THE ETHICS OF HUNTING 321 



which he knew to contain plenty of foxes. As 

 there was a gale blowing which was little short of 

 a hurricane, it was pretty evident to the initiated 

 in such matters that the huntsman must have the 

 advantage of the wind if he wished to find a fox 

 that morning. It seems quite a revelation to some 

 people that a fox's senses of smell and hearing are 

 marvellously acute. " What a cast to make ! " 

 said, on another occasion, one of the critics ; " the 

 fox has never gone there." But " there " was just 

 where he had gone, and some five minutes after- 

 wards, hounds ran into a fox that had been well 

 hunted for upwards of an hour and a half, during 

 half of which time the field, or the majority of 

 them, was actively employed in criticism, not to 

 say invective, in happy ignorance of the beautiful 

 hound -work which was going on under their 

 noses. 



In the matter of subscribing and helping the 

 Master generally, now is the time to make good 

 resolutions. Many rich men who get a lot of 

 hunting by no means subscribe in proportion to 

 their incomes, and the hunting got by their guests, 

 their family, or themselves, and poorer men give 

 in far greater proportion for the sport they are 

 able to see. But then, when a poor man sub- 

 scribes he is generally like the Great Coram Street 

 grocer, " werry keen." This is a thing which 

 should be seen to. I have heard some men speak 

 of the large subscription which certain Masters of 

 Hounds get, but in any good four-days-a-week 

 country £1000 per day is not equal to paying 

 the necessary expenses. Most Masters of Hounds 

 are from ^2000 to ^3000 per annum out of 

 pocket, — I am speaking, of course, of the larger 



Y 



