MODERN FOX-HUNTING 3 



of course, we reserve to ourselves the right to criticise 

 the alterations. 



Perhaps the most important alteration is the resusci- 

 tation of the "capping" system. In February 1903 

 the hunting world was astonished by the decision of 

 the powers who rule over the Pytchley and Warwick- 

 shire Hunts to enforce a " cap " of £2 per day against 

 all non-residents who do not subscribe £2^ per annum 

 to the Hunt. Now, every Hunt has the undoubted 

 right to conduct its internal policy as the members of 

 the Hunt may think fit. Still, members of fashionable 

 Hunts, such as the Pytchley and the Warwickshire, 

 must remember that they owe certain obligations to 

 the hunting community at large. The policy which 

 they adopt is sure to be imitated by people who have 

 not examined the local reasons for the policy. Thus, 

 most of the fixtures of the Pytchley and the Warwick- 

 shire are convenient for Londoners. In regard to the 

 Pytchley, Lord Althorp, who was Master from 1808 

 till 1817, long before the days of railways, after a late 

 sitting at the House of Commons, which he considered 

 that duty commanded him as a Lord of the Treasury 

 to attend, would gallop from London to Northampton- 

 shire to meet his hounds in the morning, the relays of 

 horses on the road being always ready for him. In 

 regard to the Warwickshire, Lord Middleton, who 

 bought the hounds from Mr. John Corbet on February 9, 

 181 1, and hunted them from Itchington Heath two 

 days afterwards, abolished the club at Stratford-on- 

 Avon on account of his dislike for sporting writers, 

 more especially for hunting reporters. Certainly he 



