THE RATIONALE OF HUNTING 31 



the increased facility in railway travelling, which 

 enables a roan to breakfast in Jermyn Street, and turn 

 up at the meet in the shires or the home provinces. 

 There are hundreds of men who hunt from town as the 

 phrase goes. The real interpretation of the phrase 

 is that these men pay flying visits into any country 

 according as their fancy dictates, though they are 

 careful not to give one hunt the benefit of their presence 

 too many times in succession for fear of being asked 

 for a donation. If they are asked, they will unblush- 

 ingly reply that they hunt regularly with another pack, 

 and have only run down for a bye day, and, naturally, 

 it is presumed that they subscribe to this other pack, 

 and accordingly meet with that welcome which the 

 members of one pack always give to the members of 

 another. In other words, they obtain sport under 

 false pretences, and are as much guilty of poaching 

 as the yokel who snares a hare on a moonlight 

 night. 



Unfortunately, these poachers, who wear the outward 

 garb of gentility in the shape of a pink coat, are the 

 very men who arouse the ire of the farmers, and, inno- 

 cently let us hope, act in every way both directly and 

 individually against the welfare of fox-hunting. They 

 ride helter-skelter over the land without any regard to 

 the harm they may do to the occupier. Growing crops 

 are an unknown quantity to them. To break down 

 fences by needlessly attempting to jump them is their 

 pet diversion. To close a gate so that cattle may not 

 stray is beyond their powers of thought. Yet they are 

 the first men to accuse the farmers of taking up an 

 adverse attitude towards fox-hunting. Their complaints 

 in the smoking-room of a London club are as loud as 

 the bellowings of the bull of Bashan, till they dwindle 



