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CHAPTER XXIII. 



PREPARATION OF THE HUNTER FOR — TREATMENT DURING AND AFTER — HUNTING. 



Importance of Condition in a Hunler— Results of Ignorance Fifty Years Ago— A Brutal Age— Anecdote of Sir Harry Vane 



Tempest "Nimrod" (Apperley) — The Reformer in Treating Hunters — Hunters Rarely Die of Over- Exertion now — Winter 



Condition to be Preserved through the Summer — Horses in Daily Use in Summer stand Hunting Best in Winter — Equally 

 Important for Cobs or Ponies — Condition Explained by a Correspondent of The Field — How to Train a Stud of Hunters - 

 Where Expense is not an Object — Value of Oats and Beans — How to Sweat a Hunter — Exercise — Flannel Bandages — 



■\Vater Must be Pure — Colonel Fitzwygram's Plan — A Summer's Run for Hunters in a Carriage — Dick Christian's Plan 



of Training — Use of Sawdust instead of Straw — How to Treat Hunters during a Frost or Snow-storm — Importance of Mashes 



How to Make them — Value of Water in the Hunting-field — After Hunting Hard, Rest — At First Shelter — Gruel, how 



Made How to Treat and Feed a Tired Horse — Importance of Fresh Air and Warm Clothing — Tired Horses to be Gtuelled 



before they are Groomed — Mud Fever — A Great Pest — Three Letters on — Hot Water and Bandages — Cold Water and 

 Bandatres — No Water and Bandages — No Bandages, no Water — Clipping and Singeing — Origin of — Both Plans Described — 

 Necessity no longer Disputed — New Clipping Machine Superseded Scissors — How to Clip Legs — Leave Nose, Eyes, and 

 Ears Alone — Hunting Dress — To be Studied for Comfort — Great Improvement in this Generation — George the Fourthian 

 Style Described — The Principles of Modern Hunting Coat — Colours — Scarlet for Choice — Waistcoat with Wann Back — Flap- 

 Pockets — Breeches— Decline, Fall, and Rise again of Leather Breeches — Breeches-cutting a Fine Art — Boots, Varieties of 

 Tops — Napoleons — Butchers — History and Description — Gloves — Buckskins no longer Worn — Whips — Spurs— The Hunting- 



Box Principles of Construction —Warmth — Ventilation — Supplies of Water, Hot and Cold — Aim Maximum of Comfort, 



Minimum of Servants — Hunting Cottage for Six Bachelors Described — Or One Married Man — Ground-floor Dressing-room — 

 How Furnished — Baths, Variety of — Drying-room for Cloths — Kitchen, its Hot Water Boilers — Doors, a New Style — 

 Covered Passage to Stables — Lamps, Use of — Sportsmen's Fare — Principles of — Quickly Cooked — Appetising — Digestible, 

 Nourishing — No Dishes that require Punctuality — How to Arrange a Series, from Soup to Cheese, and Nothing Spoiled — 

 Breakfasts — Various Tastes — The Fox-Hunting Sandwich-Case— A Hunting-Meet Breakfast — How to Give. 



To make the best of a hunter he must be properly trained, before the hunting season commences, 

 into the condition required for extraordinary exertions in galloping and leaping ; he must be 

 treated with due consideration during the hours of hunting, judiciously cared for on his way 

 home and after he reaches home. 



Fifty years ago it was quite common to hear, after a very severe run in a fashionable county, 

 of numbers of horses disabled for the season, and some killed in the field. In a brutal, bull- 

 fighting, dog-fighting, man-fighting age,* it seems, from the accounts of great runs, to have 

 been considered almost a sign of spirit in a sportsman to have ridden his horse to death. 



You seldom hear of any accident of the kind now, for several reasons : condition is better 

 understood, it is no longer the practice to bleed exhausted horses, and brutality is not now 

 considered a sign of spirit. 



English fox-hunters owe a deep debt of gratitude to "Nimrod" (Apperley) for his "Letters 

 on the Condition of Hunters," published in the first quarter of the present century. His arguments 



• Sir Harry Vane Tempest, the maternal grandfather of the present Marquis of Londonderry, who died, aged forty, in 1813, 

 was one of the handsomest men of his time, and good-nitured ; yet he made a bet with Harvey Aston that he would knock down 

 the first man that came into the stand at Newmarket, and won it. The turf, hunting, boxing, cockfighting, and drinking — the last 

 killed him — were his pursuits ; he did not gamble. He caused some sensation in 1799 by winning the Doncaster Si. Leger with 

 " Cockfighter," and riding him in the Park on Sunday, ten days afterwards — the Park being then crowded by the fashionable world. 

 From Sir Harry the Marquis of Londonderry inherits the Durham Winyard property. — Raikes' Journal. 



