THE PLACE FOR THE ROYAL HOUNDS 225 



forests, from the nature of the soil, absence of mineral produc- 

 tions, and scantiness of population, the New Forest was the one 

 that had the best right to have continued as an ornamental 

 appendage to the Crown, and as a site for the young princes to 

 have followed the healthful recreation of hunting and shooting. 

 It is in the New Forest that the Queen's staghounds should 

 have been kept as foxhounds; 1 and I maintain that such an 

 establishment as the present pack of staghounds is, from the 

 increase of population, railways, etc., out of place at Windsor ; 

 and that it is unseemly for the subjects to threaten the Crown 

 servants with actions, and to pelt them with pitchforks, when 

 by chance, as at present, they run over the Harrow country. 

 The people farming the greater portion of the lands over which 

 the Royal Hunt passes now, if they thought it would avail 

 them, would petition for the non-existence of the hounds, while 

 every soul, from the gentleman and farmer down to the poorest 

 cottager resident in that part of Hampshire, would memorialise 

 the Crown to bring the establishment to the New Forest. I 

 speak advisedly, and from observation as well as communication 

 with others ; and I believe, though I state it not on authority, 

 that Lord Derby's Government entertained some such idea in 

 regard to the proper site for the Royal Hunt. The New 

 Forest is upwards of sixty thousand acres of wild heath, swamp, 

 and wood. Foxes can be more easily preserved there without 

 detriment to the farmer's hen-roosts than in other places, and 

 hunting may begin earlier and last longer than in more culti- 

 vated districts, without damage to growing crops. An estab- 

 lishment such as the Crown foxhounds would be, would have 

 the effect of bringing other establishments and studs into the 

 vicinity, and afford place as well as profit to the labouring 

 people. Local gentlemen who will not hunt now because they 

 think that they could not often appear with the hounds unless 

 they subscribed, which they cannot afford to do, would then keep 

 more horses, more villas or hunting-boxes would be taken, and, 

 in short, a very general lift to the interests of a poor locality 

 1 A suggestion well worthy of consideration, even at this time of day. ED. 



Q 



