THE SPOUTING WORLD. 127 



Of these there are two classes — the man who 

 runs his dogs at public coursing meetings and 

 him who courses for his own amusement and 

 that of his friends. Taken in a national point 

 of view as to its benefits to society, coursing no 

 doubt falls far short of either hunting or racing, 

 it however promotes what must ever be held as 

 of first importance, namely, sociabiHty among 

 country gentlemen. I am not aware of one 

 feature in coursing that even the hypocritical 

 can censure like racing. It has its places of 

 meeting, and on a more limited scale, it there 

 produces a considerable circulation of money, 

 the betting sometimes runs high, but is confined 

 to noblemen and gentlemen, and is never to an 

 extent that is ruinous, hurtful, or inconvenient 

 to the losers. The stakes run for are some- 

 times of considerable amount, at such places as 

 Amesbury, Liverpool, Newmarket, SwafFham, ma- 

 king the stake up some three or four hundred 

 pounds, a sum quite sufficient to attract the 



