THE HISTORY OF THE BEL VOIR HUNT 



Yet when we consider the importance of the sport to the 

 prosperity of such counties as Leicestershire and Lincoln- 

 shire, we have only to imagine the state of things if hunt- 

 ing were to cease for a single season. Corn and cattle are, 

 it is true, at the present time equally depressed, but what 

 the condition of these counties would be if all the hunting 

 establishments were withdrawn it is difficult to imagine. 



There have always been Englishmen who are ready to be- 

 lieve they are oppressed, and that their rights as well as 

 their fields are trampled under foot, and such will resist the 

 privileges of sport accordingly. They are open but honest 

 foes, and they do comparatively little injury to hunting — 

 perhaps, indeed, are no real danger to it at all. The real 

 peril and hindrance in the future, as in the past, lie in the 

 selfishness and indifference of a certain class of landowners, 

 who, while professing to be sportsmen, put up miles of 

 barbed wire fencing over their land. No man who is not 

 covertly hostile to hunting would permit such fencing on his 

 property. 



As an illustration of the difficulties which arose in the 

 early days of the Belvoir, the most, by far, were occasioned 

 by the opposition of the landlords. We have seen how Sir 

 William Manners turned off the Duke's hounds in conse- 

 quence of a political difference with his kinsman, and 

 actually succeeded in keeping them out. Lord Forester, too, 

 had not been long in office before a serious difficulty arose 

 in a very important part of the country. Stapleford Park, 

 though not in the Duke's country, was often run over by 

 the Belvoir. Lord Harborough, however, not only warned 

 hounds off his property, but with the peculiar malignity of a 

 weak and selfish man, lined his coverts with dog spears. In 

 consequence of this, hounds had repeatedly to be stopped 

 when running hard in their very best country, a most vexa- 

 tious and annoying thing for any master or huntsman to 

 have to experience. 



After a time this cloud passed away from the hunt, and 

 Lady Harborough, after her husband's death, threw open the 

 coverts, while her second husband. Major Claggett, supported 



146 



