192 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. [1893 



accounted for the majority of tlie people being completely 

 left behind, when hounds slipped away from Chartley 

 Gorse, and ran their very hardest for fifteen minutes, by 

 way of Coton village, leaving Milwich on the right, to a 

 covert belonging, I believe, to the Sandon property, where 

 the cream of the run was over. Very jealous were the 

 rest of us of those who really saw which way the hounds 

 went. Two or three foxes being now in front of us, hounds 

 divided, and time being wasted owing to wrong informa- 

 tion being given to the huntsman, it was nothing more 

 than slow hunting by way of Day Hills, nearly to Hilders- 

 ton, where we were obliged to give it up. If only the 

 hounds could have been kept together on the line of the 

 original fox, we should most probably have scored a great 

 run over a most charming country, all of which, by the 

 way, belongs to the North Staffordshire Hunt ; and it was 

 in this territory, with the exception of a few fields, that 

 we disported ourselves. As it was, we ran close on a five- 

 mile point, which is very much more than one can expect 

 in such summer-like weather as we are having just now. 

 Carry Coppice, our next draw, was reached at 4.15." In 

 this account there is evidence of that carping, criticizing 

 spirit, which has been alluded to before, and which led to 

 the change which will now be mentioned. 



The idea was that it would be a good plan to have 

 a Deputy-Master, who should control the Field, and direct 

 proceedings out hunting, when the Master was unable to 

 be present. The choice fell upon Mr. Fort, and a better 

 man for the position could not have been found. 



The Field, in a leading article in its issue April 29th, 

 1893, thus comments on the state of afiairs : — 



Mr. Fort, at a meeting recentlj' held at Uttoxeter, expressed himself as not 

 being over sanguine as to the success of the experiment of having a Master and a 

 Deputy-Master, but, like a good sportsman, consented to try for a year, if his 

 friends wished it. Mr. Gerald Hardy apologized for the line he was about to 

 take, and described it as the unenviable task of opposing the arrangement, because 

 he thought the remedy inadequate to the condition of affairs. This was not a 

 personal matter in which there was a great amount of bad feeling, as in the 



