120 SHOWING YOUNG HOUNDS. 



from the effects of the distemper, to have learnt to 

 answer to their names in the kennel, and to have 

 begun to go daily to horse exercise along the neigh- 

 bouring roads, the wild ones in couples, the rest with a 

 pr. buckled double on their necks, being occasionally 

 taken for an hour at a time amongst sheep and cat- 

 tle, in which way they must be employed until within a 

 month of cub-hunting, when they may be taken every 

 morning by themselves into a deer-park, or amongst 

 hares ; when this part of their education commences 

 they should be cross-coupled, and if they show any 

 inclination to riot they should be severely chastised ; in 

 the course of three or four days they will be so 

 accustomed to them, that they may be trusted amongst 

 them without being coupled, taking care to enlarge 

 only a few at a time ; they may then be taken out with 

 the old hounds, and thus exercised for about eight 

 or nine hours each morning till the cub-hunting 

 commences. With regard to showing the young 

 hounds hares previous to entering them, huntsmen 

 differ widely in opinion; it is the custom with some to 

 show them riot almost daily for many weeks previous 

 to cub-hunting, — flogging them most severely for 

 attempting to chase. Charles King, who lived so many 

 years with Lord Althorp (now Earl Spencer), acted in 

 quite a different way ; his opinion was that it was not 

 only useless, but that it tended considerably to dispirit 

 and spoil young hounds, to awe them too much from 

 riot before they were well entered and blooded ; and 

 with the exception of showing them deer in Althorp 

 Park a few times (although the kennel was close 

 to it), and two or three times finding a few sitting 

 hares, to teach them to know the meaning of a rate, 



