SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 431 



hunting-field? Barring breakfast, they have no 

 other meal during the day. Indoor domestics get 

 their snap luncheon at eleven, dinner at one, tea at 

 five, and supper at nine; in fact, it would appear 

 that doing a good deal of eating and drinking and a 

 very little work, is the chief purpose for which they 

 are hired and paid; whereas huntsmen and whips 

 are obliged to condense all their meals into one^ and 

 that taken at a very uncertain hour, varying from 

 six to nine in the evening, as they may happen to 

 return from hunting; and we know by experience 

 that long abstinence, coupled with hard work, is not 

 likely to improve a man^s digestive powers, or give 

 him an appetite for dinner. The late Assheton 

 Smith, after hunting, always indulged in a warm 

 bath before sitting down to dinner; but such a 

 luxury does not fall to the lot of Jem or Jack, 

 although they get plenty of cold ones. 



In several large foxhunting establishments, of 

 ancient date and high renown, where the hounds are 

 handed down from father to son as heirlooms in the 

 family, it is the custom — which cannot be too highly 

 commended — of rewarding meritorious huntsmen, 

 when unfitted by age or accident for active service, 

 with a retiring pension. Unfortunately, however, 

 from the changes continually occurring in the master- 

 ships of the great majority, such customs are con- 

 fined to the few; and, as a general rule, huntsmen and 

 whippers-in must depend upon their own resources, 

 and whilst in health save what they can out of their 

 wages to soften the asperities of declining years. 

 This may be efi"ected to some extent by those who 



