CHAPTER II 



AN APOLOGY TO MR. SURTEES 



IN selecting anything in the nature of an anthology, the 

 trouble is to know what to leave out. Some people 

 who read books of this kind will think that if one of their 

 pet classics is not here it should have been included, and 

 something else that is here should have been omitted. 

 Many will say quite naturally that no symposium of sporting 

 authors can be complete unless Surtees is seated at the 

 board. If we owe an apology to Surtees for not inviting 

 him, we can equally claim that we are paying him the com- 

 pliment of putting him in a class by himself. We take for 

 granted that he is more widely read than any other sporting 

 writer, and that to reprint one or two of the passages from 

 his books that are most familiar would be a work of super- 

 erogation. Some of the gems in 'Hundley Cross ^ are such 

 household words, and have become so hackneyed, that we 

 have not the hardihood to dish them up again. 



The correct title of this famous work is so seldom heard 

 nowadays that it is necessary to say that by * Hundley Cross ^ 

 is meant that book now known by its colloquial or short 

 title of ' Jorrocks.' This short title or nickname is so 

 universal that to talk of ' Hundley Cross ' sounds almost 

 affected, and would seem to savour of the phraseology of 



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