1 82 IRISH SPORT AND SPORTSMEN. 



you as a country gentleman and a friend ; and to beg your accep- 

 tance of the accompanying Service of Plate, in remembrance of 

 your most efficient services as a master of foxhounds for the past 

 thirty years. 



" Your arduous duties — always self-performed in their minutest 

 details — have each succeeding year resulted in sport, so constantly 

 increasing, that we have learned to regard with profound admira- 

 tion a master to whom we owe so much. 



" The difficulties you have to contend with in this country are 

 well known ; distant meets and doubtful scents are drawbacks, 

 successfully to contend with which require the constant exercise 

 of gifts, that we believe you to possess in an eminent degree, 

 namely, patience, perseverance, and an indomitable love of fox- 

 hunting. 



" As a country gentleman, you have at all times endeavoured to 

 promote our social and material interests by the development of 

 the resources of the country, by improvement in breeding of 

 horses and stock of all kinds, while your example as a practical 

 farmer must be considered as of great value. Ever at home, 

 always kindly and courteous — dispensing a liberal hospitality — 

 you have reached to a pinnacle of local and personal importance 

 only to be obtained by the most gifted minds, and have secured 

 to yourself a host of friends, whose wish that you may enjoy a 

 long and agreeable life, we here venture to express. 



" We have taken the liberty of asking that Mrs. Beatty would 

 do us the pleasure of accepting a Gold Repeating Watch and 

 Chain, as a small souvenir of our regard for her, and in gratitude 

 for the numberless hospitalities which most — if not all — of us 

 have, from time to time, received at her hands. 



" In conclusion, we trust that your thirty-first season as master, 

 now inaugurated, may be as prosperous as those which have pre- 

 ceded it ; and that you may long continue to hold the horn of 

 oflSce to your own credit and to the advantage of fox-hunting. 



" Signed on behalf of the Subscribers, 



"William Bolton, Chairman." 



Mr. Beatty is a first-rate judge of horses and 

 hounds : and, although he rides fully sixteen stone, 



