32 GOOD SPORT 



serious undertakings in life, on which the pros- 

 perity of a nation depends. 



For many years we went to Kirby Gate to get 

 a sight of Tom Firr, the figure-head of hunting, who 

 personally hated ail fuss and show, quietly sitting 

 his horse, the centre of the great assembly, unmoved 

 and apparently unconscious of the admiring crowd. 

 A man of very few words, he had the appearance 

 of a philosopher or an archbishop, and was one 

 whose intellect would have placed him high in any 

 walk of life. Believing that silence is golden, Tom 

 Firr would never allow his hounds to throw their 

 tongue at the feeding-house door, nor did he allow 

 it when unkennelled for hunting, his argument 

 being " that a foxhound should speak only to a 

 fox ; his pleasure and affection he must show by 

 his stern." With regard to the breeding of hounds, 

 there is no question that Firr bred more for pace 

 than appearance. Perhaps he was not sufficiently 

 fond of going away from home for blood, as he 

 often said, " So-and-so may stand well and be nice 

 to look at on the flags, but have you seen him hunt 

 a fox ? Is he a better foxhound than my own So- 

 and-so ? " Like most huntsmen he had one hound 

 to whom he pinned his faith to see him through in 

 the field or in the kennel, and Tom Firr's particular 

 hound was Alfred ('72), who as a puppy came to 

 Quorn in a basket, and was by Mr. Garth's Painter, 

 out of Affable by the Badminton Forester. Tom 

 Firr used to say he was a model twenty-four-inch 

 foxhound to race over the Leicestershire pastures, 

 and he won first prize with him at the Alexandra 

 Palace Foxhound Show, July 1875. In Baily's 

 Magazine of October 1906, Mr. G. S. Lowe says of 

 Quorn Alfred : "Mr. Fernie's Ferryman takes into 

 his pedigree, nearer perhaps than any other, the 



