THE STAINTON DALE 43 



The passing of the trencher-fed pack and old- 

 world hunting is inevitable in these days of local 

 government and advanced ideas, and it is to be 

 regretted that so old a venatic institution should 

 become impossible. Like many rough and ready 

 arrangements of bygone ages, " trencher feeding." 

 or billeting hounds on the followers of the hunt, 

 had the advantages of making hunting possible 

 in scattered, struggling localities where financial 

 aid was out of the question. The fact that 

 houses in the district fed and boarded a certain 

 number of hounds for the hunt, fostered a demo- 

 cratic interest between sport and agriculture, which 

 has existed from the earliest ages. The hills and 

 dales of Yorkshire were the stronghold of the 

 trencher-fed system of maintaining a pack to hunt 

 the rough country, and fortunately the annals of 

 these interesting times have been collected and 

 handed down to posterity by a graceful writer of 

 the chase, Mr J. Fairfax Blakesborough. In a 

 volume, entitled " England's Oldest Hunt," this 

 keen sportsman gives historical chapters of the 

 Bilsdale, Farndale and Sinnington hunts, when 

 trencher fed. Lender such a system the expenses 

 of a two-day-a-week hunt carried out in a rugged 

 coast or waste moorland district amounted to less 

 than £100 a year, and cheered the heart of an 

 isolated community during the long months of 

 winter. Time, however, has wrought many changes 

 in all walks of life, and in such a rapid age as the 

 present, the management of hunting affairs has to 

 keep pace with the requirements of modern demands. 

 The existence of a trencher-fed pack became im- 

 possible with the increased popularity of shooting, 

 which necessarily enforces the law of trespass, 

 besides the edict of the Muzzling Act and the stricter 



