4 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



made an exception in the case of Mr. Edward Goulburn, 

 the author of " The Epwell Run," whose reference to 

 Sir Grey Skipwith, 



" Sufficiently forward, yet still keeping bounds, 

 His wish to ride after, not over the hounds," 



has often been quoted as a warning to thrusting 

 scoundrels. But Mr. Goulburn was rather a sporting 

 poet than a sporting writer. Lord Middleton was a 

 jealous man when jealousy was not only excusable 

 but almost necessary. At the present time the reason 

 for this jealousy does not exist, since the management 

 of a hunting establishment has been reduced to an 

 exact science, and the pedigree of a hound can be 

 ascertained as easily as the pedigree of a Derby winner. 

 But at the beginning of the nineteenth century such 

 was not the case, and Masters of Hounds were naturally 

 jealous lest the details of their kennel should become 

 public property. We all have an antipathy, if I may 

 use a slang phrase, to the process of having our brains 

 picked by strangers without any remuneration. Now 

 it is seldom that the stranger in the modern hunting- 

 field, excepting the professional journalist, has come 

 out with the idea of collecting mformation. I may add 

 that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the stranger 

 would not know how to utilise the information if he 

 did collect it. There is the hundredth case, where a 

 huntsman visits another country with the avowed 

 object of learning something ; but these visits are, as 

 a rule, complimentary, and are not to be classed with 

 the excursions of peripatetic fox-poachers. 



