92 THE HOESE AND HIS EIDER. 



than to exist, as is still tlie general custom of the com- 

 munity, in vegetable garments, covered on the outside 

 with woollen clothing. In fact, it is undeniable that a 

 sinner doing penance in a hair shirt enjoys better health 

 than a saint in a lawn one. 



For ordinary work only ordinary protection may be 

 required ; but as in hunting the rider is exposed to 

 every variety of weather, good, bud, and indifferent, — to 

 sunshine, cold, wind, rain, sleet, and snow, — to a heating 

 gallop, with a plunge into a brook, ending by a chilling 

 detention at every fresh covert which the hounds- are 

 drawing, it must be obvious that to fortify himself against 

 all these alternations, he requires not merely the dress 

 superficially prescribed, namely, a scarlet coat, leather 

 breeches, top boots, and a hat or a hunting cap, but 

 beneath this gaudy surface the most wholesome descrip- 

 tion of underclothing that science can devise. 



Now in the hunting field, experience, after a desperate 

 struggle, has at last demonstrated the advantages of wool ; 

 and, accordingly, for some years it has been, and is, the 

 habit and the fashion of most men, especially "the fast 

 oneSy" entirely to discard linen, and in lieu thereof to 

 ride in flannel shirts — pink, red, crimson, or many coloured 

 — and in drawers drawn either from the back of a lamb 

 or a sheep. The coats are lined throughout backs and 

 sleeves with flannel; and as the waistcoats have also 



