72 SHORT MASTERSHIPS 



I fully believe that if this dreadful idea of capturing 

 a very wealthy man and making him pay for our 

 amusement were, to a great extent, abandoned, and 

 the notion of getting a first-rate sportsman and 

 manager substituted for it in our minds, we should 

 find it advantageous for the future of fox-hunting ; 

 and I feel sure that the right men would be forth- 

 coming, provided that we who live in the country paid 

 as much attention to the management of it as we ought 

 to do ; but this requires a considerable amount of 

 organisation and energy, and the enlistment of the 

 help and sympathy of every one who is at all favour- 

 ably disposed towards fox-hunting. With the right 

 men once secured we should hear little more of twelve- 

 month Masterships. 



As things are at present managed, or rather mis- 

 managed, in too many hunting countries, only a very 

 keen and zealous sportsman who is willing to devote 

 almost his entire time to the work, is likely to remain 

 for more than a few years at the head of affairs. 

 Now this, surely, is not as it should be, and, as a 

 correspondent points out, " there must be defective 

 organisation in the system of district management" 

 that makes so much of the burden fall on the shoulders 

 of the Master. 



I could tell of a country to which a lucky but most 

 excellent and popular sportsman will shortly succeed, 

 where, owing to the cordial co-operation of the hunt- 

 ing community with the retiring Master, this new-comer 

 will find few of the cares that overburden many a 

 modern M.F.H. In that country the Master had hard 

 work at first, but he is an organiser, and knew what 



