A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 13 



begins. It is a very difficult country, too, over 

 which they run ; there are fewer enclosures and 

 more common and moorland than at present ; 

 the fences which separate the enclosures are very 

 different, big, straggling, unkempt blackthorn 

 hedges with drains being the principal obstacles 

 — obstacles which required to be ridden at in very 

 different style from the modern flying fences if you 

 would get to the other side in safety. 



The hounds, as has already been intimated, 

 were of a very different character. They were 

 bigger and coarser, such a thing as a " straight " 

 hound was practically unknown ; he is practically 

 a creation of the hound show. They were throaty 

 — perhaps modern critics would say that they were 

 noisy, but they had wonderfully fine noses, a good 

 cry, and they showed sport and killed their foxes, 

 whilst if they did not run quite so fast as do their 

 successors, they ran quite fast enough for horses 

 to follow them over the undrained and boggy 

 moors which prevailed in the good old times. 



Having killed their fox, in many hunts they 

 claimed from the churchwarden of the parish in 

 which he was killed 5 s., which was spent in a 

 bowl of punch, and in some it was expected that 

 every man who was up at the death should dine 

 at the nearest public-house, where it is probable 

 that much punch was consumed, and a good deal 

 of the same talk indulged in as that which delights 

 the youthful fox-hunter of the present day over 

 his " long drink " and cigarette. This custom was 

 by no means fair either to hounds or horses, but, 

 though there is no doubt that on occasion there 

 would be more "feast" than "reason" about it, 

 it by no means always implied a drunken orgy. 



