HUNTING CLOTHES 127 



servants, but we do not think that the theory has any 

 reasonable basis. At all events, poor " Bay " Middleton 

 was wearing a high hat when he broke his neck. 

 Again, buckskin breeches have gone out of fashion for 

 many reasons. In the first place, they are extremely 

 difficult to clean, taking a great amount of time and 

 trouble and no small amount of knowledge. In the 

 second place, they are far more expensive than white 

 cords, since it takes two hides to make one pair of 

 breeches, and the hides themselves are becoming more 

 expensive every year. In the third place, we do not 

 think that they are as comfortable as cords, and in 

 the present day hunting men dress more with a 

 view to comfort than to smartness. Even the Melton 

 Mowbray man, who pays 7s. 6d. to have his breeches 

 sent up to London to be cleaned, would hardly 

 care to wear the buttoned-up swallow-tail coat in 

 which our forefathers used to ride. It was a smart 

 garment certainly, but on a wet day afforded no pro- 

 tection to the thighs, and at the best of times was 

 cold and comfortless. We admire the look of it in 

 old sporting prints in the same way as we admire 

 Egerton Warburton's verses, but admiration is not 

 succeeded by imitation. 



It is a curious fact that many men who are careless 

 and even slovenly in regard to their ordinary clothes, take 

 care to be as smart and sportsmanlike in the hunting- 

 field as tailors, breeches-makers, and bootmakers can 

 make them. This may seem an anomaly, but really it 

 is only in accordance with the eternal fitness of things ; 

 for the man who has taken immense trouble over the 

 purchase of his hunters, and over everything apper 



