SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 405 



tient of delay. It does not appear to enter into 

 their calculation that a short respite from excessive 

 respiration may prove of great service to their 

 horses^ which ought to be standing still or moving 

 slowly about^ while the rear-guard are in distress 

 from making up lost ground. Upon these occasions 

 a pull-up for a few seconds or minutes is tantamount 

 to a couple of miles gained in the run ; it gives your 

 horse time to recover his wind ; and after that, if 

 worth his keep, he will keep his place to the end 

 of it. 



Not very long ago — within the last year — we 

 noticed in print an assertion, that men ride better 

 now than their forefathers ever did before them. 

 That more men hunt now — or rather, go out riding 

 with hounds, which are not exactly synonymous 

 terms — we readily admit ; but that men ride better, 

 with more judgment and discretion, maintaining 

 firmer seats in the saddle, than fifty years ago, we 

 utterly and entirely repudiate; for of the two or 

 three hundred who meet together in the grass shires, 

 there are not more than twenty or thirty who see the 

 end of a good run, the remainder being told off 

 generally in the first four miles when the pace is 

 severe. If the majority of the field ride so much 

 better now, how docs it happen they are so easily 

 displaced ? We have been told that hounds are 

 much faster. The same assertion has been made 

 with regard to hunters ; therefore they must be on 

 equal footing as to speed. 



Young England entertains the idea that nobody 

 ever rode a thoroughbred horse in the hunting- 



