3o8 CENTURY OF ENGLISH FOX-HUNTING 



hunting. The necessities of the Service demanded 

 that an officer in the army should be a peripatetic 

 rather than a resident fox-hunter ; yet, though he 

 may have no permanent interest in the country in 

 which he happens to be quartered, he seldom forgets 

 to subscribe to the local hounds. In addition, there 

 are the regimental subscriptions, the money spent 

 in fodder, the purchase of horses from the tenant 

 farmers, local saddlery, and other items too numerous 

 to mention, which increase agricultural welfare. 



But though the hunting-field is a good school for 

 warriors, so far as riding and scouting are con- 

 cerned, I am unwillingly forced to admit that it is 

 not a good school for shooting. Let me ask my 

 reader, How many friends does he know who are 

 first-flight men to hounds and famous rifle shots? 

 Time and expense are against the combination 

 under present existing circumstances. Few of us 

 can afford both to hunt and to shoot. I have lived 

 among sportsmen all my life, but I have never met 

 a man who was in the first-class division at both 

 hunting and shooting, though I have met many 

 men who are in the second-class division at both 

 sports. " Good all-round sportsmen " is the term 

 usually applied to them, and good luck to them. 

 But the chief duty of cavalry is reconnaissance. 

 Major - General Baden - Powell says, " Fights and 

 charges of cavalry against cavalry are merely used 

 to clear the way for efficient reconnaissance," and 

 " in the Peninsular War the British scouting' officers 



