BRITISH SPORT PAST AND PRESENT 



the zenith of its fame as a winter resort, and met ' for the 

 amusement of all who choose to join the hunt ' on Mondays 

 near Portslade Windmill, on Wednesdays near Patcham, and 

 on Fridays on the Race Hill. The field was not always well 

 behaved : upon a day in October 1804 the huntsman was 

 compelled to go home ' before the accustomed time ' by reason 

 of the misconduct of men who persisted in riding before the 

 hounds. 



Five or six miles is accounted a good point for a hare when 

 ' forced to make out endwaies,' as Turbervile so happily puts it. 

 Mr. Fames, Master of the Cootley, has been good enough to tell 

 me of a run which must be unique for length. It occurred in 

 the time of his grandfather sixty or seventy years ago : finding 

 near Chard, hounds ran their hare to Wellington Monument 

 and killed her after a fifteen-mile point. 



Mr. George Race, now in his seventieth year of Mastership 

 (surely the ' record ' in the whole history of hunting), once saw 

 a run of twelve miles. He writes : ' It took place on 28th 

 December 1848. We found our hare in Litlington field, and 

 she went straight to the bottom part of Morden Heath, where 

 there was a wood sale going on. The people turned her to the 

 left, and she went over the Royston and Baldock road, up the 

 hill into the open, nearly to the top of Royston town. Here 

 she came down the hill, and was evidently going back to Litling- 

 ton field, but there were so many foot-people, carriages and 

 waggons passing, she would not cross the road, and turned up 

 the hill again, and leaving Mr. Thm-nall's gorse just on our 

 right, went over the open to Seven Riders, where a waggon 

 turned her to the right. She went up the hill to Reed village 

 and straight across the fields to the Old North Road, up wliieh 

 she ran as hard as she could go to just below Backland, where 

 a road-mender turned her to the left over the fields down to 

 Capon's Wood. Here hounds raced into view and bowled her 

 over in a rackway in the wood. The time was not taken, but 

 it was a fine run. Mr. Wilham Pope, Mr. Chas. Lindsell 

 (Master of the Cambridgeshire for seventeen years), and myself 



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