[40 COURSING THE HARE 



us that ' the old gamekeeper, Sam l\arkcr, never failed 

 to show abundaiiee of hares, and used to sli'i) all the 

 dogs himself on horseback. He carried a small white 

 stick in the slipping hand, with which he checked the 

 too great energy of a dog in slips, and always when 

 the hare was started increased the speed of his horse, 

 so as to get the greyhounds in a stride before he loosed 

 them.' To modern ideas this seems to have been a 

 very curious arrangement, for the even delivery of a 

 pair of greyhounds most certainly entails the use of 

 both hands, and therefore it is difficult to understand 

 how the horse was guided and controlled. 



Following closely upon the establishment of the 

 .Ashdown Club similar institutions sprang into exist- 

 ence at Malton, Louth, Tlsley in Derbyshire, New- 

 market, Beacon Hill, Letcombe-Bowers, Morfe, Dept- 

 ford Inn, Amesbury, Burton-on-Trent, and in the year 

 1825 at Altcar, near Liverpool, prior to which date 

 several clubs had arisen in Scotland. It is possible, 

 too, that many other clubs, of less prominence than 

 those I have mentioned, enjoyed a brief span of life ; 

 but when railways began to take the place of roads, 

 coursing clubs in many places gave way to, or were 

 crowded out by, open meetings, and one by one the 

 old and once important coursing constitutions dropped 

 out of existence. A notable exception was Altcar, 



