2 6o THE SPORT OF KINGS 



that we have entertained them and guaranteed 

 their safety throughout the year to no practical 

 end." The writer goes on to say that he yields to 

 no one in his love for the chase, and adds : " When 

 all natural conditions are against it, when most of 

 the few men and women in the field are only there 

 because no other amusement is immediately avail- 

 able, and when the subscriptions are so small that 

 everything has to be done on the cheap, it is very 

 much a question whether another sport for which 

 the country is peculiarly adapted, and which gives 

 a vast amount of pleasure to many people, should 

 be arbitrarily sacrificed in its favour." 



Let us consider this rather formidable indict- 

 ment for a moment. In the first place, it must 

 strike any impartial reader that it is manifestly 

 unfair to attack a Master of Hounds and a hunt 

 in such a vague manner. They have no chance 

 to defend ourselves, and a general statement is 

 made which is damaging to the sport of fox- 

 hunting as a whole, and which, on the face of it, 

 seems intended to be such. I am friendly to fox- 

 hunting, says the writer in effect, but it is fox- 

 hunting under such conditions as / think fit. He 

 seems indeed a fitting companion for a gentleman ( ?) 

 of my acquaintance who hunts himself in a fashion- 

 able country, but who is a pronounced vulpicide in 

 the country where his property is situated. He, 

 like the author of the diatribe I have quoted, holds 

 that the country in which his property is situated 

 "can never be a hunting district"; I know it to 

 be as fine a country as man need wish to ride 

 over, provided he has a clever enough horse to 

 cross it, though I admit I should like a little more 

 grass. 



