The Master and the Deputy-Master. 99 



The oftener the Master can be with hounds at 

 exercise the better, especially when getting them 

 ready for their season's work. Only so can he form 

 an opinion of their fitness and condition. If he goes 

 with them on the roads the kennelman is then in his 

 proper place as whipper-in ; the boy can be left 

 at home to do some of the hundred- and-one odd jobs 

 that will otherwise be neglected ; and the contingency 

 of the kennelman employing his wife or daughter 

 to whip-in to him at exercise will be happily 

 avoided. 



And here I may say in parenthesis, and without 

 intention of being ungallant, that whatever may be 

 the case with foxhounds, harriers, and beagles, lady 

 Masters of Otter-hounds are as completely out of 

 place as would be a lady Primate of All England. 

 No lady can actually hunt a pack of Otter-hounds, 

 and her functions, therefore, in the field are simply 

 those of a Field Master, whose duties a man — with 

 the command of a rough tongue when necessary — 

 can discharge more excellently. 



The Master, if things are to run smoothly, should 

 be an autocrat in kennels as he is commander-in- 

 chief in the hunting field. A divided control in 

 either of these spheres of his duty will prove in the 

 long run fatal to sport. The business of a com- 

 mittee is primarily to select the fittest man who 

 proffers himself for the post of Master, and secon- 



H 2 



