74 HORSES AND HOUNDS. 



I can praise no farther than for scent and swiftness, for, with 

 respect to mouth, they have only a little shrill sweetness, but 

 no depth of tone, or music." The practice with the old 

 school of fox-hunters was to let their hounds find their fox, give 

 him a fair start, if from gorse or spinney, and to let the body 

 of the pack then settle down to the scent. Their object was a 

 fox-chase ; not a fox-race ! What is the present system 1 A fox 

 is scarcely on his legs before huntsman, hounds, and whips, are 

 all at him, and the moment he breaks, away go the first flight, 

 the huntsman and first whip, with only perhaps a few couples 

 of hounds, hallooing and screaming close at his brush. If a 

 bad fox, he is blown in ten minutes ; and if tolerably stout, 

 may hold on for thirty or forty ; be what he may, he is bothered 

 out of his tactics by this hurry-scurry, and most likely a good 

 run spoilt. The fast men have their gallop, which is all they 

 care or know anything about. The whoo-hoop succeeds, and then 

 off they trot to find another fox, and treat him in the same 

 manner, if they can. Now, to call this fox-hunting is a farce. 



As to the condition of hounds in the fast countries, they are 

 fed lightly, drawn very fine, and, from the system of handling 

 them, fully alive to the game, or fun of the thing, as much as 

 their masters. At the first halloo or blast of the horn, their 

 heads are up in a second, and off they go like wildfire ; and 

 unless the horsemen are as much alive to the business as the 

 hounds, and with them when they start, catching them after- 

 wards, if the scent holds, is out of the question. The hounds 

 of the old school were trained differently ; fed more heavily ; 

 and prepared more in character with the work they had to do. 

 Two runs in a day, each of perhaps two hours' duration ; but 

 that these hounds, when trained, could go fast, is sufficiently 

 proved in the instance I have above addfuced, of Mr. Barry's 

 Bluecap running the four miles in eight minutes, against Mr. 

 Meynell's hounds, for 500 guineas; twelve horses only, out of sixty 

 which started, and most of them thorough-bred, being able to 

 be with them at the finish. The condition of foxes is not the 

 same, nor the circumstances under which they are found, even 

 were the foxes of the same breed now as formerly, which I am 

 inclined to think they are not, in many countries at least, and 

 Leicestershire is no exception. Foxes were not so numerous 

 formerly as now ; they had, in former times, long distances to 

 travel for food as well as companionship ; they have a choice of 

 both now, at home, without tlie trouble of seeking them far 

 a-field. A gentleman fox, like the Sultan, has the pick of a 

 whole harem at once, without going many miles to meet his fair 

 vixiana " by moonlight alone," as in the olden time. From the 



