INTRODUCTION 15 



the directors even to consider whether they should 

 make a reduction in the charges for the freight of 

 agricultural produce. To a larger degree they have 

 contributed to the wealth of the sporting tailors and 

 bootmakers, but there is no reason for believing that 

 these tradesmen spend their extra profits upon agri- 

 culture. An ingenious defence was put forward on 

 behalf of these peripatetics — that many of them did 

 not subscribe through ignorance of the amount which 

 they ought to subscribe ; but the ingenuity of the 

 defence was ruined by the publication of a Fox- 

 hunting Directory, in which the minimum subscrip- 

 tion to the various packs of hounds was stated. 

 Another defence, so weak as to amount to a plea 

 of guilty without extenuating circumstances, is that 

 they have never been asked to subscribe. I have 

 always understood that the hunt subscription was 

 a debt of honour, and until hunting subscriptions 

 are placed upon the same legal basis as, for example, 

 game licences and fishing rights, they must be re- 

 garded as coming within the category of debts of 

 honour, and defaulters must pay the penalty of that 

 social ostracism which is usually meted out to dis- 

 honourable men. The primary object of racing is 

 the promotion of horse-breeding, and, if a man does 

 not pay his racing debts, he is prohibited from taking 

 any active part in racing until his debts are paid. 

 I do not allude to gambling debts, but to the debts, 

 such as forfeits, over which the Jockey Club holds 

 control. It would incur difficulties almost insur- 



