to ROYAL ROCK BEAGLE HUNT. 



The goal aimed at by C. Rawson was to get an even musical pack, about 

 14^ inches in height. The occurrence of the lamentable Irish famine in 

 1S46 enabled him to achieve this design, as several small packs of beagles 

 were offered to the Royal Rock Beagle Hunt merely for the cost of carriage. 

 These packs were given up by the sporting gentry of L-eland, who nobly did 

 their duty by their unfortunate tenantry. They remitted the rents, and, in 

 consequence, were obliged to economize in every possible way. Hunting 

 was abandoned in many districts of Ireland for several years, and, as regards 

 beagles, has not since been freely resumed, only two packs of Irish beagles 

 being mentioned in Badminton. It is melancholy to consider that this 

 most disastrous famine, which necessitated a grant of ^^10,000, 000 sterling 

 from the British Government for the relief of the starving peasantry, should 

 have been instrumental in forming our pack of hounds. 



In the first season 1845-6, the Royal Rock Beagles had somewhere 

 about thirty-three couple in their kennels, from which they drafted ten 

 couple as being either too large or too small for their standard. In those 

 days beaglers seemed to like to have out a large number of hounds, as they 

 used to take out seventeen or eighteen couple each time of hunting; at the 

 present day, ten to twelve couple are thought to be amply sufficient for 

 beagling. 



The first lot of hounds arrived in April, 1845, with no kennels ready, 

 and no huntsman to look after them, and the committee had plenty to do for 

 a month or two to get these matters comfortably arranged. A cottage was 

 found at Woodhey, near Rock Ferry, with sufficient spare space for kennels, 

 yards, &c., at a rental of ;^i4 per annum, and ^68 was expended in 

 building the kennels, paving the yards, &c. 



These kennels were occupied by the Royal Rock Beagles till the 

 year 1883, when the hounds were removed to their present kennels at 

 Higher Bebington, on account of complaints by neighbours of their noise 



