The Hunt Servants. 8i 



hounds at all — the Deputy-Master should take the 

 huntsman's place when the Master is not present. 

 The frequent change of attitude towards him re- 

 quired on the part of hounds who one day regard 

 him as the whipper-in, whom they should fear more 

 than love, and the next as their huntsman, whom 

 they should love more than fear, cannot but 

 be bad for the discipline of a well-ordered 

 pack. Where the paid man is hunting the 

 hounds, too, it is probable that he will have in- 

 sufficient assistance in the whipping-in department. 

 Consequently he will be afraid of hounds getting 

 away from him, with the result that he will keep 

 them all together like a flock of sheep — first on one 

 bank and then on another — and the sport will 

 necessarily suffer. 



The great temptation to which the young whipper- 

 in — one just promoted from kennel -lad — succumbs 

 is that of rating hounds when they don't need it 

 and of constantly clipping into them with the whip. 

 Good hounds should not require to be struck with 

 the lash at all. If they do not obey the rate, a 

 crack of the whip, not a stroke of the lash, should 

 make them attend. To strike a hound (who may 

 have been hanging behind, or even speaking to a 

 rabbit or a moorhen, but who leaves it on hearing 

 the whipper-in's rate) as he comes galloping past to 

 rejoin the huntsman, is not only stupid, but criminal. 



G 



