Fox-hunting Past a7td Present 



county of broad acres. The style is partly verse 



and partly prose. Subject, ^^The Sessay Run." 



Old hunting history has but meagre accounts 



of runs ; for instance, we are told Col. Thornton 



backed a Hambleton fox to stand up for twenty 



miles before hounds, and that the gallant fox 



won the colonel his bet ; except that the fox 



was a Hambleton one, no further particulars are 



forthcoming. Col. Thornton did not leave many 



graphic accounts of his hounds' runs and their 



matches ; still, he made a sporting tour to France. 



Much hunting literature that passed muster in the 



early fifties would now be classed as ^'hunting 



buffoonery." After Surtees' and Cecil's days many 



regular hunting correspondents became accredited 



to the papers. The hunting correspondent who 



goes out, say, four days a week, has arduous duties 



to perform. If he be a sportsman he has little to 



complain of, even though his be not a bed of roses. 



His presence is scarcely or ever questioned, so he 



is probably a persona grata. Next to the hunt 



servants he is the hardest-worked person who goes 



out hunting. He has some trouble to make out 



the "points" of a run, and give those incidental 



touches which brighten up his narrative. This 



information is very hard indeed to get sometimes. 



The letters he receives from brother-sportsmen 



are nearly always genial and friendly. There are 



critics and critics. The greatest annoyance to him 



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