156 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



always to be seen in the first flight." There is another 

 objection to Hunt servants becoming newspaper 

 correspondents. It is impossible for them to criticise 

 impartially their own conduct and the conduct of 

 their Master in the hunting-field. The sporting 

 journalist, if he be worth his salt, must do something 

 more than give a bare outline of the run and the names 

 of the people who were out. It may not be his duty 

 to censure ; certainly it is not his duty to dictate to 

 the Master ; but he should know how to bestow praise 

 judiciously, when it is due, without being guilty of 

 flattery. " If you can't write favourably, don't write at 

 all," the editor of a London paper once said to me. 

 This editorial instruction will account for the fact that 

 we seldom see the conduct of a Master severely 

 criticised in the newspapers. " Trial by newspaper," 

 when the defendant is a Master of Hounds, generally 

 means that a few members of the Hunt, who have 

 a grievance against the Master, make use of the 

 columns of a local newspaper in order to air the 

 grievance. 



I wish that all Masters of Hounds would imitate the 

 example of Lord Lonsdale by making more use of the 

 local newspaper for the benefit of fox-hunting in general 

 and the tenant-farmers in particular. Lord Lonsdale, 

 than whom the farmers have had few better friends, 

 when he accepted the Mastership of the Quorn at the 

 end of the season 1892-1893, at once devoted his 

 energies to doing everything in his power to assist the 

 landowners and tenant-farmers. Every week two 

 sheets of the Melton Mowbray Times and Lough- 



