loo THE COMPLETE FOXHUNTER 



be remembered that when very hard-and-fast lines are 

 drawn with regard to subscription some one must suffer 

 badly. Hunting folk there are whose circumstances 

 have caused them to come down to one day a week, 

 when they had hunted on three or four days for per- 

 haps half a lifetime. When this has occurred and 

 a lower subscription has been offered it has generally 

 been accepted, but cases have been known in which it 

 was intimated that no one was expected to hunt who did 

 not pay the minimum subscription, and this has had 

 the effect of causing men to cease hunting altogether, 

 or of moving into a country where matters were differ- 

 ently arranged. 



There can be no greater mistake than to attempt to 

 stop the one-day-a-week man, who is willing to subscribe 

 ^lo, from hunting ; ^lo probably means as much 

 to him as ;^ioo to his rich neighbour, and were it in his 

 power he would doubtless be out far oftener than he is. 

 But it is abuse of the system of subscription which 

 puts a hunt committee in a difficulty, for it is a fact 

 that many rich people pay far less than they ought to 

 do, while a good many expect that if the head of a 

 house subscribes, his subscription entitles not only 

 himself, but his wife, grown-up sons and daughters, 

 and a string of children to hunt as well. Sometimes 

 a party of well on to a dozen will hunt from one house, 

 man, wife, and half a dozen children, who, with second 

 horses and grooms attendant on the children, make at 

 least a dozen horses in the field. On the other hand 

 there are houses from which the subscription is more 

 varied — where the head of the house, his wife, and 

 all sons and daughters above the school boy or girl 

 stage subscribe individually, where foxes are well 

 looked after, and puppies are regularly walked. Such 



