32 THE COMPLETE FOXHUNTER 



ignored. Masters of hounds and hunting people 

 generally are crying out for redress, and to put it 

 briefly some of these countries will probably cease to 

 exist unless there is an improvement. In some quarters 

 a most pernicious doctrine has been put forward, to the 

 effect that people have no business to hunt in a game 

 country. This rank heresy has actually been approved 

 by a journal avowedly written in the interests of sport, 

 and the very fact of such an idea having found its way 

 — not as a letter from one of the public, but as the 

 opinion of the newspaper in question — into print, is 

 evidence as to how the situation is strained in some 

 countries. 



Perhaps it is hardly worth our while to go into this 

 part of the question, nor is it necessary for us to state 

 how much a district is benefited by a pack of hounds 

 and the money spent thereon. It need only be said that 

 in the wonderful idea to which we have referred it was 

 suggested that hunting people who lived in a game 

 country should emigrate to the Shires or elsewhere, 

 where game was not of so much consequence. That 

 was the gist of the argument, but if the matter is 

 looked at for a moment it will be seen that what was 

 proposed was the abolition of hunting everywhere, ex- 

 cept in some few particular districts. That residents in 

 any country where there was a good deal of game 

 should wish to hunt from home was quite ignored, and 

 in effect the article suggested that where the land was 

 suitable for a big head of game there should be no hunt- 

 ing. How the crowd driven to the places where hunt- 

 ing was still to be carried on were to be accommodated 

 was not shown, nor was it demonstrated how the thou- 

 sands and thousands of men and women who can afford 

 to hunt a little from their own homes were to find the 



