140 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. [1842 



in a gate, which snapped it short off, and the gallant rider 

 was thrown, and, I am sorry to say, is not expected to 

 recover, having received some internal injuries. He was 

 immediately carried to the Crown, Tamworth, and speedy 

 assistance given, 



" The hounds followed and killed after an eighteen miles 

 run, which was done by a select few in an hour and a half, 

 over hard ground, wdth only one slight check, and, with 

 the exception of the accident to Mr, Harding, is one of 

 the finest runs which has occurred in this part of the 

 country throughout the whole season. During the whole 

 of the run the hounds were hunted by Mr. Joseph Slacker 

 in the most masterly style." 



Who the Mr. Joseph Slacker here referred to was, the 

 author has failed to discover. It may possibly have been 

 a nickname for Joe Leedham, for writers for the sporting 

 press were allowed more freedom of speech than is con- 

 sidered proper nowadays, and Joe seems to have had his 

 detractors. 



On Michaelmas day, 1842, just as the indoor and 

 outdoor servants were sitting down to roast goose in the 

 servants' hall, as the custom was, there came the news 

 that the old squire had succeeded to the Temple Newsam 

 estates in Yorkshire, and he ordered something good to be 

 served out to wash down the roast choose. " We had the 

 liquor after that," an old man told the writer, " but no 

 more roast goose, for the squire used to spend Michaelmas 

 at Temple Newsam." Sciatica, too, had him in its grip, 

 and he went hunting very little afterwards, his active 

 duties as master devolving on his brother, the Admiral, 

 and his son, the young squire. 



On January 18 th, they met at Foston Hall, at the 

 time when Queen Adelaide resided at Sudbury, and several 

 of her distinguished guests attended the meet, which was 

 not a large one. A correspondent sent the following 

 account of the day's sport to Bell's Life: — 



A fox was soon found and went away at a rattling pace, and, after a good 

 inn of forty-five minutes, was lost near Sutton, owing, we believe, to the flooded 



