258 THE TEINITY FOOT BEAGLES 



I regret that I have no livelier recollections to give you of so 

 important an institution ; mj information will, I fear, prove to be 

 even scantier than the " minutes." — Yours truly, 



(Signed) Konaldshay. 



But of all festive institutions connected with the T.F.B., the 

 T.F.B. Club is both the last and the greatest. It has, moreover, 

 the advantage of having kept permanent memoranda, which form a 

 most valuable contribution to recent liistory. They are contained 

 in two books bound in beagle-green morocco, and the records extend 

 over just twenty years. They contain, of course, no matters of 

 serious import, but beyond the dry statistics of when and where 

 dinners were held, and who were present, they record many lighter 

 and more cheery incidents, chiefly in the form of entertaining and 

 often very clever pen-and-ink sketches. These books come in, 

 therefore, most opportunely as covering the more recent period of 

 our annals, for which little or no other information has come to hand.^ 



As to each age there attaches some special feature of interest, 

 to the beaglers of the first decade of the twentieth century belongs 

 the honour of giving to the world the lighter side of the sport. The 

 records are full of drawings of various degrees of technical merit, but 

 as a whole presenting a verital)le Comedy of Beaghng. These 

 drawings are of value not only for their intrinsic humour, but also 

 because they show that, though the science of hunting is by no 

 means lost sight of, yet it never obscures the fact that one goes 

 beagling, just as one goes boat-racing, shooting, or cruising, for fun. 

 To do otherwise is 



Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas : 

 i.e. 



To drown sport in its own technicaHties. 



The T.F.B. Club, like all sound institutions, " kinder grew " like 

 Topsy. For some time there had been a Committee, the Mastership 

 being in commission, and what more natural than that the Com- 

 mittee should dine together ? Then came a time when a Master 



^ The beaglers of this period are, of course, not yet old enough to be reminiscent. 



