142 CENTURY OF ENGLISH FOX-HUNTING 



reign there was an amount of sport which had never 

 been equalled during the Mastership of Lord Chester- 

 field, Jack Goddard was his first and Jones his 

 second whipper-in during his stay in the Pytchley 

 country, when he lived en gar^on in Brixworth. 

 But the subscriptions were not sufficient to enable 

 him to hunt four days a week and meet all the 

 difficulties of a weak establishment ; so at the end 

 of his second season he resigned office, and the 

 Pytchley, for the seventh time in ten years, were 

 seeking a new Master. But Mr. Smith had fulfilled 

 a wholesome duty towards fox-hunting. He had 

 succeeded Lord Chesterfield, who, generally popular 

 as he was, had been surrounded by companions 

 who turned night into day, and wounded the pre- 

 judices of the country squires. Not only did he 

 keep them waiting at the meet, but often the delay 

 was caused by the non-arrival of the celebrated 

 Nelly Holmes, who, though afterwards a lady of 

 title, was at no time an ornament to the social 

 morale. There was a taint in the hunting atmo- 

 sphere which Mr. Smith succeeded in removing. 



But Mr. Smith- had also the reputation of being 

 a recognised literary authority on everything ap- 

 pertaining to the noble science. His Extracts from 

 the Diary of a Huntsman had been published in 

 1838, and a second edition was called for in 1841. 

 He says in his Preface that he had killed ninety 

 foxes in ninety-one days' hunting one season in a 

 bad scenting country. He alluded to the Craven 



