12 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



1898 I exposed the practice in the pages of Baily's 

 Magazine^ and the accusation has never been refuted. 

 There is an old distich which says : 



" One fox on foot more diversion will bring 

 Than twice twenty thousand cock-pheasants on wing." 



Now I have no intention to argue that shooting should 

 be arbitrarily sacrificed in the interests of fox-hunting, 

 because certain non-resident shooting-tenants and their 

 keepers violate the orthodoxy which is common to every 

 sport. The argument would be absurd, since for genera- 

 tions genuine shooting-men and genuine hunting-men 

 have adjusted their differences amicably, and the one 

 sport may be regarded as equally a part of the full enjoy- 

 ment of country life as the other. Indeed, it has always 

 been my contention that the interests of fox-hunting 

 and shooting are in most respects identical. I am not 

 referring to what I may term the technical interests, 

 but to those interests which are common to all country 

 sports in these days, when faddists and self-styled 

 humanitarians preach that rural England is an England 

 of the past. 



In regard to the relations between gamekeepers and 

 shooting-tenants I have received the following com- 

 munication from Mr. Reginald Herbert, the Master of 

 the Monmouthshire Hounds. " ' Like Master, like 

 man.' Gamekeepers, as a rule, carry out what they 

 know or guess to be the vices or wishes of their 

 employer. If the employer insists on foxes as well 

 as pheasants, he will get them. Personally, I prefer 

 drawing well-preserved coverts owned by a staunch 



