The Sport of Our <^ncestors 



way to impede them or disturb them, or even to remind them of 

 your presence. If thus you Hve with them, turning as they turn, 

 but never turning among them, keeping your distance, but losing 

 no yard, and can do this for seven miles over a grass country in 

 forty-five minutes, then you can ride to hounds better than nine- 

 teen men out of every twenty that you have seen at the meet, and 

 will have enjoyed the keenest pleasure that hunting, or perhaps, I 

 may say, that any other amusement, can give you.' 



These chapters from * The American Senator ' are chosen 

 because they set forth in a few touches, but with unerring 

 precision, almost every point of view from which Fox- 

 hunting can be regarded. There is Lord Rufford, who really 

 ought to have been the M.F.H. himself, but who was pro- 

 bably too idle and easy-going to face the responsibility : a 

 backwoodsman with much more money than brains, who 

 would have been as likely to have wandered into the House 

 of Commons by mistake as to have found his way into the 

 House of Lords, should he have turned to Westminster 

 Palace for a new sensation, as the sated gourmet turned to 

 boiled mutton and sago pudding. Devoted to hunting and 

 shooting, but not prepared to do any spade work for either, 

 he allows Captain Glomax, the carpet-bagger, to come down 

 to his own country of Rufford, and take the place that should 

 be his. Captain Glomax was not to the manner born, but 

 compelled by sheer love of Foxhounds to be their master, 

 and to spend his money on keeping and breeding them. 

 Fox-hunting has always produced, and will continue to 

 produce, men like Captain Glomax, ready and anxious 

 to face all the wear and tear of mastership in return for 

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