FOX-HUNTING AND ITS FUTURE 



reliable, manly, and deserving classes to be found in 

 the various strata of British society, are as active, keen, 

 and hard-working as ever. There are probably more 

 good huntsmen in these islands than ever before, as 

 well as plenty of undeveloped material in good first and 

 second whippers-in. In many families of our profes- 

 sional hunt servants the science and traditions of 

 hunting have been handed down for generations, and 

 the love of the chase seems to be indelibly implanted in 

 the blood. To mention only a few names at hazard, 

 the families of Goodall, Goddard, Boxall, Orvis, and 

 Gosden are examples very well in point. As a 

 body of men, none are more hardy, quick-witted, and 

 courageous than the British professional huntsmen. 

 Here and there a veteran may lag superfluous, but, as 

 a rule, be the country never so big or unyielding, the 

 huntsman is to be found ever close alongside his pack. 



The chase in Britain, although threatened at the end 

 of the nineteenth century with terrors hitherto un- 

 known, seems to be endowed with wonderful vitality, 

 which can only be accounted for by the extraordinary 

 passion for hunting implanted so deeply in mankind, 

 and especially in men of British blood. Dio Nic^us 

 has placed it upon record that the ancient inhabitants 

 of these islands were fierce barbarians, who tilled no 

 land, but existed by the fruit of their depredations on 

 their neighbours, or upon the food procured in hunt- 

 ing. Strabo, in his time, sings the praises of the 

 hounds bred in Britain. Oppian, too, bears testimony 

 to the super-excellence of the hounds, hunters, and 

 horses of Britain. Most of our kings, nobles, and 

 gentry have delighted to pursue with horn and hounds 

 the various beasts of chase which at one time or another 

 these islands have afforded them. Edward III. was 

 passionately attached to hunting, and maintained, even 



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