22 CENTURY OF ENGLISH FOX-HUNTING 



the practical shape of a present of game. Briefly, 

 experience has taught us that shooting - tenancies 

 confer no benefit upon agriculture and are detri- 

 mental to fox-hunting. It would be futile to suggest 

 any arbitrary remedy, as the shooting-tenant would 

 reply that he pays his money for the right to shoot, 

 and is not concerned with either agriculture or fox- 

 hunting. The remedy must be a legal one, operating 

 so mildly as not to cause any friction between shoot- 

 ing and hunting. I can only suggest that there 

 should be a combination of the landowners in any 

 particular county in which shooting -tenancies are 

 prevalent — which combination could easily be effected 

 at Quarter Sessions — in order that they may agree 

 amongst themselves to insert a clause in the leases of 

 all shooting-tenancies, under which the tenant should 

 be liable to a fine whenever his coverts failed to hold 

 a fox, providing that hounds did not visit them more 

 than a specified number of times, with specified 

 intervals, during the season. This portion of my 

 subject immediately concerns only landowners and 

 shooting - tenants, between whom the controversy 

 must be fought, though the issue of the controversy 

 will be awaited with anxiety by every member of the 

 farming and hunting classes. 



History teaches us that any institution can be 

 destroyed by an excess of popularity, and the same 

 lesson is applicable to sport. I have alluded to 

 shooting, though it was beyond my province to 

 intimate that the popularity of shooting has increased 



