THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 121 



I'evolution of railroads may affect the breed of horses, 

 and fox-hunting generally, it is impossible to say. T he 

 speculation on the subject is of too painful a nature ; 

 we cannot enter fully into it, without verging upon a 

 disquisition on political economy beyond the province of 

 a treatise on the Noble Science. It must be sufficiently 

 obvious to the most narrow-spirited, that, unless they 

 are the objects of fresh legislation, these railroads must 

 become the most oppressive monopoly ever inflicted 

 upon a free country. When all the inns and road-side 

 houses shall be tenantless, and gone to decay, their 

 present occupants being lost in the abyss of inevitable 

 ruin which is now opened for them ; when not only 

 posting, and post-horses, but the roads on which they 

 travelled, shall be, with the Turnpike Acts themselves, 

 matter of history — the means of locomotion will be 

 at the mercy of the most merciless of all human beings 

 - — a class actuated by cupidity, and beyond the reach of 

 that salutary correction, that only security for the 

 public against the abuse of private privilege — a com- 

 petition. To us, as sportsmen, the intersection of any 

 country by canal, or railroad, furnishes food enough 

 in itself for lamentation ; we bewail the beauty of the 

 district spoiled, and, as an obstacle to our amusement, 

 we denounce the barrier hostile to our sport. It is 

 not, however, in such a light only that we view the 

 case. We willingly admit, that the diversions of one 

 class in society are but as a feather in the balance, 

 v/hen weighed against the practical utility of any work. 



