statistics of the Present Day 



glorious Tedworth run of 1858, when they found as 

 bold a fox as ever stood before hounds at Manning- 

 ford Bohune, and with irresistible drive ran all 

 along the Pewsey Vale, through Savernake Forest, 

 and right on to Hungerford, where they killed in 

 the harness-room at Standen House — " nineteen 

 miles as the crow flies, a nice bit farther, allowing 

 for turns, and just five minutes over the two 

 hours." 



Every country has its honoured '' Father of the 

 Hunt," whose heart is still in the sport, though 

 in his declining years he may be able only to 

 get occasional glimpses of it from the pony-trap. 

 There are, however, wonderful instances on record 

 of nonagenarian followers of hounds ; and it was 

 only last winter that the death occurred of Mr. 

 Richard Gillow, the father of the Vale of Lune 

 Hunt, who hunted up to the age of ninety-eight ; 

 whilst Mr. Robert Abbott, the oldest member of 

 the Bilsdale Hunt — ninety-three or ninety-four, I 

 think, is what he confesses to — not content with 

 the performances of his own pack alone, must 

 needs ride over the border now and again ''just 

 to see what the Hurworth are doing." Dryden's 

 well-known lines — 



" Better to hunt in fields for health unbought 

 Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught " — 



have often been laid with flattering unction to 

 the fox-hunter's soul ; but surely in the cases just 



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