in the Seventies and Eighties. 49 



tor" of the tobacco trade, and amongst the people techni- 

 cally concerned in the same, he was held in estimation and 

 respect, almost equal to the feeling with which he was re- 

 garded by the farmers of South Durham and the hunting 

 men of the North of England generally. Generous and kind 

 hearted to a degree, he kept up a weekly free dole of 

 tobacco to the inmates of the workhouse almost to the last; 

 just as his father in the beginning of the century used to 

 place on his counter every Saturday night a small tray 

 containing a pound of tobacco put up in half-ounce packets, 

 a weekly gift to the poor of his immediate neighbourhood ; 

 never was Mr. John Harvey happier than when making a 

 small present of money or tobacco to some poor and 

 deserving recipient, and whether in the Sedgefield country 

 or in the streets of "canny" Newcastle anyone who did him 

 a turn, however trifling, was more than remembered ; many 

 a time has he gladdened the heart of a gatekeeper at a 

 level crossing when hounds passed over the line, or, of an 

 intelligent engine driver who pulled up his charge in time to 

 prevent destruction or damage to any of the hounds, or, of 

 a needy yokel who has run to open a gate when hounds 

 were not in cry, or, of a labourer who has tendered assist- 

 ance when the hunt servants have been busy in endeavour- 

 ing to eject a fox from a drain. Never was an opportunity 

 missed of popularizing fox-hunting amongst those whose 

 support was most required, and never did man succeed in 

 rendering himself more popular, I might almost say wor- 

 shipped, in a hunting country, where hounds met with 

 nothing but welcome ; and such a thing as opposition, even 

 in the faintest form, was entirely unknown. 



In a letter, dated December 7th, 1880, Mr. Harvey says, 

 " My books, of forty years ago or upwards, have been 



