THE VALUE OF FOXHOUNDS 223 



whilst for the poor he provided constant employ- 

 ment by purchasing everything in his own imme- 

 diate vicinity, by having every article used in his large 

 establishment made, as far as possible, in the adjacent 

 towns and villages, by maintaining a large retinue of ser- 

 vants and a stud of hunters with means and appliances 

 to boot, by distributing alms where alms were needed, 

 and by occupying his leisure hours in the pursuits of 

 agriculture. At this sale the lots were not very well 

 sorted, hounds of every description forming part of the 

 old-fashioned kennel, so buyers desirous of possessing 

 a particular couple had perforce to make a bid for a 

 lot and leave it to further consideration whether the 

 "undesirables" should be destroyed or parted with. 

 The black and tan hounds were reported to be capital 

 in the pursuit of a mountain fox, and it seemed to be a 

 strain from an original cross between the ancient dew- 

 lapped southern hound and the blue mottled harrier, 

 looking capable of hunting anything from "an ele- 

 phant to an earwig," but the thirty-eight and a half 

 couples only realised the insignificant sum of ^^44 is. 



In the June of this same year the hounds which for 

 two seasons had been hunting the Vine country and the 

 Herefordshire respectively were parted with for £66 14s. , 

 the pack consisting of twenty couples, one and a half 

 couples of unentered hounds, and six puppies, so 1859 

 can hardly be reckoned an auspicious year for hound 

 sales. 



Another sale worthy of note was that which took 

 place on 2 April, 1861, when Mr. W. Fielder Croome, 

 on giving up the mastership of the Vale of White 

 Horse, dispersed his hunters and hounds at the Ciren- 

 cester kennels, six lots realising 1179 gs., three brood 

 bitches 23 gs., and two couples of unentered hounds 



