6 NUISANCES OF HUNT COMMITTEES. 



meretricious luxuries of the Continent, have far greater 

 charms to the young man of fortune, than the quiet 

 and peaceful retreat of an old family mansion-house in 

 the country. The love for the chase vanishes at the 

 approach of the swallow ; and no more is thought of 

 the hound, or the horse, until, by the rains of autumn, 

 the ground is rendered sufficiently saturated for hard 

 riding, an accomplishment which is now considered the 

 only requisite knowledge in hunting for the modern 

 sportsman. These causes, together with the high pitch 

 to which political feeling is now carried in England, 

 render it next to an impossibility for any one person 

 to have sufficient influence to prevail upon his pheasant- 

 feeding neighbours to allow the foxes to be preserved. 

 A committee* is the order of the day ; the new 

 mode of doing things by subscription is introduced, 

 the niggardly system of retrenchment^ and curtailing 

 is resorted to ; jealousies amongst the subscribers ensue, 

 the subscriptions fall off, the foxes are destroyed, and 



* Committees, although now becoming very general, are frequently sad 

 nuisances (except as regards finding the sine qua non) to masters of hounds ; 

 and from the ignorance and conceit of many committee men, who are elected 

 usually according to the length of their purses, owners of fox-hounds feel an 

 irresistible jealousy at their interference. The following ludicrous anecdote is 

 related of Mr. Nichol, when that gentleman hunted the New Forest. The first 

 day his hounds hunted that countrj', and before he could possibly have become 

 acquainted with one half of the usual attendants upon the N. F. Fox-hounds, 

 when experiencing a run across the Forest, after begging and beseeching to 

 several hard riders, who were wantonly pressing upon the pack, to no purpose, 

 he let out at them in rather unmeasured terms, to the utter astonishment of one 

 unfortunate wight, who claimed the privilege of exhibiting himself, upon the 

 plea of being a committee man, and expressed his surprise at Mr. N. for using 

 such dreadful language to one of his consequence. " The committee be d — d," 

 said Mr. Nichol, " you are not worth d — mning singly, so I'll d — n you all in a 

 lump." 



t In 1830 the Warwickshire hunt committee reduced the pay of the earth- 

 stoppers to half, and the result was what might be expected, in about half the 

 covers " no find." 



