1 8 CENTURY OF ENGLISH FOX-HUNTING 



secretary upon an agreed scale of prices, so that a 

 stranger hunting with a pack to which he did not 

 subscribe might be required to show that he was a 

 member of some other hunt, would be admirable, 

 if it could only be placed on a workmanlike basis. 

 But at present there are two insurpassable objections 

 to it. The one is, that it would be impossible to ask 

 hunt servants to fulfil the duties of Excise officers, so 

 that there would be difficulty in finding people to 

 undertake the inevitable task of scrutinising the 

 licences ; the other consists in the just division of 

 the money obtained from the issue of the licences. 

 Besides, I believe that it would be contrary to the 

 best interests of agriculture for the supporters of 

 fox-hunting to seek the assistance of Parliament, and 

 I fail to understand how hunting licences could be 

 issued without the sanction of the Legislature, in- 

 asmuch as there must be a penalty, capable of being 

 enforced by law, for hunting without holding a 

 licence. Therefore I adhere to my original sugges- 

 tion, with this proviso, that in the event of legal 

 proceedings being taken the costs should be defrayed 

 by the hunt funds. It would be unreasonable to 

 expect a small farmer in the Midlands to incur the 

 expense of prosecuting for trespass a stockbroker 

 in Threadneedle Street. The law may be no re- 

 specter of persons, but there are certain persons 

 to whom the penalties of the law are a matter of 

 little consequence ; therefore to these prosecutions 

 every publicity should be attached. During the last 



