CHAPTER XXXI 



WITH A FARMER'S PACK 



The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 

 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world, 



is a maxim which applies to fox-hunting as to most 

 other things in this world. We may look back 

 with enthusiastic admiration to the days of old ; 

 we may regret that old customs and old methods 

 are now no longer practicable ; but we must re- 

 cognise that the altered state of society renders it 

 impossible for our sports to be carried on as they 

 were fifty or even thirty years ago. A story is 

 told of a farmer who attributed all the misfortunes 

 which befell in his neighbourhood to " them 

 dratted railways," and it is to the material pro- 

 gress which has been made during the last fifty 

 years, of which the railway and telegraph form 

 perhaps the most striking examples, that the 

 difference in our hunting customs is chiefly due, 

 and it is to that that the gradual decrease in the 

 numbers of farmers' hunts must be attributed. 



Fox-hunting in its modern development is a 

 much more expensive sport than was formerly the 

 case. To begin with, fields have more than quad- 

 rupled in size, and even in remote and so-called 

 unfashionable countries they are numbered by 



