CHAPTER II 



THE ORIGIN OF FOX-HUNTING— A GLIMPSE AT 

 MELTON TO-DAY AND AS IT WAS IN ITS 

 INFANCY 



" What sports can compare to the sports of the field ? 

 Full lasting and choice are the blessings they yield ; 

 Sure the gods were resolved when they fashioned the hare, 

 To favour mankind in a manner quite rare." 



— Sporting Magazine^ 1 793. 



The flight of society to the shires in such numbers 

 is substantial proof of what fox-hunting is to the 

 country. Some years have elapsed since a writer 

 made out an estimate of nine millions per annum 

 spent on hunting. This sum appears to be pro- 

 digious, and so, indeed, it is, if only applied to 

 kennel establishments. There are 204 packs of 

 hounds in the United Kingdom, of which some 

 could show an expenditure of ;^io,ooo a year, and 

 many over ^^4000. This is, however, but the small 

 side of the total costs, as many thousand studs of 

 hunters are maintained, representing an enormous 

 amount of money, with veritable armies of em- 

 ployees, mansions of almost the proportions of 

 palaces in nearly every quarter of England, Ireland, 

 and Scotland, and a trade thereby in provincial 



towns that must of necessity be of considerable 



8 



