394 



The Book of the Horse. 



Some twenty years ago Norfolk, which was so famous as a fox-hunting county in the great 

 days of the Holkham sheep-shearings, had no fox-hounds. But since that date two packs have 

 been estabhshed, and carried on with as much vigour as when corn was twelve shillings a bushel, 

 and Mr. Coke* encouraged his tenants to hunt in scarlet ; although Norfolk is too arable 

 and too much infested by pheasants to take even second rank as a fox-hunting county. 



A judge, quoted by William Cobbctt in his " Rural Rides," used to say, "All wine is good ; 

 the best is port, and at least two bottles of it."' 



THE HUNTS.MAN S HORSE. 



In the same way, one may safely assert that all hunting is good. The best is where there 

 is a real find, a real run, .short checks, and a decisive finish, all which can only be combined 

 in fox-hunting. 



But in hunting, as in every other amusement of a busy people, the majority of its followers 

 cannot choose their place and time ; if they are determined to hunt, they must be satisfied 

 with the hounds — fox, stag, or hare — within reach. 



Stag-hunting, as carried out with the Royal l?uckhounds, Baron Rothschild's, the Surrey, 

 and some other advertised packs, affords the maximum of hard riding and the minimum of 

 sport, unless drag-hounds be considered to show any kind of sport. 



Stag-hounds exist for the benefit of two classes : those whose occupations are political, 



* Ml. Coke, nf Holkham (born 1754), told Benjamin Haydon the artist that he remembered a fox bciiii; killed in the fields 

 svhere Cavendish Square stands, and when Berkeley Square was a capital jilace for snipe. 



