Fox-himting Past and Present 



maining in front during a quick thing in the 

 southern country. Being compHmented upon the 

 sensation he had created, the veteran repHed, 

 with just a suspicion of scorn in his tone : 

 ^'What! did they expect to see me come out 

 in a bath-chair, then ? " 



Among Irish M.F.H.'s at present in office Mr. 

 de Sahs Filgate now holds the longest record, 

 for he has hunted the Louth Country since i860, 

 while in England the distinction belongs to Lord 

 Portman, for, although his father nominally held 

 the mastership during his lifetime, his active 

 superintendence of the pack dated from 1858. 

 There have been several other masterships of 

 half a century and upwards. Not many seasons 

 ago the late Mr. T. C. Garth celebrated his jubilee 

 as M.F.H. shortly before his retirement; and to 

 go back into earlier pages of hunting history, we 

 find the late Mr. T. Walton Knolles kept the sport 

 going in the South Union country in Ireland for 

 fifty years or more, and that Devonshire has 

 known a mastership of similar duration — that of 

 Mr. Elias Tremlett, a contemporary of the Rev. 

 ''Jack" Russell. Then the famous Squire Far- 

 quharson hunted an enormous tract of country 

 comprising the South Dorset and much of the 

 Blackmore Vale and Cattistock from 1806 to 1858, 

 six days a week, and at his own expense ; Mr. 



Boothby, father of ^' Prince " Boothby, had a 



140 



