24 FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



us for hunting elsewhere, but if this is true, it is because 

 we are not sportsmen at heart. Every kind of country 

 has its pecuHar charm and its particular interests. In 

 the Shires the sport is different, but not perhaps greater 

 than in the provinces if we reaUy love hunting, and 

 there is no doubt at all that a very large number of 

 men and women would be far happier in a provincial 

 country than in Leicestershire. They would see more 

 sport and would come to understand it better. With 

 the best will in the world, a man may hunt half a life- 

 time in the Midlands, and know very little about 

 hunting at the end of it. This is not possible in the 

 provinces, for there, unless he learns something of 

 hunting, he will scarcely persevere for long. 



Yet, with all deductions, there are still a great 

 number of people who will find the Shires the best 

 place to hunt in. The visitors from other countries, 

 of whom we have already spoken, soldiers on leave 

 from India or elsewhere, business men who want a 

 gallop, all, in fact, who can and will ride and are their 

 own masters, as well as those who love the social side 

 and yet have a real affection for the sport itself, all 

 these will, as I have said, find the Shires a paradise. 



Two things show that this is, indeed, only sober 

 truth : the size and variety of our fields, and the 

 increasing numbers of people who buy or lease houses 

 in the Midlands and make them their home for a con- 

 siderable part of each year. 



