28 ROYAL ROCK BEAGLE HUNT. 



not more than a small portion of \vhich they can enjoy, only affords another 

 illustration of the celebrated .^sopian fable we are usually taught in the 

 nurser}', which, doubtless, the experience of the world has not destroyed, 

 but only confirmed in your recollection. 



I regret to hear you challenge our rights, which certainly appear, even 

 in a sporting, conventional sense, as substantial as yours ; with two exceptions, 

 we have the consent of everybody who has a shadow of an interest in the 

 soil, from the proprietor of the land down to the gentlemen who mereh' 

 have the right of shooting over it. The farmers are with us, almost to a man. 

 If any gentlemen should claim a right, in the sporting code, to hunt the 

 Wirral Hundred, it surely ought to be the residents of Birkenhead and its 

 vicinity. Now, there is not a man in the Wirral Harrier Club who does not 

 reside in what may be called the Wirral district : \\ hile, I believe, a large 

 proportion of the subscribers to the Beagles reside in Lancashire. Our rights 

 are, therefore, the rights of gentlemen to hunt their own county, as against 

 strangers, who can only allege in their favour the claims of not a very venerable 

 antiquity. In the sporting calendar, it will not be denied, that beagles are 

 as much inferior to harriers as harriers are to foxhounds ; and, therefore, I 

 cannot understand how you can claim for your description of hunting those 

 high privileges and prerogatives which alone appertain to the higher ; and 

 were, even, our rights less substantial than they are, and one of us was called 

 on to give way, I contend that the superiority of the one class of hunting 

 to the other ought alone to decide in our favour. But there is, fortunately, 

 not this desperate alternative before us. We have only to act in harmony, 

 and we can each enjoy fully our peculiar rights and privileges, without inter- 

 fering any more with each other's movements than if the one hunted in 

 Lancashire and the other in the Isle of Man. 



In favour of this harmonious concert I could cite numerous examples, 

 but I will not go further than our own doors. The Chester Beagles hunt, 

 in comm.on with the harriers kept by Captain P. Yates, the district of Backford 

 and Wyrven. There is room enough for both, and green-eyed jealousy (as 

 I hope may be so in our case) has not succeeded in destroying an atom of 

 their friendship for each other. 



I cannot conclude without expressing my regret you should deny not 

 only that we had exhausted every means of conciliation, but even that we 

 had made the slightest effort to meet you in a conciliatory spirit. Why, the 

 members of our Hunt, before the harriers were started, sought permission 

 to hunt the beagles on horseback, in preference to starting a rival club, which, 

 had you assented to, the harriers would never have been heard of. W'as not 

 this concihation ? Even when your refusal drove them to other measures, 

 instead of setting up a rival club, did they not invite you to merge your 

 beagles into a hunting club ? Was not this conciliation ? Even when, by 

 your rejection of this overture, they were driven to the establishment of the 

 harriers, did they not invite you to accept of the mastership ? I suppose 

 this was not conciliation. Even after these efforts to propitiate you, did they 

 not commission a deputation to wait upon you, with a view to effect an 

 amicable arrangement, and have I not twice written to solicit your fixtures, 

 for the same purpose ? This, of course, was not conciliation. Why, every 

 step we have taken has been marked by the most anxious desire on our part 

 to act in concert as sporting brethren ; and even in the closing sentence of 

 this letter, our last act is to offer you the hand of good fellowship, and give 

 you an opportunity, by its acceptance, of preventing another quarrel from 

 being added to the feuds of the sporting world. 



