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close of his second season he resigned office ; and, for 

 the seventh time in ten years, the Pytchley were seeking 

 a new Master.' 



On leaving the Pytchley, Tom Smith devoted some 

 months to visiting all the most noted kennels of England, 

 and then, in company with his wife and his intimate 

 friend Baron Rothschild, went for a prolonged tour on 

 the Continent. When he returned home he was asked 

 once more to take the Mastership of the Hambledon. 

 He consented to do so, and hunted the country until he 

 gave up the horn for good in 1852, being then in his 

 sixty-third year. His ' good-bye day,' April 3rd, 1852, 

 was a memorable one. They met at Broad Halfpenny 

 Down. There was a large and brilliant field, and ' fair 

 women and brave men ' crowded round the popular 

 Master, after a clipping fifty minutes with a kill, to con- 

 gratulate him on such a worthy finish to his long career 

 as a Master and to bid him their affectionate farewells. 

 Subsequently the members of the Hunt showed their 

 high appreciation of the sport he had afforded them, in 

 more substantial fashion by the presentation of a mag- 

 nificent piece of plate; and so Tom Smith made his exit 

 as a M.F.H. 



But he continued to hunt for many a long day after- 

 wards, and astonished the Badminton, the Berkeley, the 

 H.H., and a dozen other Hunts by his wonderful feats 

 in the saddle as a septuagenarian. It was his boast that he 

 had reduced falling to a science, and probably he had had 

 in his day as many falls as his famous namesake Thomas 

 Assheton Smith. Yet they seemed to do him no harm, 

 and of his toughness and pluck the following is a 

 good example. In November 1866, when he was over 

 seventy-six years of age, he was out with the Hampshire 



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