FRIENDS AND ENEMIES OF HUNTING 37 



fashion of Masters acting as their own huntsmen, 

 which has become so prevalent during the last decade ; 

 but, judged from the social point of view, I am con- 

 vinced that the fashion has been detrimental to fox- 

 hunting. If the Master who hunts his own hounds 

 were to appoint a competent field-master, who pos- 

 sessed the influence and ability to keep a modern field 

 in order, we should hear little, if anything at all, about 

 the insolent behaviour of swell snobs in the hunting- 

 field. But when the Master is hunting, or trying to 

 hunt, his own hounds, he cannot possibly have any 

 time in which to superintend the discipline of the field. 

 Nobody is better aware of this fact than the swell snob, 

 whose chief delight is to parade the parental wealth, 

 to the great annoyance of the farmers. 



Let me recount here the crux of a conversation, 

 which I had in March 1903, with a good old sports- 

 man whom I have known for over thirty years, though 

 I had not seen him for ten years, till we met accidentally 

 at the Agricultural Hall. After the usual preliminary 

 greetings my first question was : " What sort of sport 

 have you had this season down in your part of the 

 world ? " His reply was ; " Plenty of foxes, plenty of 

 wire, and plenty of damned cockneys ? " 



Now, so far as I have been able to ascertain during 

 the last three or four seasons. Masters of Hounds have 

 had no cause to complain of the dearth of foxes ; so, 

 for the present, we may dismiss the question of the 

 preservation of foxes, or I should say of the destruction 

 of foxes. In regard to wire, the Editor sends me a 

 letter from Lord Ribblesdale, in which he writes : " I 



