74: FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



a line of scent too mueli, tlieir offspring are more 

 apt to per2:)Gtuato errors than tlioy are to illicit any 

 benefit from the meeting of two extremes, and 

 therefore the chances are certainly against the man 

 who hoj^es to Ijcnefit his pack hj the experiment. 

 The largest litter I ever Lrecl was from Jeopardy, 

 a bitch given to me by the late Sir John Cope. 

 She gave birth to eighteen full-sized whelps. They 

 were all reared and put out to walk, and they all 

 came to the kennel again with the entry of young 

 hounds. Out of this large lot of puppies, there was not 

 one among tliem clever enough in shape and make 

 to be chosen and put forward for the season's entry. 

 The following fact will show the value of a young 

 hound when able, handsome, sizeable, and selected ; 

 and it was on this fact, and on the current cost to a 

 master of hounds in breeding year by year, that, to the 

 then Sergeant Talfourd's surprise, I fixed as a witness 

 the value of thirty pounds, if I remember correctly, 

 on a first-class puppy of this description, who was 

 foully murdered while at walk by a neighbouring 

 farmer, and buried in the farm-yard mixen. Mr. 

 Ilorlock's whipper-in found the body of the hound, 

 and swore to it by the '^litter mark" in the ear, 

 and the owner of the hound recovered heavy 



