18 HUNTING 



market for hay and corn, and to give employment to 

 an army of grooms and stable helpers. Hunting had 

 assumed the character of a business. Farmers, horse- 

 dealers, veterinary surgeons, tailors, saddlers, hotel 

 proprietors, and even railway directors found a profit- 

 able customer in the hunting man. Towns sprang 

 up where there had only been villages, and hunting, 

 described by Burke as " one of the balances of the 

 constitution," now became one of the bulwarks of 

 commerce. 



It may seem extraordinary that the railways, which 

 have done much to destroy shooting and fishing, 

 should have served to increase the popularity of 

 hunting, by diverting wealth from towns into the 

 country. If it had not been for the plutocracy, fox- 

 hunting must have continued to be a rural pastime, 

 instead of becoming a popular sporting science. Take 

 for example, a meet of the Quorn, with its field of 

 between two hundred, three hundred, and often 

 considerably more sportsmen and sportswomen ! 

 Here you see " the pomp and circumstances " 'par 

 excellence of fox-hunting, combined with everything 

 that hunting science has taught us. But it would be 

 almost impossible for such a pack to be maintained by 

 resident landowners. The money to support such estab- 

 lishments must come from the towns. So, if the towns 

 have absorbed much capital from the country during 

 the last fifty years, hunting may lay claim to be one of 

 the important channels through which money flows 

 back from the towns to the country. But it is not 

 our intention to invade the domain of agricultural 

 politics by treating of the politico-economical side of 

 hunting. It is sufficient to have pointed out that 

 hunting, at the beginning of the century, was the 



