FARMERS AND FOX-HUNTING. 283 



ing to bond fide tenant farmers free of cost. This is done 

 regularly in the North Staffordshire Hunt and in many 

 others with very satisfactory results. 



One most important point in every well-managed 

 Hunt is to see that the Covert Fund and Damage Com- 

 mittee is fairly constituted, and that it does its work well 

 and justly between the Hunt and the farmers who send in 

 claims for the loss of poultry or lambs, or for other kinds 

 of damage. There is a natural tendency, perhaps, on the 

 part of an average fox-hunter on the committee to look 

 upon these claims with some suspicion. This is corrected 

 in the best and most satisfactory way in our opinion by 

 having a fair proportion of tenant farmers on the com- 

 mittee, who will hold the balance straight, and who, if 

 there really is a well-grounded suspicion of a fraudulent 

 claim, will be far more likely to discover the truth about 

 it than the fox-hunting members of the same committee. 

 There can, unfortunately, be no doubt that every now and 

 then a trumped-up claim is sent in, and it is only right 

 that claims should be carefully investigated, especially 

 where the claimant is either unknown to the committee 

 or where what is known is not to his credit. We all know 

 the time-honoured story of the claimant who began by 

 claiming for fowls, then for geese, then for turkeys, next 

 year for lambs, then for a calf; whereupon the M.F.H. 

 sent a cheque with the remark that the claimant must 

 not forget to let him know as soon as the fox took 

 his cow ! At the same time the committee should never 

 treat a claim as fictitious unless they have clear proof 

 that it is so ; for it goes without saying that nothing is 

 more certain to make a farmer an enemy to fox-hunting 

 for the rest of his life, than to be told, without good 

 foundation, that the Hunt Committee consider he has 

 made a fictitious claim. When the authorities are satisfied 

 that the claim is good, they should settle promptly, and 

 not be cheeseparing as to the amount. In the North 

 Staffordshire Hunt (in the writer's time, and no doubt 

 it still continues), we had a regular scale of allowance, so 



