Boots — Tops or Butchers. 483 



Cardigans are also made in silk net, with plain silk sleeves. They are not so warm as 

 wool, or so generally useful, and they are very expensive. 



The cutter-out of hunting-breeches should be an artist, and an artist whose natural genius 

 has been cultivated by practice on most fastidious customers. The difference between well 

 and ill-fitting breeches is the difference between comfort and misery, neatness and vulgarity. 

 It is not always worth while to buy the most expensive garment of its kind ; as, for instance, 

 summer suits, which are to be cast aside for ever after a few weeks' wear ; but every article 

 worn in hunting should be of the very best material for hard wear, and the best cut for 

 comfort. Doeskins, with reasonable wear and slight repairs, will last a very long time. 



Leather breeches must be cleaned, and unless the young sportsman has a groom-valet 

 up to cleaning them, sending them to a professional cleaner — not always to be found in 

 country towns — means not only expense but delay, inconvenient to men who are on a hunting 

 visit, and hunting five or six days a week. For this reason it is well to have a certain number 

 of pairs of the various woollen materials, plain and corded, white for fashionable counties 

 and fine weather, brown Bedford cord for Clayshire and persistent rain. 



Where Napoleon, Hussar, or any of the modern varieties of black boots are worn, panta- 

 loons buttoning at the ankle answer the purpose better than breeches, and are less a work 

 of fine art, if made of elastic material. 



A well-made man (for a top-boot) can button a pair of properly cut breeches, and draw 

 them on over his calves to their proper place. 



To put on and wear a pair of breeches properly, lessons from a fox-hunting expert 

 are essential — from a tailor, for instance, who has been in the habit of hunting in the Midlands. 



It should be noted that to ride a run in an absolutely waterproof coat, and then get cold 

 by standing at cover-side or riding slowly home, is a fine preparation for rheumatic fever. Wet 

 does not hurt any one in fair health, as long as warmth can be kept up, and this is best done 

 by putting a dry garment over a wet one. The best and simplest protection for the stomach 

 and thighs is a mackintosh riding-apron, already mentioned, which can be put on without 

 dismounting. 



Boots — that is, top-boots^are even more difficult to obtain in the best, that is, the most 

 comfortable and correct style — than breeches. The late Mr. Bartley (who, amongst other 

 equestrian feats, once rode a horse in a race for the Epsom Derby) had an immense reputation 

 for the tops of his boots. It is he who is shown in one of Leech's sketches measuring John 

 himself, and saying, as he took in hand a leg like a walking-stick, " Capital leg for a top-boot, 

 sir ; none of your dancing calves ! " A profound hunting-boot truth, for no man with a pair 

 of fat calves can ever look well in a top-boot. 



Northampton, which is in the centre of one of the finest hunting counties in the kingdom, 

 manufactures capital patent leather black hunting-boots, but whether the art of tops has 

 reached perfection in the capital of " sutors," I am not informed. In London the best trade is 

 in very few hands. 



Hunting-boots should be large enough for thick woollen stockings ; a tight boot means 

 cold feet. A thin-soled boot that enables the rider to feel the stirrup is most agreeable, but 

 a thin-soled boot does not answer in a clay country and rainy weather ; for the greatest horsemen 

 must walk sometimes. 



The colour of top-boots is the subject of fashion more changeable than even ladies' hair 

 was, temp, the Empress Eugenie. They have been worn of all shades, from deep mahogany 

 to pale pink, of all lengths and all ways, from quite smooth to much wrinkled. 



