CHANGES INT FOX-HUNTING 341 



must either be curtailed of their fair proportion of sport or abolished 

 altogether. This is not as it should be. Men are as fond of hunting, 

 at least of riding to hounds, as ever ; but though we feel we may be 

 telling a disagreeable truth to many, the fact is that most men want to 

 hunt for nothing. The day for this, however, is fast drawing to a close. 

 The breed of country gentlemen who keep hounds — the Ealph 

 Lambtons, the Farquharsons, the Assheton Smiths, the Villebois and 

 Osbaldestons — are fast disappearing, in all probability never to be re- 

 newed. True that it is a fine, a proud sight to see an English country 

 gentleman spending his income on his native soil, and affording happi- 

 ness and amusement to his neighbours, receiving their respect and 

 esteem in return, but we cannot help feeling that unless a man has one 

 of those overwhelming incomes that are more frequently read of than 

 enjoyed, it is hardly fair that the expenses of a sport that affords health 

 and recreation to hundreds should fall upon his individual shoulders." 



It seems difficult to believe that this extract was 

 written seventy-five years ago, so forcibly do its argu- 

 ments come home to us in the year of grace 1909, when 

 all hunting expenses have increased 20 per cent. 

 Nothing, as a matter of fact, was very " speedily 

 arranged," but when the brave old squires whom the 

 writer enumerates took the field no more, they left 

 no successors to provide " health and recreation " free 

 of charge in the districts over which they hunted. The 

 proud sight of an English nobleman affording happi- 

 ness and amusement to his neighbours, and in return 

 " receiving their respect and esteem " (but no subscrip- 

 tion) is, however, still to be witnessed in two parts 

 of Yorkshire, in Lincolnshire, in Dorset, on the Welsh 

 border, and in Scotland ; but elsewhere the arrange- 

 ment has been made, and subscription packs hunt every 

 part of the kingdom. 



The subscription lists of many of these packs should 

 " in the present depressed state of land property," be 



