1'20 THE IirXTINC; FIELD 



of characters that generally remain with them to the end of life 

 — desperate Tuft Hunters. 



Like hounds, Tuft Hunters may be divided into different 

 classes — \ar3'ing like hounds in their keenness, energy, and 

 determination. There is the bold, open-mouthed, dashing, 

 foxhound Tuft Hunter, who runs at a lord as if he would eat 

 him — who persecutes him — who lards him with "lordships," 

 and does not know how to be subservient and obsequious 

 enough. There is the pottering, dribbling, babbling hare- 

 hunting Tuft Hunter, who deals more with lords in conversation 

 than in reality, and there is the lurching Tuft Hunter, who 

 professing contempt for the game, never misses an opportunity 

 of having a run at it — with several minor varieties not important 

 to our purpose. 



We might carry our kennel simile further, and divide the 

 followers into sexes. Wonen are generally desperate Tuft 

 Hunters. There is no denying that. Many a poor man has 

 been made to stoop to the scent who has no natural inclination 

 that way. Tuft Hunting is an instinct that pervades nearly 

 the whole sex. We have heard a tenth-rate milliner knock 

 the peerage about with her tongue, just as an expert billiard 

 player knocks the balls about on the table. Nay, there is our 

 second cousin, old Miss Deborah Crustyface, of Canonbury 

 Square, Islington, in whose presence it is absolutely dangerous 

 to mention the name of a nobleman, for she immediately strikes 

 a scent, and heads up and sterns down, runs into them even 

 up to the third and fourth generation, not unfrequently diverging 

 into collateral alliances and marriages with commoners. Not 

 only has she Burke, Lodge, and Debrett, peerage, baronetage, 

 and all at her fingers' ends, but Dod's dignities, privileges and 

 precedence, with lists of great public functionaries from the 

 Revolution down to the present time. To hear her talk you 

 would fancy she was the "• lady,"' as they now call " wives " of 

 a Lord Chamberlain, so accurately has she the ladder of conse- 



