THE WHIPPER-IN 95 



the ordinary run of the hunting fixtures. After the 

 huskiness comes the broken voice of the old practi- 

 tioner. We have heard men whose notes have been 

 broken right in two. 



It is curious to see how hunting runs in families — 

 to see how certain names pervade our different hunt- 

 ing establishments — how like begets like, and son 

 succeeds father. Shirley, for instance, has a son 

 Huntsman to Sir John Cope : old Tom Ball, if we 

 mistake not, has one or two Whipper-in sons — one, 

 we know, whipped-in to Mountford, in Leicestershire, 

 in Lord Suffield's time, and we think there was 

 another with the Pytchley, during Mr. Payne's first 

 occupation of the country, if not in Lord Chester- 

 field's reign. Smith, Lord Yarborough's Huntsman, 

 is great-grandson of the first Huntsman of that name ; 

 his father, our readers may remember, had the mis- 

 fortune to break his neck at a trifling place the very 

 last day of a season. 



Mr. Davis, speaking of Smith, the father, in the 

 " Hunter's Annual," where, of him and his two sons, 

 as Whippers-in, capital likenesses are given, says — 



" Of the natural requisites for a Huntsman of fox- 

 hounds, so much has been said before, and really so 

 much seems to be expected, that a man to shine in 

 this department is one to be chosen out of ten 

 thousand, and then his youth ought to be spent in 

 the education fitting his peculiar line of life. It has 

 been said of Smith, that if schooling had done as 

 much for him as nature had endowed him with, that 

 no situation in life would be too high for his powers. 

 It is highly honourable to him and his family, that 

 he is the third generation filling the office of Hunts- 

 man to the Brocklesby Hunt. In 18 16, the Lord 

 Yarborough of that day presented the grandfather of 

 the present Huntsman with a handsome silver cup, 

 capable of holding the liberal quantity of upwards of 

 two quarts, on which was this inscription — ' The gift 



