THE FIELD 131 



the new beginner until he has become thoroughly 

 at home out hunting. He can then advance by easy 

 stages to white breeches and top boots, and lastly 

 to scarlet and leathers, but above all things he should 

 avoid mufti after the season proper has commenced. 



Hunting mufti was at one time to be procured of 

 a fairly sporting cut, and which was at all events 

 inoffensive, but of late years the mufti which is seen 

 at cub-hunting fixtures, and which is worn even later 

 in the season by those who have no proper sense of 

 what is due to hunting, is quite without the pale. We 

 do not mean to say that it is impossible to turn out 

 looking neat and respectable unless one is dressed 

 in orthodox fashion, but it is most difficult, for the 

 simple reason that the clothes which look well enough 

 and suitable for a man hacking about the country are 

 terribly out of place when one forms a unit of a 

 properly dressed crowd. A short jacket of a loud 

 pattern may do to wear at a horse sale, but when 

 it is accompanied by a pair of white polo breeches, 

 brown jack-boots, and a hideous peaked cap it is an 

 insult to a hunting field — after the first of November. 

 If mufti must be used let it be a whole suit of very dark 

 whipcord cloth, and let the jacket be cut long in the 

 waist. A short jacket is, under any circumstances, 

 unsightly on a horse, and a short jacket on a thick- 

 built, short-waisted man makes him look quite at 

 his worst. And, again, if mufti is imperative, special 

 attention should be given to details. Whip, spurs, 

 luncheon case and flask should all be correct, and the 

 horse turned out as a hunter should be, and not look- 

 ing like a cab horse out for the day. 



But, as can be gathered, we dislike mufti except at 

 cub-hunting, when orthodox clothes are equally out 



