EXPENSE OF A PACK OF FOX-HOUNDS. 41 i 



knowing, as we do, the great sacrifices of property 

 and income that have already been made to a per- 

 severance in keeping fox-hounds, unassisted by a 

 subscription. But this cannot go on much longer ; 

 nor indeed is it, with some exceptions, fit that it 

 should ; and, in support of our assertions, we will 

 quote the sentiments of a writer on this subject, 

 admirably well expressed, in a late number of the 

 New Sporting Magazine.* 



After hinting at the probable decline, from this 

 cause alone, of a sport which Mr. Burke described 

 as " one of the balances of the constitution," he 

 thus proceeds : — " As to the total abolition of the 

 sport, we anticipate no such event. It is the fa- 

 vourite sport of Englishmen ; and that which a 

 man likes best he will relinquish last. Still, with 

 the exception of countries that boast their Cleve- 

 lands, their Yarboroughs and Suttons, their Graf- 

 tons, Beauforts, Rutlands, Fitzwilliams, Segraves, 

 Middletons (his lordship is since dead,) and Hare- 

 woods — their great and sporting noblemen, in fact 

 — we feel assured that, unless something be speedily 

 arranged, half the packs in England must either be 

 curtailed of their fair proportion of sport, or abo- 

 lished altogether. This is not as it should be. Men 

 are as fond of hunting, at least of riding to hounds, 

 as ever ; but though we feel that we may be telling 

 a disagreeable truth to many, the fact is, that most 

 men want to hunt for nothing. The day for this, 

 however, is fast drawing to a close. The breed of 

 country gentlemen who keep hounds — the Ralph 



* No. xxxiv., vol. vi. 



