MODERN FOX-HUNTING ii 



and, when he has paid the bill, he is a free agent. 

 Then, like Dido, the Hunt Committee exclaims : 



" Dissimulare etiam sperasti, perfide, tantum. 

 Posse ncfaSy tacitusque mea decedere terra?" 



Let me now draw attention for a few moments to 

 the customs of shooting-tenants and of syndicates 

 of shooting-tenants. Owing to the depressed state 

 of agriculture, many of our large landowners have 

 accepted the big rents offered to them for their shoot- 

 ings by the prosperous money-mongers of London and 

 the large towns. The chief object of these tenants is 

 to obtain a big head of game without any regard to the 

 hunting proclivities of the neighbourhood. They may 

 profess to do all in their power to promote the welfare 

 of local hunting ; but, even if the professions were 

 made in good faith, the power to carry them into effect 

 is infinitesimal, since they are not on the spot to con- 

 trol the practices, or rather the malpractices, of their 

 keepers. Even vulpicide is not regarded now with the 

 same horror as it was a decade ago, though in the 

 majority of hunting countries few keepers would ven- 

 ture openly to shoot a fox. But there is a more deadly, 

 more cruel, and more secret form of destruction than 

 the gun, namely, " stopping-in " the earths during the 

 daytime in such a manner that the strongest dog-fox 

 could not possibly dig himself out, and so must rot to 

 death with all the tortures of slow starvation. Com- 

 ment upon such inhumanity is unnecessary. I have 

 been told that the inhumanity and extent of the practice 

 have been exaggerated ; yet as far back as February 



