44 FOX-HUNTING FROM SHIRE TO SHIRE 



control after dark of all dogs in districts where 

 Councils bid for sweeping changes. 



When on a visit to Yorkshire in the summer of 

 1910, we found old Tom Harrison, ex-huntsman 

 of the Stainton Dale when a trencher-fed pack, 

 serving the hunt faithfully for twenty-one years, 

 retiring in 1904 with a pension. From him we 

 learnt much that was interesting of a bygone 

 period of sport, the old man talking with the greatest 

 enthusiasm of the success of his cunning, pitted 

 against that of the old moorland foxes. " Aye, 

 and they was gret big greyhound foxes that took 

 a bit of catchin', but I made the record kill ever 

 known with oor hoonds, getting hold of eleven 

 and a half brace in the season. It took me ten 

 seasons afore I could cap the record, the best before 

 my time being eleven brace." Quite a character 

 in his way, old Tom spends much of his time riding 

 his runs over again, an appreciative audience never 

 tiring of the stirring descriptions of hunts on the 

 moors. The Stainton Dale country is a tract of 

 coast thirty miles long and five miles wide between 

 Whitby and Filey, with Scarborough as the best 

 centre, and of great historical interest, for in the 

 thirteenth century the hunt received a Charter from 

 King John when he landed on the coast. Originally 

 the hounds were kept for the purpose of driving 

 stray deer back into the forests when they raided 

 the crops of the small farmers. The necessity 

 for this vanished in time, and then a trencher-fed 

 pack was maintained for sport and pleasure, the 

 squire and his tenantry joining forces, marking 

 an ideal period in country life, which worked well 

 for the common good. In the early days of 

 hunting, and the dawn of the chase, the meets 

 of hounds were announced from the pulpit, as 



