1879—80.] ElEST CHAPTER OF ACCIDE^'TS. 299 



Each fence was woolly and indistinct ; the sun dazzled and 

 their masters gave neither mere}' nor time for thought; so the}'' 

 floundered and crashed ; put down their fore-legs where there 

 was nothing to depend upon hut vacuum and the certainty of 

 a somersault ; and cared as little for their hind-legs as a free- 

 thinker for consequences. The tale of casualties {The Field 

 never publishes a mortuary list) was entirely quadrupedal. 

 Four empty stalls are better than one empty chair. It is a 

 miserable thing to hear the gun ordered ; but it is ten times 

 worse to be told to ride for the doctor. And Ave are material- 

 ists now-a-days. Cremation finds as much favour as the coffin. 

 Sanitary motives may bid us in good conscience to consign any 

 aged relatives to the flames. The old horse goes to the boiler 

 in the cause for which he lived. We give him a chance of 

 repaying a small measure of his borrowing — muscle for music, 

 strength for excitements. Better — far better — that Roman 

 and Rosebud should for one day string their notes upon the 

 sinews that sprang so often to their echo, than that a longlashed 

 tyrant should cut a shilling a mile out of the poor derelict in 

 3'ears to come. 



Friday's first fox was excellently found for the folk who 

 make of a meet at Barkb}' a joyous holiday. Half an hour of 

 a bright warm morning had they spent basking round the Hall. 

 Then from the plantation at the very gates they realised tlie 

 find of a fox, saw the rush of the scarlet torrent, and heard the 

 full notes of hound and horn. Over the hill, past Barkbv 

 Thorpe, sped the chase. An open trench in the first field cost 

 Captain Campbell his best horse. It escaped from him here ; 

 and, jumping sideways into a road, broke its back. The 

 Humberstone brook, with its high rising banks and its thorny 

 fence on the landing side, had also its victims. But I will 

 pursue the list of casualties no further. A paragraph in a 

 daily has akeady given undue prominence to the accidents of 

 the day. Anxious friends, startled by the ambiguit}' of that 

 announcement, may rest satisfied that though some good steeds 



