331 



war not with the confined and defenceless, but seek 

 the wild game in its native haunts, allow it all its 

 many natural shifts, all its energies for escape, and 

 would blush to take it at unfair advantage, as, God 

 be praised ! they would shun to take their fellow-man. 

 Long may the homely but glorious sentiment "a 

 clear stage and no favour" be the pass-word of our 

 country to deeds of manly daring : long may such a 

 sentiment influence us in facing the enemies of our 

 land of sport; and long may it also teach us to 

 stop the falling blow when levelled at a prostrate or 

 defenceless foe. 



Let cavillers rail at some of our national sports, and 

 despise or pretend to despise trials of manhood they 

 have not the courage or hardihood to meet or imitate : 

 let other nations say such sports are unrefined, that 

 our pugilistic encounters tend to brutalise the mind 

 or harden the heart : the craven only promulgates 

 such ideas. If brutalising the mind consists in teach- 

 ing man to look his fellow-man in the face without 

 cowering beneath his glance, or in teaching him to 

 scorn to take advantage of a helpless enemy, then 

 and not till then will such encounters merit the epithet. 

 That such exhibitions are not refined, every man must 

 allow ; but we want not refinement for the unrefined, 

 and to these unrefined do we chiefly owe a nation's 

 glory and a nation's peace. 



And now return we to the chase. Doubtless in 

 former days there was but little refinement to be 

 found among mere fox-hunting squires. Whence 

 arose this ? Not from their pursuits, so far as those 

 pursuits went ; but from other causes. In those days 

 the badness of roads made travelling slow, expensive, 

 and inconvenient j consequently journeys were seldom 



