THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 153 



frequently most invaluable when once upon a fox. Any 

 hound that does not instantly desist from running riot, 

 when properly rated, should be caught np, if there 

 be time (and it is seldom that this occurs during real 

 business), and chastised on the spot. If it be expedient 

 to punish a hound, it is folly to do it by halves. Couple 

 his fore-legs under his neck, let him lie writhing in futile 

 efforts to follow the pack, while the whipper-in remains 

 to administer the lash behind. He is in no danger of 

 bruises from the double thong, but he cannot escape a 

 stroke of the lash that " bites to the quick." It must 

 have been a curious sight to have seen Mr. Smith's 

 twenty-five couples, " fifty in a row," tied to park palings 

 (lasJiings must have been at a premium), to be flogged 

 " till all hands were tired." Dr. Kate's feat of birching 

 some fifty pairs of rebellious Etonians, one fine morning, 

 w^as a joke to this ; they had it one by one. Pity that 

 there is no omni-flagellatory steam-engine. It might be 

 worth erecting such an apparatus, "for six weeks' " prac- 

 tice, " from daybreak till the afternoon."'" On bad scent- 

 ing days, when there is confusion of scent on ground 

 stained with varieties of game, the best hounds may flash 

 a little at hare ; but we are supposing nothing adverse — 

 we are drawing upon a good hunting day ; not a pretty 

 patch of gorse, though we have several ; but, as they are 

 not the most common of our coverts, say Westbury, or 

 any other moderate sized wood which may suggest itself 

 to your fancy. See that old bitch how she feathers— how 



* Vide Diary of a Hvintsman, page 41. 



