348 CHANGES IN FOX-HUNTING 



Marquis of Waterford, in 1859, that caused the hunting- 

 cap to go out of fashion. It was thought at the time 

 that a tall hat would have acted as a buffer and saved 

 the neck, for the hard, unyielding hunting-cap was only 

 slightly indented by the fall. Be that as it may, most 

 Irish squires who were Lord Waterford's contem- 

 poraries stuck to their hunting-caps for several years 

 after his lamented death, and after they had become 

 unfashionable in England. They had not quite gone 

 out, however, when Whyte-Melville wrote Market 

 Harborough, for readers of that delightful work will 

 remember that Mr. John Standish Sawyer made his 

 first appearance in Leicestershire in a cap, and went so 

 well in a " merry-go-rounder " with the Pytchley, 

 that pretty Miss Cissy Dove caused his heart to 

 thrill by saying " We all agreed that the cap had 

 the best of it." In Leech's hunting sketches — " Pictures 

 from Life and Character in the possession of Mr. 

 Punch " — we can clearly trace the wane of the popu- 

 larity of the cap, though I think our dear old friend 

 Mr. Briggs, save when out with the Brighton Harriers, 

 is always represented in the hunting-field wearing 

 the headgear to which his wife took such exception 

 when it was first sent home. 



Leech was so close an observer of life and character 

 that his sketches are valuable as showing the changes 

 of costume in England during the period in which 

 he worked. He gives us the gradual progress of 

 crinolines from the mildly accentuating bustle to 

 the unmeaning monstrosity of hoops ; he shows us 

 the advent of the peg-top trouser, the birth of the 

 knickerbocker, and from his pictures we learn how 



