Hunting in the last Centiiry. 



kind, called a town-pack, or a town-cry, not quite 

 extinct now, but then kept in many country towns 

 and villages. These hounds had no kennel, but were 

 billeted, as it were, amongst the tradesmen and 

 other principal inhabitants of the place, and were 

 often to be seen lying about before their owners' 

 doors. On hunting days, they were collected to- 

 gether by a horn blown in the street. A friend of 

 mine recollects seeing this operation performed in 

 the town of Crawley, in Sussex. He says : ' A man 

 on foot, with hobnailed boots, went blowing a horn 

 through the town and hamlet to the place of meeting, 

 and collecting the drowsy blue-mottled southern har- 

 riers.' These hounds were followed by men on foot, 

 carrying long poles to help them over the great banks 

 and ditches, the country being then considered im- 

 practicable for horses. Crawley, however, is now the 

 centre of a well-appointed pack of foxhounds. 



Nor was it at all unusual, in those days, to hunt 

 both hare and fox with the same hounds. Mr. Chute 

 and Mr. St. John had both done this, before they kept 

 regular packs of foxhounds and laid the foundations 

 of two permanent foxhunting countries. Mr. Villebois, 

 also, before he was master of the H. H., kept harriers 

 in the Candover country, which certainly were not 

 altogether guiltless of vulpine blood ; for I remember, 

 in his dining-room at Harmsworth, a painting repre- 

 senting a few couples of these hounds running into a 

 fox, nearly as big as themselves, on an open down, 

 and Mr. Villebois himself in the act of springing from 

 his horse. 



Less than fifty years ago, there lived near Hailsham, 

 in Sussex, Mr, King Sampson. This gentleman was 



B 2 



