38 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



should say fifty words would very nearly include all 

 that there is to say about it. You must remember 

 wire is not a new portent. Its prevalence is conceded ; 

 its inconvenience to hunting-people ; its convenience 

 to farmers and foresters ; and its permanent factor in 

 hunting affairs, which in most parts of England has to 

 be reckoned with, and which hereabouts, for instance, 

 is dealt with satisfactorily." Lord Ribblesdale writes 

 from Melton Mowbray, where money is like sand on 

 the sea-shore if it is required for promoting the welfare 

 of fox-hunting. But in the provinces money is not so 

 abundant as it is in the fashionable shires, while the 

 men who farm arable land incur more damage from 

 hunting, and a fortiori require more compensation 

 than the graziers, who occupy the larger pastures of 

 Leicestershire. 



" And bitter the curses you launch in your ire 

 At the villain who fenced his enclosure with wire." 



The above two lines are the only words, which I have 

 been able to discover, that the late Major Whyte- 

 Melville ever penned in a vindictive spirit ; and the 

 only caustic speech, which I have heard recorded of 

 him, was to a land-owner, who had erected wire. " I'm 

 a Christian man, and so bear no malice ; but if any 

 one were to tell me that you had got a wasps' nest 

 inside your breeches I should be very glad to hear it.' 

 What more suitable punishment could be devised for 

 the user of barbed wire in a hunting country ! 



During the Coronation Year I had the pleasure of 

 meeting some large stock-raisers from New South 



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