34 The Sedgefield Country 



every hound. Up to Saturday, November 25th, it was 

 thought that the latter plan might be adopted and tried with 

 safety ; but the Monday morning's report showed the attack 

 on several more hounds had assumed unmistakable symptoms 

 of rabies. This fact induced the meeting to come to an 

 unanimous resolution : " That it was a duty they owed to 

 the country to sacrifice the whole of their gallant pack, and 

 to appeal to masters of hounds, for a few hounds to enable 

 them to finish the season so disastrously cut short." 



This resolution was at once carried out, and the whole 

 pack was destroyed forthwith. Such a calamity as this 

 would have broken the heart of many a Master of Hounds, 

 but Mr. Harvey and Mr. Henderson were not made of 

 ordinary stuff, and no sooner had the fiat gone forth than 

 they immediately bestirred themselves to get together a 

 scratch pack, which, owing to the generosity of numerous 

 Masters of Hounds, soon became an accomplished fact. The 

 last remnant of the pack was put down on November 28th, 

 yet, thanks to the energy of the masters and the alacrity 

 with which their appeal was responded to on all sides, a new 

 pack was got together in less than a month, no less than 

 seventy-five couples of hounds having been actually delivered 

 at the Sedgefield kennels; and on New Year's Day, 1872, 

 they met at Alden Grange, in the northern part of their 

 country, and killed, to their credit be it said, a leash of foxes. 



Mr. John Henderson's own account of what took place 

 in the kennels and the field, during the next few months, is 

 so graphic and attractive that it is inserted here in full. 

 " I will commence by stating what was done in disinfecting 

 our kennels. First, carbolic acid was freely used ; then the 

 lodging houses and other buildings (every crevice being 

 closed) were twice stoved with burning sulphur; afterwards, 



