JUr. Bromley-Davenport 



rapacious feudalism. But although red coats, and hunting- 

 horns, and liveried servants, and meets of the Foxhounds 

 within the drawbridge of the ducal castle or the courtyard 

 of the baronial hall give some colour to this picture, the 

 Sport of our Ancestors is in fact and in practice entirely 

 national. If it were based upon exclusiveness it would 

 have deservedly perished long ago. Those who are re- 

 sponsible for the management of Fox-hunting cannot do 

 better than bear in mind this great truth. A substantial 

 subscription is necessary nowadays to pay the M.F.H. a 

 sufficient salary to enable him to carry on. But a high 

 tariff, difficult as it is to avoid, carries with it the seed of 

 danger if it be too rigidly enforced. And the danger is 

 that Fox-hunting may tend to become the exclusive pleasure 

 of the well-to-do. Now there is one class of man whom 

 on every count it is most undesirable to exclude from the 

 hunting-field. And that is the professional or business 

 man from the country town, be he solicitor, wine-merchant, 

 doctor, or even parson. All these men in the exercise of 

 their various callings see among their clients many sorts and 

 conditions of men and women, and, if they are Fox-hunters, 

 carry with them on their daily round the atmosphere of 

 the sport into sundry and divers places, and indirectly 

 contribute enormously to its popularity. Some of them 

 may even hunt only once a fortnight, or perhaps less, but 

 it will be a bad day for Fox-hunting if ever they and their 

 kind have to give it up altogether under pressure from 

 the tax-gatherer of the hunt. There is no exclusiveness 



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