POSTSCRIPT. 397 



the ground — let us hope, to i-ise no more. There is no doubt, how- 

 ever, that in former times it was customary to "hunt and kill " the 

 quarry, an obsolete custom which was induced in order to blood tbe 

 hounds and to entitle the Hunt servants to certain fees or (in lieu of 

 fees) to certain joints of venison for pot and pasty: the latter 

 varying and passing from time to time through cuiious chops and 

 changes according to the local custom observed at the time being in 

 the several forests, until this custom was eventually abolished. Yet, 

 even in those days, that now obsolete custom was by no means the 

 general rule, as we have frequent incidents shomng that when the 

 hunted stag or hind had given good runs of forty or fifty miles the 

 hounds were stopped and the quarry " taken," by royal vdW and favour, 

 to hunt another day, or was accorded a silver collar, and was never 

 to be hunted again. It is probably a true tradition that the custom 

 of killing the quarry terminated in " the Bishop's * year " ; and that 

 from about that season to the present time the stag or hind was 

 " taken " instead of being killed. If we had access to the certificates 

 of the Masters of the Buckhounds this reform Avould be, in all 

 probability, proved on official authority. Thus the protest of the 

 Humanitarians, even if it were bond fide, has been made a century 

 too late. In our opinion the only persons who have any locus standi 

 or right to object to the continuance o{ the Boyal Buckhounds are 

 the farmers and land-owners over whose " country " the Pack hunts ; 

 and they are, to a man, in favour of the hunt. 



There are nevertheless certain faddists, who, in attacking stag- 

 hunting in general, and the Royal Buckhounds in jjarticular, on the 

 plea of crvielty to animals, know that if they were successful in this 



* We believe it was in 1783-4 that the Bishop of Osnaburg hunted five days a 

 week during that season. The Buckhounds used to meet on Tuesdays and Satur- 

 days, and the Harriers on Mondays and Thursdays. The alternate Wednesdays 

 and Fridays were bye-days with both packs. It is said the Bishop stipulated 

 that the stag or hind was to be " taken " and not killed. This having received 

 the approbation of the King and the Prince of Wales, the Hunt servants were 

 forbidden, for the future, to allow the hounds to pull down, worry, or kill the 

 quarry. Prince Frederick (second son of George III.) was by his father 

 nominated Bishop of Osnaburg in 1765, when His Royal Highness was in the 

 second year of his age, and was created Duke of York and Albany in 

 November 1784. In 1785 he went to Osnaburg and remained in Hanover for 

 some years. By the Treaty of Westphalia, in 1648, it was agreed that every 

 alternative Bishop of Osnaburg should be a Catholic and a Lutheran: the 

 former to be elected by the Chapter ; the latter (usually a young Prince) to be 

 nominated by the head of the House of Hanover. 



