266 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



Steyning Beard, Mr. James Dear, and other masters, who really 

 pride themselves on their packs ; but amongst harrier men there 

 are unfortunately several of what I may term the nondescript 

 class, who will hunt any and everything that they can get hold of. 

 I now come to the final objection to this kind of thing, and 

 I fear to turning out deer generally, which is that, except in a 

 very few countries, the farmers do not like it. They will stand 

 fox-hounds ; they don't complain of harriers properly conducted ; 

 but they draw the line at stag-hounds. It is only in a few 

 instances that masters have had the tact to make their packs 

 and sport popular, like the Eothschilds in the vale of Ayles- 

 bury, or Lord Derby in Surrey, but the cases are few and far 

 between ; and although they may not always object to them out- 

 right, their visits are, as a rule, looked on with no very favour- 

 able eye. There is no doubt but that the packs kept near 

 London by the horse-dealing fraternity have tended in a 

 measure to bring the sport into bad odour, as well as the mis- 

 cellaneous crowds of men who are not sportsmen from London 

 and other large towns, that patronize the staggers, and who are 

 quite as offensive to the real sportsmen who seek their diversion 

 with them, as they are to the people over whose land they 

 trespass. It is very amusing to read of the feats of Old Billy 

 Bean and others, in the Harrow district ; but I fear that to him 

 and his friends must be attributed, in a great measure, the 

 hostility evinced to hunting in some parts of the Old Berkeley 

 country, and some of the best parts, ^ I am sorry to say, where 



1 "Opposition to a Pack op Stag-hounds. — On Monday evening 

 (Wednesday, June 10th, 1878), Mr. F. H. Deane, chairman of the Uxbridge 

 bench of magistrates, called a meeting of the Harrow country farmers, at 

 the Chequers Hof el, Uxbridge, for the purpose of opposing the Colleen Dale 

 pack of stag-hounds, which are kennelled at the Hyde, Hendon. Mr. 

 Deane said that the presence of the pack in the Harrow country did not 

 appear to be at all satisfactory. The land was already subject to a con- 

 siderable amount of hunting by the Queen's hounds, the Old Berkeley 

 fox-hounds, and the Windsor Garrison drag-hounds ; but he believed that 

 the farmers were willing to patiently bear the damage which they were 



