LORD E\'E11GREEN 213 



them believe that you are after something lese, and if Her 

 Majesty's Government would take a few sharp, enterprising 

 foxhiinters into her public offices, keeping them a competent 

 stud of respectable-looking horses, we will be bound to say 

 they would get them far more sound, reliable, accurate 

 information upon any subject of country interest, such as 

 stock of wheat, sickly potatoes, poor-law workings, than lord- 

 lieutenants, or the solemn pompous-looking gentlemen, who 

 sit in inn parlours, driving away truth, just as a fox or a 

 shepherd's dog drives away a flock of sheep. Country people 

 don't like strangers — they don't understand examination, 

 cross-examination, re-examination, and blue-booking. They 

 are afraid of pen, ink, and paper. But put them alongside a 

 red coat, in a stable, under a shed, or behind a hedge, and they 

 will tell you anything you like to ask them, simph^ because 

 they think you don't care to know it. 



This hint is worth the consideration of the Home Secretary, 

 especially after the expense the late Government was put to in 

 getting up the potato panic, and if he thinks well of it, but 

 fears the cost, or doubts what Joe Hume may say, we should 

 be glad to see if we could not make some arrangement so as to 

 carry it out between us. If the Government, for instance, 

 would find horses, we would pay expenses, or we might join, 

 and job a few horses of Tilbury, for the first season, to see how 

 the thing worked ; all that we should stipulate for would be, 

 that the parties should be sent into civilized countries where 

 there is decent hunting, so that their reports of the chase, 

 for publication, might indemnify us for our share of the 

 expense. 



Certain we are, that there is no invention so fine for suppres- 

 sing the truth as a Government commission and a fuss. 



The hunting field has been said to be the great leveller of 

 rank, but that is not the case. The hunting field, indeed, is 

 a place where deference is voluntarily paid to station, because 



