The Sport of Our <*Ancestors 



the roads were polished and burnished as they are to-day. 

 The road was even then a hard place to fall on, but at least 

 there was foothold for the horse when he began to dance. 

 In the present state of the roads any movement at all, unless 

 it be a very slow walk, is almost suicidal. The casualty list 

 is already formidable. But when one has got to the meet 

 without disaster by the aid of short cuts and grass sidings to 

 the roads — though what happens in some countries where 

 there are no grass sidings is terrible to contemplate — what 

 becomes of our good old friend the turnpike road, who has 

 so often enabled us all to save our horses during the run, 

 and to see so many Foxes killed ? It has been turned into a 

 sheet of ice, hard, hideous, and convex, more death-dealing 

 than the stiff est of timber or the blindest of ditches. 



The motor-car, then, seems to have made Fox-hunting 

 more of a luxury and less of a business, and has made riding 

 on the turnpike road almost impossible. In a certain sense 

 it has had more influence than the railway train as an acces- 

 sory of the chase. A railroad is, of course, a horrible nuisance, 

 and has spoilt many a good run, but the general effect of 

 railways on Fox-hunting was so gradual that the change was 

 hardly perceptible. Motor-cars, on the other hand, came in 

 battalions, almost without warning, penetrated places where 

 the railroad did not run, and marked a new era in the general 

 outlook of the Fox-hunter, as they have marked a completely 

 new era in the customs and indeed the manners of the 

 nation. 



It is with the object of recalling something of the spirit 



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