Doncaster Moor. 321 



Many old customs have departed from Doncaster,* 

 and among others, the late Earl of Scarborough's, viz., 

 sending a subscription of 4/. every year to the race 

 fund. Those were the days of race-balls and carriages- 

 and-four with outriders, from the great county seats, 

 all freighted with visitors to the stand. The cup was 



as we 

 were 



the other. " Go, go!" said his Grace; but a walk was the only 

 response. " Go along!" " I beg your pardon, your Grace," said 

 "Sim," touching his cap, "when you've said 'go' we can do " " r ~ 

 like." "Oh, that's it," was the rejoinder; "I thought you 

 obliged to begin and gallop directly ; so good afternoon. " 



* A few words will not be out of place anent the sporting antecedents 

 of the owners of the " Corporation Harriers," of which we read such 

 a curious historical notice in the Doncaster Gazette. That distinguished 

 body have always been true to the spirit of the couplet, 



" God bless you, jolly gentlemen, 

 May nothing you dismay," 



and put this resolution on their archives : 



"27th of April, 1762, That the Corporation do allow twenty pounds 

 a year and a frock of blue shag, faced with red, for a salary for a per- 

 son that will undertake to hunt the Corporation hounds ; and that the 

 Mayor for the time being and six senior members of the Corporation be 

 a committee, to continue for one calendar month, to have the manage- 

 ment of the hunt and the procuring of the hounds ; and at the expira- 

 tion of that calendar month, the next six senior members, with the 

 Mayor for the time being, to have the management thereof, and so on 

 from month to month, to be continued annually from the first day of 

 May next ; and if none of the committee be out a hunting on a field- 

 day, the majority of the Corporation members present to have the ma- 

 nagement that day." 



" Bill Stag," the huntsman, was equal to the crisis, even with alder- 

 men, on the subject of halloos, and very fond of training his hounds to 

 run a red-herring trial in the four-and-a-half acres of " Tryers' Flatt." 

 The Cookes, of Wheatley, do not seem to have been very genial in the 

 matter with Bill and his thistle-whippers ; as one of their keepers 

 was repeatedly asked, and not without reason, "Who shot the dog?" 

 When another velveteen laid impious hands on the worshipful Mr. 

 Solomon Holmes, and took a gun out of his municipal grasp, the Cor- 

 poration were fired with indignation, r.nd took counsel's opinion, and 

 wrote letters, and we know not what beside. Have their harriers they 

 would. 



They turned a barn in East Laith Gate into a kennel, and built a 

 house for Bill hard by his charges. Such was the spirit with which 

 these merry souls went about the business, that in February, 1770, they 



Y 



