RUGBY 97 



Railway train service, to keep horses at if you your- 

 self require to be often in London. It is easy to leave 

 town in the morning and always easy to return to it 

 at night after hunting. In the same way, if you live 

 at Rugby it is quite possible to go up to town and 

 back with far less trouble and wear and tear than 

 you would have in reaching many suburbs of London 

 from the Metropolis itself. Rugby is, in fact, in point 

 of time and convenience not so very much farther off 

 than Ealing or Wimbledon. 



It is its train service, its polo and its school that 

 are its chief attraction, for as a hunting centre Rugby 

 is not to be compared for convenience with Melton 

 or Market Harborough. From both these latter 

 places you can, if you will, hunt sometimes in dis- 

 tricts which, if not quite so fashionable, are never- 

 theless not so crowded as many, and you may have 

 very good sport, but from Rugby you must always 

 take your pleasure more or less in a crowd, and in 

 one where the amenities are perhaps not so much 

 considered as in the more leisurely atmosphere of 

 Melton or Harborough, The main attraction to 

 Rugby from a hunting point of view is the number 

 of packs which, with a little assistance from the rail- 

 way, it is possible to see from thence. There is per- 

 haps no place in England where horse-boxes are so 

 much used in the hunting season as Rugby. There 

 is a line of railway belonging to the North-Western 

 system running from Rugby to Market Harborough, 

 which cuts right through some of the best of the 

 Pytchley grass and effectually cuts off that country 

 from Mr. Fernie's. It is very seldom that the Pytchley 

 run across that line. But though this railway is to 

 a certain extent a disadvantage, preventing the fre- 

 quent recurrence of such gallops as we read of in 



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