MODERN FOX-HUNTING 17 



he is employed, granted he is a man of ordinary intelli- 

 gence. I am not saying there are no black sheep 

 among gamekeepers, but of course your correspondent 

 speaks of them as a class. However, he is not the only 

 one who has spent much of his precious time writing 

 on the same subject. Still, gamekeepers get along 

 somehow, and, in fact, are coming along by leaps and 

 bounds, in spite of the attacks made on them by a 

 certain mob who infest the sporting press. "^ 



" I would refer your readers to what Mr. Teasdale 

 Buckell, writing in Vanity Fair, says on the attitude of 

 game-preservers and fox-hunters towards each other 

 (or they may find ail that may interest them in the 

 Shooting Times of ist inst.). But before I proceed 

 further, I must part with your correspondent 'G. F. U.' 

 After considerable waste of 'slang' he winds up by 

 saying : ' It must be clearly understood that fox- 

 hunters ought not to rely on the goodwill of game- 

 keepers for their foxes.' Well, I may tell ' G. F. U.' 

 as long as huntsmen hunt they will have to rely on 

 gamekeepers for their foxes; and, as a matter of fact, 

 all sportsmen are satisfied to rely on them. Seldom do 

 we hear complaints from the M.F.H. As for the earth- 

 stopper, he must go before game-preserving, and if 

 a gamekeeper is responsible for the foxes, I fail to see 

 why there should be such an individual as an earth- 

 stopper. In conclusion, I may add I for one would not 

 nor would I advocate the wholesale killing of foxes 

 because my employer was not a hunting-man, or in 

 any way interested in it. I am penning these lines 

 in the centre of 'Ould' Ireland, where a crusade is 



