48c The Book of the Horse. 



some hundreds of garments (the first gentleman in Europe (?) never gave anything away), 

 were twelve pairs of corduroy breeches, made, but never used, for His Majesty to hunt with Dom 

 Miguel. But corduroys are now as mucli out of date as pigtails. The last Master of hounds I 

 ever saw wear them was Sir Richard Sutton. They were of a dingy blue colour, and very baggy. 

 Cotton cord has been superseded by Bedford cord, a woollen material which is not manufactured 

 at Bedford, and by a variety of elastic woollen fabrics, some manufactured in Gloucestershire, 

 some in Scotland, and others at that well-known fox-hunting centre, Chipping Norton. Woollen 

 breeches are commonly used in rainy seasons instead of buckskins. The rage for tight 

 garments, so tight that the man who used to help you on with your great coat after a dinner 

 party really earned his sixpence, has passed away, and the dandy described in Lord Lytton's 

 "England and the English," who could not sit down at a wedding breakfast because he had 

 his stand-up trousers on, is known no more. 



I do not know when the revolution commenced, but the first time I ever saw a pair of 

 loose doeskin breeches and patent leather Napoleon boots was in 1843. They were worn by the 

 Duke of Beaufort of that day, a first-rate sportsman, a most courteous Master of hounds, 

 and of a figure that made every costume in fashion look well when worn by him. The duke 

 was one of Brummel's youngest pupils and latest victims. 



From that time there has been a gradual advance towards comfort and convenience ir> 

 hunting-dress. 



It took time to convert tailors and wearers to principles of common sense in the construction 

 of hunting-coats. The first variation from the dress-coats already mentioned was a single-breasted 

 straight-cut coat, which barely fastened with one button at the neck, or was united with a 

 trinket long out of use, a coat-link, made with a fox's-tooth, or fashioned like a snafile-bit, 

 as may be read in sporting novels of the Jorrocks era. 



Napoleon boots, butcher boots, and all the black variations from the legitimate top-boot, 

 were long looked upon with great disfavour by the gentlemen of the old school, but when 

 the fashion was taken up by the Badminton Hunt there was no more to be said against a 

 boot that did not require an artist valet to clean it. The modern short cavalry boot only 

 superseded trousers after the Franco-German War. 



The Prince Consort used to hunt with his harriers in jack-boots, of the Life Guard cut, 

 and had his imitators, but in the end the neat-fitting Napoleon carried the day. Boots, like 

 coats and breeches, have benefited by the improvements in material which have taken place 

 since all duties on the raw materials and manufactured articles of clothing have been 

 abolished. 



Brown and green coats, once universal with harchounds and common with foxhounds, 

 where pink was not adopted, up to the first half of this century, have been superseded by the 

 universal black. Scarlet is the uniform of every established fox-hunting club in the kingdom, 

 except one — the Badminton — an hereditary pack in the family of the Duke of Beaufort through 

 four generations, since, in the time of the fifth duke, a pack of fine staghounds was converted 

 into foxhounds. Curiously enough, although the Somersets were among the stoutest friends of 

 the first Charles and the last James, and have since the Georgian era been distinguished for 

 the stiffness of their Tory politics,* the uniform of their hunt has always been the blue and 

 buff of Charles James Fox, of his Whig followers, and of their organ, the Edinburgli Review. 



* The sixth Duke of Beaufort, on his death-becl, in 1S3J, entreated his son, the Marquis of Worcester, to so educate 

 the Earl of Glamorgan, the present duke, that in the event of the expected revolution depriving liim of his properly, he 

 would be able to earn his own livelihood. — T. Raikes' Diary. 



