SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 115 



a pack of hounds. The issue may be anticipated — 

 no sport — no runs. Foxes were not obliged to 

 run, and of course they would not run. 



Well, it so happened that a very celebrated 

 master of foxhounds, who bad won an immensity 

 of laurels in the Quorn country, no less a person 

 than the late Assheton Smith, having obtained per- 

 mission to hunt this covert from Mr. Ward's suc- 

 cessor, threatened annihilation to this great preserve 

 of foxes. Still, with all his experience and know- 

 ledge of their habits and wiles, these wily animals 

 defied for a time all his strenuous efforts to dislodge 

 them — go they would not. He then bethought 

 him of a stratagem hitherto unpractised in the art 

 — smoking them out, not from the earths, but from 

 the wood altogether, large bonfires being lit in the 

 drives during the night to scare them away. Some 

 of the most timid did, we believe, take this as 

 notice to quit, retreating in orderly manner to 

 another stronghold not far distant, called Colling- 

 bourne Wood, but the old sticklers for place held 

 on still, regardless of the new element employed 

 for their ejectment. 



This singular proceeding adopted by the Squire 

 of Tedworth created no small stir amongst the old 

 foxhunters of that and other adjoining countries, 

 exciting the ire of that most orthodox preacher 

 and foxhunter, the late Fulwar Fowle, a stanch 

 supporter of Mr. Ward's hounds and country, by 

 whom the division of the latter was regarded as a 

 most unwarrantable infrinc^ement of the laws of 

 foxhunting, equally obnoxious as the new mode of 



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