QUEER THINGS DONE AT COUESTNG MEETINGS. 213 



man need not have the best greyhound to come off 

 the victor. Durhig my experience I have seen queer 

 things done. I saw a greyhound of Mr. AVilliam 

 Lawrence's, at a meeting near Cheltenham, put in, I 

 think, four times for undecided courses, each course of 

 which Mr. Lawrence won, till by a deep fallow and 

 an incompetent hare, a chance was aiforded of deciding 

 the course against him. An infinity of unjust sentences 

 are passed during the season, and if one can do so, the 

 charitable way of accounting for them is, the great 

 ignorance in the rules of coursing in the judges. 



Suppose two greyhounds are slipped at a bad hare, 

 and one of them shows a vast superiority of speed 

 over the other in the run up, and first two or three 

 turns while the hare is on her speed and strong, then 

 after that if the hare loses her speed and strength, 

 and dodges the dogs round a bush, or in and out a 

 bundle of hurdles leaned against a wall, as I once 

 saw, and the other dog dodges the self-turned hare 

 the most round and round a space not exceeding 

 forty yards, all that, if it lasted for ten or twenty 

 minutes, would not, and should not count over the 

 decided superiority and work when the dogs were at 

 the top of their speed, and obliged to turn the hare 

 instead of the hare turning herself. There is no 

 field where a dog more requires the presence of his 

 master than in a coursing field, in order to see fair 

 play. I saw a greyhound of mine at the Greenway 

 Meeting, in slips with a dog of Sir J. Bosworth's, 

 the attendant of whom was a queer L^ish lad em- 

 ployed by the person to whom the dog was lent. 

 Wide awake were the Irishmen, and so was I. My 

 greyhound was a beautiful little tinnd thing, the best 

 of her size that ever ran, a pet, belonging to a lady 



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