HISTOHY OF THE LINLITHGOW 



his term of office had been a short one and, ac- 

 cording to his own statement, considerable help 

 had been received by him from Mr James Hope, 

 Mr T. E. 0. Home, and Mr Alexander Scott, he 

 had hunted the country with much energy and 

 success, and on a scale of liberality approaching 

 magnificence. The presentation was made in 

 Slaney's hotel in Edinburgh, on the 5th of 

 April, when Colonel Shairp of Houstoun acted 

 as spokesman for the subscribers.^ 



The fact that Mr Hope had resolved to resign 

 his mastership at the end of the season had been 

 known for nearly a year prior to the date of the 

 presentation, and for quite eight months before 

 a meeting of the Hunt held on the 18th of 

 January 1871, when, no new master having 

 been found to hunt the whole territory as it 

 had been hunted during the two preceding 

 seasons, Mr Hope suggested that the district 

 should be curtailed by giving up that part of 

 it lying to the east of the eastern boundary of 

 the Duke of Buccleuch's Dalkeith country, and 

 that the remainder should be hunted under a 

 committee of management three days a - week. 

 This recommendation, although ultimately adopted, 

 did not at first meet with general approval, and 

 it was agreed to disjoin the two countries, — the 

 Linlithgow and Stirlingshire and the East Lothian 

 — and hunt them separately as before, Sir David 



^ 'Edinburgh Evening Courant,' 6th April 1871. 

 226 



