COST AND EQUIPMENT 219 



the science of hare-hunting and kept harriers him- 

 self for years, has borne testimony, in the " En- 

 cyclopaedia of Sport," to the economy with which 

 a mounted pack can be managed. " For most 

 of the many years," he says, " during which I 

 kept harriers, their food cost me about a penny 

 a day per hound, but their solitary attendant 

 was a curious old-fashioned retainer with unusual 

 notions of thrift. A second horseman whipped 

 in, and a horse had to be reserved for this express 

 purpose." Lord Suffolk's pack of fifteen and a half 

 couples cost him for maintenance no more than 

 £114 los. per annum. This sum was made up as 

 follows : 



" Keep of hounds, kennel-man's wages, medicine, 

 and other incidental expenses, £8^. The keep of 

 horse for twenty-one weeks (he was only debited to 

 the pack during the hunting season) at £1 is. per 

 week, £22 IS. The allocated portion of groom's 

 wages for same time, at 9s. per week, £9 9s. This 

 was the lad who whipped in." " Things were roughly, 

 perhaps very roughly, done, but we had capital fun 

 for all that," is Lord Suffolk's concluding remark 

 on the maintenance of this extremely inexpensive 

 pack. 



These examples will suffice to show that harriers 

 can, under certain conditions, be managed at sur- 

 prisingly low cost. Where, however, things are done 

 on the grander scale and with less regard for the policy 

 of cutting matters fine, the cost of harrier-keeping 

 mounts to considerably higher figures. Some thirty 

 years ago an authority upon hunting put the expense 

 of an average pack of harriers — twenty-four couples — 

 thus : 



