220 MM. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 



chests, strong loins, straight legs, round feet, with plenty of lone all 

 over. I hate a weedy animal; a small hound, light of bone, is 

 only fit to hunt a katin a kitchen. 



" I shall also ivant a couple of whips — not fellows Wee waiters 

 from Crawley's hotel, but light, active men, not bogs. I'll have 

 nothiri to do with bogs ; evcrg bog requires a man to look arter him. 

 No ; a couple of short, light, active men — say from five-and-twenty 

 to thirty ', with bow-legs and good cheerg voices, as nearly of the same 

 make as you can find them. I shall not give them large wage, you 

 know ; but they will have opportunities of improving themselves 

 under me, and qualifying themselves for high places. But mind, 

 they must be steady — I'll keep no unsteady servants; the first 

 act of drunkenness, ivith me, is the last. 



"I shall also ivant a second horseman; and here I would/it 

 mind a mule boy who could keep his elbows down and never touch 

 the curb ; but he must be bred in the line ; a huntsman's second 

 Iwrseman is a critical article, and the sporting ivorld must not be 

 put in mourning for Dick Bragg. The lad will have to clean mg 

 boots, and wait at table when I have compang — yourself, for 

 instance. 



" This is only a poor, rough, ungentlemanly sort of shire, as far 

 as I have seen of it ; and however they got on ivith the things I 

 found that they called hounds I can't for the life of me imagine. I 

 understand they ivent stringing over the country like a flock of wild 

 geese. Hoivcver, I have rectified that in a manner bg knocking all 

 the fast 'uns and slow' wis on the head; and I shall require at 

 least twenty couple before I can take the field. In your official 

 report of what your old file puts back, you 11 have the kindness to 

 cobble ns up good long pedigrees, and carry half of them at least back 

 to the Beaufort Justice. My man Ms yot a crochet into his head 

 about that hound, and I'm dimmed if he doesn't think half the 

 hounds in England are descended from the Beaufort Justice. These 

 hounds are at present called the Mangeysternes, a very proper title, I 

 should sag, from all Tve seen and heard. That, however, must be 

 changed ; and we must have a button struck, instead of the plain 

 pewter plates the men have been in the habit of hunting in. 



" As to horses, I'm sure I cloiit know what we are to do in that 

 line. Our pastrycook seems to think that a hunter, like one of his 

 jjo's pies, can be made and baked in a day. He talks of going over 

 to Rowdcdow Fair, and picking some up himself; but I should say 

 a gentleman demeans himself sadly who interferes with the just 

 prerogative of the groom. It has never been allowed I know in any 

 place I have lived ; nor do I think servants do justice to themselves 

 or their order who submit to it. Howsomever, the crittur 1ms 

 what Mr. Cobden would call the 'raiv material" 1 for sport — that 

 is to say, plenty of money — and I must see and apply it in such a 



