xiv REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



saying I add, that there is not one huntsman or dog-breaker in 

 a thousand fit to carry a whip, and not one whipper-in in a 

 million who can discriminate when to hit hard, or when to be 

 content with rating, and, though last not least, when to hold 

 his tongue. My maxim is, rather to let a hundred faults pass 

 without a blow than strike a constitutionally timid animal, 

 or one that is not conscious of his fault. You may, if not 

 governed by a nice discrimination, whip a dozen faults in when 

 you flog one out. No hound, no dog, should ever be coupled 

 up to a gate-post and thrashed, as I have seen done ; the cere- 

 mony of coaxing him first to be caught, and then the coupling 

 of him up, removes all recollection from the animal's mind of 

 what he had been doing, and renders punishment vain. When 

 doing wrong let the hound be got up to, red-handed in the fact, 

 and, at the right moment, hit hard; then, when he flies the 

 scene of his errors and reaches his huntsman, by the side of the 

 huntsman's horse he should find an Alsatia for every sin, and 

 by his huntsman be coaxed for coming there. 



I once saw Beer, who hunted the Oakley hounds, taking 

 to the pack after Mr. Dauncey had resigned it, kill a cub at 

 Chellington. The hounds he had succeeded to were un- 

 doubtedly slack, their spirits never having been roused over 

 a dead fox, a triumph, by the bye, they seldom got, and there- 

 fore the more need to rejoice when such an unwonted event 

 happened. The day was close and sultry, and the hounds longing, 

 when they had killed their fox, for shade and water. When the 

 fox was rather carelessly padded and brushed, Beer lifted the 

 fox over his head, and hallooed to the pack to come and break 

 him up. One or two moved idly forward, but the rest still lay 



