THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



' Thank ye, Francis,' exclaimed Mr. Somerby ; ' I'll drink 

 a bumper to your health. You have given me a capital lift in 

 the defence I am called upon to make to a somewhat serious 

 charge, and to a reflection upon fox-hunters and fox-hunting. 

 You have helped me to the very loop-hole at which I can 

 escape. You shall now hear what I have to say ; and, as I 

 am sure you will, one day or another, be a fox-hunter, I 

 advise you to bear in mind my observations. The facts are 

 these : — Mr. Meynell, and some other masters of foxhounds, 

 have brought them to the very highest pitch of perfection of 

 which their nature, I believe, is capable, both as to high breed- 

 ing and condition ; whilst the state of the horses that follow 

 them is left very nearly where it was. Strange to say, Cecil 

 Forester, the very best rider we have amongst us, and sup- 

 posed to be the best judge of a hunter, declares he never saw 

 half a dozen first-rate thorough-bred hunters in his life ; the 

 consequence is, that the half-bred horse is still, for the most 

 part, required to do what the thorough-bred cannot more than 

 do ; which is, to go a, racing 'pace over a country ; and he must 

 go a racing pace to keep up to Meynell's hounds. Then, 

 again, the hunter remains in the back-ground in another 

 respect. Hounds are preserved in condition all the year 

 round ; that is to say, they are kept to a certain point of 

 strength in their food during the summer, and are exercised 

 regularly till hunting again commences. But how is the 

 hunter served ? Why, by the absurd prejudice of our grooms, 

 to which we inconsiderately give way, he is stripped of his 

 fine condition at the end of the season, — which, by the way, 

 it has taken half a year to acquire, — and allowed to run three 

 months abroad, accumulating a load of bad, flabby flesh, 

 amidst the persecution of flies by day, and subject to all the 

 vicissitudes of our climate by night. Now what follows ? He 

 is taken up in August, and by the end of October — at all 

 events, by the first week in November — is expected to be equal 

 to more than the exertions of the race-horse who has never 

 been entirely thrown out of condition since he was first 

 saddled. These are the causes of such distress and apparent 

 cruelty to the horse that follows foxhounds, and account for 

 the few that, by means of great accidental superiority in the 

 animal, are alone able to see a fast and long 'run througJtout. 

 Thus, also, the following paragraph, which I saw the other 



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