262 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



his rescue* This has been the case, where the earth- 

 stopping is not performed by the gamekeeper; as the 

 stopper, who would, for such an occurrence, forfeit his 

 ticket, would be the only loser ; but without entering, 

 at the present moment, into the separate consideration 

 of matters connected with the earth-stopping, and 

 viewing only the reprehensible parts in the effects of the 

 anomalies I have described, it is evident that they are 

 the result of a want of foresight ; an absence of due 

 consideration in those with whom they originated, 

 rather than of any organization of wrong principles. 

 Reflection upon the policy of these regulations, brings 

 us back to the homely proverb with which I commenced 

 my notice of them. " What is everybody's business, is 

 nobody's." The master of the hounds is left precisely 

 in the situation of a county member, who is fain to 



* The view halloos of this fraternity must be regarded with caution, at the 

 time when a fox is sinking within the precincts of their range ; more especially 

 if the run has been a ring, and the fox has led the chase back to the domain 

 whence he was routed, and where he will repay the trouble of a keeper in 

 doing his utmost to mislead the hounds, that he may live to fight another day. 

 At the same time that the said keeper is venting curses upon his depredations, 

 and invoking his destruction by all the powers of earth or air. It is a new 

 feature in the records of fox-hunting — this accusing gamekeepers of an over 

 tenderness towards the wily animal ; but did not a shower of gold procure for 

 Jupiter free access to the brazen towers of the secluded Danae? One fox may 

 live to be worth his weight to his guardians. Once, and only once, within my 

 memory, the experiment of a bagman was hazarded in a place of unenviable 

 notoriety for blanks ; but the trick was, as usual, too palpable ; hounds dis- 

 dained the alien carcase easily subdued, and the speculation failed. 



