484 The Book of the Horse. 



Colouring the tops of boots is one of the most difficult tasks of a servant, with a master 

 who cares about such trifles. " Not quite the shade, more like the colour of a North Wiltshire 

 cheese ; you had better buy one for a pattern," says one of Whyte Melville's military hunting 

 heroes. The soldier-servant on retiring confides to a friend that " them tops are the torment 

 of my life, I shall be druv to drink by 'em." 



Before railways cosmopolitanised all England there were provincial hunting-districts, showing 

 first-rate sport, where, if a stranger appeared in boots not of the hunt colour, and breeches not of 

 the county cut, he was set down at once as a Jacobin, and perhaps an atheist, and treated 

 accordingly. 



Boot-tops require a special apparatus for restoration after a day's hunting. Therefore, 

 when a young sportsman goes on a visit to a great house not accompanied by his own servant, 

 it will add very much to his peace of mind if he provides himself with two pair of patent 

 leather Hussars or Napoleons. He will thus be spared the agony of seeing his fellow-guests 

 ready to mount while he is shivering in his stockings, waiting for a pair of tops which my 

 lord's fine gentlemen have forgotten. Patent leather does not easily get wet, and can be 

 cleaned over a bucket with a sponge in five minutes, and although Napoleons are not perhaps 

 so workmanlike as well-built, well-cleaned tops, they are much more easy to buy and keep 

 in order. 



Hot tin bottles, glass bottles, hot hay, are all used to dry boots which have been soaked 

 through or filled after a drop into a brook. A couple of india-rubber bottles of the right 

 size are easily carried, and useful for other purposes besides drying boots. 



The head-dress for hunting must be that in use, unless the owner is so small or so 

 great a personage that he can set fashion at defiance. The old high-crowned hat was the 

 most absurd hunting head-dress ever invented ; it took one hand to hold it on just when you 

 wanted two for your reins. Many men have heads of shape on which no hat will stick over 

 a big jump or in a high wind, unless tied under the chin. For convenience there is nothing 

 like the shape of the hunting-cap which all huntsmen and whips wear, whether for keeping 

 on or for riding through brushwood and briars. But no young man can set custom at defiance 

 and be eccentric in dress. Within my time hats were all but universal in the hunting-field ; 

 at that time it took an hour to get into a pair of new leathers. Then caps became the correct 

 style, and were worn by every one who mounted a pink and professed to ride. When the 

 Prince of Wales took to fox-hunting he set the fashion of hats; and caps are (a.d. 1S7S) only 

 worn by a few of the old school, and horse-dealing farmers in black coats, which do not go 

 well with velvet caps. 



But in the meantime an immense improvement has been made in hats. For hunting, 

 felt hats have superseded both silk and the beaver of gentility, which was the only correct 

 head-dress until Sir Robert Peel changed his mind on the subject of fiscal finance, and took 

 ofi" the duties on silk and wool. Once a silk hat was the sign of a cad ; then, under the 

 competition of improved silk, beaver passed so completely out of use that beaver-skins 

 became a drug, and an animal in danger of extinction multiplied exceedingly in the wild 

 North land. Felt hats, in their turn, have all but superseded silk in the hunting-field. 



A multitude of felt "Jim Crows," "Pot Hats," "Deer-stalkers," "Meltons," " Pytchleys," ' 

 " Market Harboroughs," " Oxonians," fitting quite as closely as the velvet cap, at one-third 

 the price, and thrice the durability, are offered for the fox-hunter's choice. A low-crowned 

 broad-brimmed felt hat is in favour with several modern Masters of crack packs of fox-hounds. 

 But it is very probable that if tlic Duke of Connaught should take to hunting " with 



