HOESES AND HOUNDS. 81 



have the pleasure to pick and choose from. This, as to charac- 

 ter, may be considered a fair average of the amiable dispositions 

 of the old draft, or entered hounds, with a lame one or two 

 thrown into the bargain. However young masters of hounds may- 

 plume themselves upon the good looks of hounds they purchase 

 as draft, they may rest assured they will find upon trial no 

 more than their money's worth, if that, out of the lot, calculating 

 every tolerable individual at ten guineas, and under this sum 

 no man will ever obtain a passable entered fox-hound, except 

 by accident. From change of country and change of masters, 

 hounds may, and often do alter their tactics a little at first, but 

 soon relapse into their old habits, and to avoid the trouble and 

 expense of keeping them, perhaps for some time to little 

 purpose, not to speak of the contaminating influence of bad 

 example, my practice was, to pick out their characters at first 

 starting, and if any huntsman once deceived me in this respect, 

 after the purchase was made, he never had an opportunity of 

 doing so a second time. It is always best to know the worst at 

 once. 



There has generally up to this time been one fixed price for 

 draft hounds — three guineas a couple — and these are reckoned as 

 the huntsman's perquisite or rather part payment of wages. This 

 is the fixed market price for the article, it is no fault of the 

 huntsman if they are all bad, as the draft is generally made by 

 the master of the pack himself, and handed over to him for dis- 

 posal ; the price is that of an unsound or faulty animal ; any 

 good, well-bred, and handsome fox-hound, at a very moderate 

 calculation, is certainly worth ten pounds. Buying hounds and 

 taking drafts are two very distinct things. 



In large establishments where there is generally a superfluity 

 of numbers, young hounds are often drafted, which do not enter 

 readily, and others which manifest too great a predilection for 

 running improper game, and as there are plenty without these, 

 it is perhaps quite as well to put them away at once, to save 

 further trouble, and not to incur the risk of unsettling the other 

 young hounds. Those who are forming a new pack are, how- 

 ever, glad to have such hounds, and as their kennel may be con- 

 sidered a penitentiary for the reclaiming of bad characters, more 

 time and attention is necessarily employed in endeavouring to 

 reform these outcasts from better society. I have had many 

 supposed incorrigible hare-hunters, which, when broken, turned 

 out excellent hounds; but, with skirters, babblers, and such 

 like, there is no hope of amendment. 



