So THE SPORT OF KINGS 



advisable to reprint a criticism on the article when it 

 originally appeared and my reply to it. I need scarcely 

 say that I never heard any more of those hunters in 

 farmers' hands. 



I see in your last issue that a gentleman signing himself 

 " Marmaduke " is strongly against sportsmen buying their 

 hunters from farmers ; in fact, he almost makes the poor 

 farmer out to be a rogue. I think this is very hard upon the 

 fanners, as they have little enough to turn the penny upon — 

 and how does it happen that a man like Stokes, of Market 

 Harbro', maintains that the best horses that cross Leicester- 

 shire are bought in the North of England, and I can prove 

 that nine out of ten are bought from farmers, as Mr. 

 Stokes keeps an agent in Newcastle-on-Tyne, who goes 

 through the three northern counties buying up all the best 

 animals. And " Marmaduke " also states that people should 

 eschew horses sold at sales. How does it come that Irish 

 dealers sometimes average from .£80 to £100 on from ten to 

 twelve horses, both at Tattersall's and York ? If the people 

 were taken in, does he mean to say that they would come 

 back a second time? I fear " Marmaduke's" experience in 

 horseflesh is very limited and narrow. There are as good 

 men farmers in the North as there are in the shires, for all 

 they do not wear stays. Glendale. 



Though I do not, as a rule, reply to letters of 

 such a personal nature as that which appears over 

 the signature of " Glendale " in your last week's 

 issue, I will break through my rule for once. In 

 his remark about "wearing stays," I suppose 

 " Glendale " attempts to be funny. He succeeds 

 in being vulgar, and I must congratulate him on 

 his success. During my " limited and narrow " 

 experience of thirty-seven seasons with hounds, I 

 have bought one or two horses, as well as bred 

 them, and I have had more opportunities of 

 becoming acquainted with the trade in hunters in 

 all its bearings during the last five-and-twenty 

 years than falls to the lot of most men. I do not 



