LADIES IN THE SHIRES 279 



wrote a delightful book, " Fifty Years Fox-hunting," 

 that I will not repeat it here. Mr. Elliott was the 

 chosen pilot of both the ex-Queen and the late Em- 

 press. One advantage the ladies who rode to hounds 

 thirty years ago certainly had : no one went out 

 except for pleasure. A woman who hunted had to 

 overcome some difficulties and withstand a certain 

 amount of disapproval. Now, hunting is fashionable, 

 and is regarded sometimes perhaps as one method of 

 rising in the social scale. Nevertheless, though there 

 may be something of this in the present day, there 

 is certainly not much. At this point I may turn 

 aside for a moment to give a word of caution to those 

 whose knowledge of hunting, and especially hunting 

 in the Shires, is derived from books and newspapers. 

 Many of the writers have no more than a theoretical 

 acquaintance with hunting, and are full of fancies very 

 wide of the truth. It may be taken as a general rule 

 that the majority of hunting people are not different 

 in any way from the ordinary well-dressed, well- 

 mannered Englishman or Englishwoman of their class. 

 There is nothing particularly remarkable about hunt- 

 ing society, and hunting women are much like other 

 English ladies. The sport is only one side of their 

 lives, and they have their other interests, domestic, 

 social, literary, just like everybody else. One dis- 

 tinguished author has said that they are coarse, but 

 that is a libel born of ignorance and a priori reasoning. 

 If your knowledge of hunting dates not later than 

 Squire Western, or even than the writings of Nimrod, 

 you necessarily have quite an erroneous idea of what 

 hunting is at the present and what hunting society is 

 like. There is no doubt at all that the presence of 

 ladies in the hunting field has greatly softened the 

 manners of the followers of chase ; and it is a fact 



