PREFACE 



In this the golden age of all kinds of Sporting, and 

 it may be added of all kinds of Sporting Hand-Books 

 — when some dozen Turf Guides and Calendars woo the 

 would-be-wise to study pedigree and performance ; when 

 Coursing Manuals offer their aid to the Lover of the Leash 

 in his random recollections of the doughty deeds of Long, 

 Long Ago ! or the glories of Waterloo ; when spirited 

 publishers politely send forth pocket Pilots to steer the 

 stranger Snob, or stranger Swell, through a wonderful run 

 with any Hounds and over any Country ; and when, too, 

 the Cricketer goes to Book for his wonderful runs — some 

 scores scored up in a Match of the M. C. C. versus any 

 Country or All the World. At a period when hundreds, 

 from gallant Colonels down to humble servants, from Lords 

 who boast of their manors to keepers who cultivate them, 

 give us as many recipes for becoming fly to Shooting 

 Flying ; at a time when the courteous Chessman revels o'er 

 the pages of his peculiar Magazine ; when the Billiard-room 

 Hero patronizes "a clever little work" that shows him 



