in 1822, sporting 

 journalism was confined to prize-fighting, cock- 

 fighting, and Newgate criminal trials ; and the 

 circulation of sporting news was practically confined 

 to London. We must remember that, with the 

 exception of the mail and slow coaches, there were 

 no lines of communication between town and 

 country, and that fox-hunting was entirely in the 

 hands of the nobility, the squirearchy, and the 

 sparsonarchy. In order to vary the dull routine 

 of country life they organised fox-hunting. Mr. 

 Hugo Meynell, who was Master of the Quorn from 

 1753 till 1800, had founded a system, which, with 

 very few alterations, is in vogue at the present day. 

 Hitherto fox-hunting had been carried on in an 

 irregular fashion. If a fox had been viewed, or, 

 by leaving traces of his depredations behind him, 

 was known to be in the neighbourhood, a hetero- 

 geneous pack of hounds was collected, and the whole 

 of the countryside took part in a fox-hunt. The 

 first edition of Handley Cross was published in 1843, 

 so that at all events it was probably founded on the 

 author's experiences during the late thirties. But 

 we have no direct evidence of the fact, for Mr. 

 Surtees was a reserved and taciturn man, who never 

 took the public into his confidence. It is strange 

 that the man who created Mr. Jorrocks, James 

 Pigg, Mr. Soapey Sponge, Lucy Glitters, Mr. 

 Facey Romford, and a host of other characters too 

 numerous to mention, should have been in private 



