CHAPTER IX 



CHELTENHAM AND V.W.H. 



One of the most celebrated packs of hounds, which 

 have been in the possession of the same proprietor 

 during the greatest number of years without inter- 

 mission, is Earl Fitzhardinge's. Mr. Farquharson is, I 

 believe, the only other master of hounds who has had 

 them a similar length of time. His lordship established 

 them during the lifetime of the late Earl Berkeley, 

 which I take from his own words in a speech made by 

 his lordship on the occasion of a piece of plate being 

 presented to him at Cheltenham in the spring of 1852, 

 when he facetiously enumerated some of the difficulties 

 he had to encounter and gave an amusing account of 

 his first day's sport in Newent Woods on the 24th of 

 September, 1808. Difficulties which prove fatal to men 

 of weak minds are incentives to greater exertions with 

 others, provided they are gifted with resolution. From 

 the following remarks made by his lordship it will be 

 gleaned that he formed his pack from drafts :— " He 

 was obliged to take what he could get — the refuse of 

 other kennels — those whose capital sentence had been 

 commuted to transportation." It must be universally 

 acknowledged that under judicious treatment the con- 

 victs became thoroughly reclaimed, and their offspring 

 distinguished ornaments of the canine race. His lord- 

 ship farther remarked, " but though so untrained, 

 there was good stuff in them, and they were the 

 ancestors of his present pack, which were acknowledged 

 to be good hounds." Here is the secret unravelled, the 

 blood was good, and " blood will tell," whether it be 

 in man, horse, or hound. I cannot state what kennels 



