FOX-HUNTING TYPES 257 



pairs of leathers not one could be found that was 

 cleaned to his entire satisfaction. I meet him 

 occasionally in divers places and in different array, 

 but always picture him as he was described to me 

 seated in the middle of his dressing-room surrounded 

 by piles of snowy buckskins, " sweerin' at lairge " at 

 his unfortunate valet. 



Surtees has given us in his novels many pictures 

 of country fox-hunters who patronised the chase for 

 almost every reason that could be imagined save a 

 love of the sport, and if some of these sketches seem 

 to incline to caricature, most of them, I am told, 

 were drawn from life. In these, the Man who Hunts 

 Because it is The Thing to Do, is not forgotten, 

 and we wonder who really enjoyed himself most, 

 Mr. Puffington in Soapey Sponge, or Mr. Willey Watkins 

 in Mr. Romford's Hounds. Other reasons still more 

 curious carried many of Surtees' characters into the 

 field — Mr. Jogglebury Crowdey (chairman of the 

 Stir-it-Stiff Union) to cut his gibbey-sticks, Archie 

 Ellenger to try and secure a dinner, Mr. Bunting to 

 try to secure a wife ; but we may hold up Mr. 

 Puffington as the prototype of many a man who 

 has appeared before the world as a fox-hunter because 

 he thought it the correct thing to be — no exaggeration 

 or caricature this, but a carefully drawn and correct 

 likeness. His ambition to achieve popularity led to 

 the placing of the magic letters M.F.H. after his 

 name, though as Mr. Jack Spraggon observed with 

 a sneer, he had "as much taste for the thing as a 

 cow " ; and this really may be said of numbers who 

 come out hunting in the beginning of the reign of 



Hounds, Gentlemen, Please. 18 



