OF STEADINESS 105 



for he ought to be well acquainted with the hounds, who should know and 

 follow him, as well as the huntsman. 



To recapitulate what I have already said. If your whipper-in be bold 

 and active ; be a good and careful horseman ; have a good ear, and a clear 

 voice ; if, as I said, he be a very Mungo, having, at the same time, judgment 

 to distinguish where he can be of most use ; if, joined to these, he be above 

 the foolish conceit of killing a fox without the huntsman ; but, on the con- 

 trary, be disposed to assist him all he can he then is a perfect whipper-in. 



I am sorry to hear that your hounds are so unsteady. It is scarcely 

 possible to have sport with unsteady hounds : they are half tired before the 

 fox is found, and are not to be depended upon afterwards. It is a great- 

 pleasure, when a hound challenges, to be certain that he is right : it is a 

 cruel disappointment to hear a rate immediately succeed it, and the smack- 

 ing of whips instead of halloos of encouragement. A few riotous and deter- 

 mined hounds do a deal of mischief in a pack. Never, when you can avoid 

 it, put them among the rest ; let them be taken out by themselves, and well 

 chastised ; and if you find them incorrigible, hang them. The common 

 saying, Evil communications corrupt good manners, holds good with regard 

 to hounds ; they are easily corrupted. The separating of the riotous ones 

 from those which are steady, answers many good purposes : it not only 

 prevents the latter from getting the blood which they should not, but it 

 also prevents them from being over-awed by the smacking of whips, which 

 is too apt to obstruct drawing and going deep into cover. A couple of 

 hounds, which I received from a neighbour last year, were hurtful to my 

 pack : they had run with a pack of harriers, and, as I soon found, were never 

 afterwards to be broken from hare. It was the beginning of the season ; 

 covers were thick, hares in plenty, and we seldom killed less than five or six 

 in a morning. The pack, at last, got so much blood, that they would hunt 

 them as if they were designed to hunt nothing else. I parted with that 

 couple of hounds ; and the others, by proper management, are become as 

 steady as they were before. You will remind me, perhaps, that they were 

 draft-hounds : it is true, they were so ; but they were three or four years 

 hunters ; an age when they might be supposed to have known better. I 

 advise you, unless a known good pack of hounds are to be disposed of, not 

 to accept old hounds. I mention this, to encourage the breeding of hounds, 

 and as the likeliest means of getting a handsome, good, and steady pack. 

 Though I give you this advice, it is true, I have accepted draft-hounds myself, 

 and they have been very good ; but they were the gift of the friend men- 

 tioned by me in a former Letter, 1 to whom I have already acknowledged 

 many obligations ; and unless you meet with such a one, old hounds will 

 not prove worthy your acceptance : besides, they may bring vices enough 



1 The Hon. Mr. Booth Grey, brother to the Earl of Stamford. The hounds here alluded 

 to, were from Lord Stamford's kennel. 



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