THE COLLEGE HUNT. 18 



The Hunt soon adopted a button with E.C.H. on it. 

 There is a story of Provost Hawtrey arresting one of the whips 

 in the Cloisters and demanding what the lettering on the button 

 was intended to mean. The boy, aghast (for beagling was not 

 allowed in those days), mentioned the letters E.C.H., whereupon 

 the old man, who was not averse to personal flattery, took it to 

 be a compliment to himself as they were his own initials. 



One of the runs of 1859 was actually recorded in BeWs Life. 

 As I have already noted in the previous chapter the Oppidans 

 joined forces with the Collegers on three occasions, this being 

 one of them. 



Carter was succeeded by T. J. Huddleston, and Huddleston 

 by E. E. Witt, who held the hounds for two seasons. Of neither 

 of these do we know anything. But Thackeray, who succeeded 

 Witt, first instituted the Journal Book, which was kept right up 

 to the time of the amalgamation in 1867. I have also been 

 greatly helped by the only two College whips of this period who 

 are still alive, R. V. Somers-Smith and A. A. Wace. Here is 

 a letter from the former which covers this whole period from 

 the season of 1863 to the amalgamation : 



" I went to Eton as a Colleger in the autumn of 1862, and 

 first ran with the Beagles in the following spring. Thackeray 

 was then the Master, for which position his chief qualification 

 was a copious vocabulary. We then chiefly hunted drags ; only 

 occasionally trying for a hare, never with any success. 



'' The pack had then been in existence only a few years; 

 they were kept at the lodge at the Slough end of the Playing 

 Fields by Ward, the groundsman, and were a mongrel lot. One 

 or two real beagles, some cast-off harriers, some nondescripts, 

 ' just dogs.' 



*'As late as 1862 they kept a badger; the brute knew his 

 job and trotted along until overtaken, when he sat down until 

 the field came up. One of the whips carried a sack and a pair 

 of tongs, and the badger was by help of the latter dropped into 

 the former and carried home. 



" There was a story against Lewis, one of the whips, that 

 on one occasion the badger took refuge in a useful outhouse 

 adjacent to a cottage, and Lew^is was discovered sitting on the 

 sack to prevent the badger escaping this way, making dives at 

 him with the tongs when the badger threatened his legs. 



"Lewis was Master in 1864; he was a little Welshman, 

 rather prematurely aged ; he was quite a sportsman but a poor 

 runner. I used often to take a whip in his day, but do not think 

 ^ was in * office.' A. A. Wace was first whip. 



