38 " TO THIS COMPLEXION WE MUST COME," ETC. 



siderate, and humane ideas that ever emanated from 

 the brain of a great statesman. 



Having in the last few lines got a long way out of 

 my line of country, the best thing I can do is, not ex- 

 actly to run heel, but still to get back as fast as pos- 

 sible to where I may at all events have some chance ; 

 for while in Politic Gorse a challenge from any throat 

 would sound like a woo-whoop at once for me. 



It may be said, if racing can be supposed to have 

 produced such improvement in our judgment and 

 management of our hunting establishments, that the 

 same field for information has ever been open to 

 us since racing was first practised. Doubtless it has ; 

 but the necessity for putting such information into 

 practice was not called for. Things would have been 

 better done if our ancestors had attended to such ; 

 but as their horses in those days carried them well 

 enough for the pace they wanted them to go, anything 

 bordering on training of hunters was never thought 

 of: so the horse worked himself into condition WITH 

 hounds, instead of being worked into it in order to 

 meet them. In those days, speaking comparatively, 

 weight did not signify much, anymore than condition ; 

 but when we came to breed hounds that could run 

 over the Beacon Course in about the same time that 

 Hambletonian and Diamond and others have done it 

 (which hounds have done), it became quite time not 

 only to look out for a different description of horse to 

 follow them, but also to put them in a different sort of 

 condition. We hear nothing now of the cry of our 

 fathers that no runs are to be expected till after 

 Christmas. When the flesh was to be got off and the 

 wind got into hounds and horses in the hunting field, 

 doubtless our venerated fathers were seldom disap- 



