CHAPTER XXX. 



A MONMOUTHSHIRE FOX. 



YEAR by year as November comes round, the leading 

 articles in the sporting newspapers strike the warning 

 note that fox-hunting exists only on sufferance nowa- 

 days. The handwriting is on the wall, they say, and 

 the time coming when the changed conditions of 

 existence will prevent such things as reckless riding 

 over other people's land. 



Personally, I think if we are to see the national 

 sport and surely fox-hunting, not racing, is that 

 decay, it will not be through the causes which have 

 been so often held before us as those which must bring 

 about the termination of the sport which Beckford so 

 truly described as being " by nature designed to be the 

 amusement of the Briton." 



The reasons generally given by the prophets of 

 evil are twofold ; firstly, wire fencing, and secondly, 

 agricultural depression and the tendency of land laws 

 towards " nationalisation." Now it seems to me that 

 Australian hunting men have disposed of the first 

 objection, as they habitually jump five strand wire as 

 readily as we do sheep-hurdles. 



As to the second objection, there may be more in 



