122 HISTORY OF THE BRAMHAM MOOR HUNT. 



in the morning, but I will ask you to allow me briefly to 

 dip into the history of the old Bramham Moor country, 

 that I may show how I tumbled into the proud position 

 I now hold. Fox-hunting; has for many vears been, and 1 

 trust ever will be, the leading winter pastime of Yorkshire- 

 men. Somewhere about eighty years ago my grandfather, 

 James Fo.x, established a well-appointed pack of fox- 

 hounds, and, by the kind permission of the landowners, was 

 allowed to hunt and claim the fox-hunting right of hunting 

 over a large extent of country between Bingley and Selby, 

 Leeds, York, and Knaresborough ; and this district of 

 Yorkshire he called the Bramham Moor country. When 

 failing health caused him to give up the pleasures of the 

 chase, my father not wishing to hamper himself with a pack 

 of foxhounds, the then Lord Lascelles offered to take the 

 country. James Fox made him a present of hounds and 

 kennel-horses, and for many years that good sportsman, 

 whom some of us remember as the old Lord Harewood, 

 taught us lessons of keenness. He was so truly fond of 

 hunting, that on a frosty morning he would have his horses 

 turned up to go out. He would hunt all day, and when 

 overtaken by darkness would say, "We shall have the moon 

 up soon ! " He never wanted to go home. The late Lord 

 Harewood continued to hunt the country until his duties 

 as Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding, and other public 

 duties, allowed him no time to attend to the work of a 

 master of foxhounds, and he at once gave back the hounds 

 and kennel-horses to my father, who, though at the time in 

 bad health, gladly took them back, knowing that I was 

 anxious to fill the position that my grandfather had held. 

 These friendly and neighbourly arrangements were carried 

 out without the assistance of a committee, or a pen being 

 put to paper. I mention this to show what friendly terms 

 the families of Lascelles and Fox have always been upon, 



