28o FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



which no one who has a personal acquaintance with 

 hunting in grass countries, or indeed anywhere else, 

 would deny that a lady or a clergyman can share in 

 the sport to-day without the faintest possibility of 

 offence to the most delicate susceptibilities. I apolo- 

 gise to those who know for stating truisms, but there 

 are very different, and certainly undeserved, pictures 

 drawn of life and society in fashionable hunts. Of 

 course, there are faults and blots. Freedom here and 

 there degenerates into licence ; liberal expenditure 

 into extravagance. But that is only to say that 

 hunting society is human. If, as has been said, there 

 is sometimes " a mixture of outrageous lavishness and 

 meanness," that is only a characteristic common to 

 the ignoble side of modern society. The cure of 

 these evils is to a great extent in the hands of the 

 best of the ladies who hunt. They can make selfish- 

 ness and meanness unfashionable, and politeness and 

 courtesy the proper thing. It ought not to be pos- 

 sible to speak in their hearing of the residents as 

 " cursed locals." Readily I acknowledge that there 

 are many ladies who do try their best, and success- 

 fully, to bring about a tone of feeling more worthy 

 of gentlefolk. No names of living people have been 

 or will be mentioned in this chapter, but it is as I 

 have said, and there are many houses in Leicestershire 

 and Northamptonshire tenanted in the hunting season 

 by those whose presence adds to the happiness and 

 well-being of the neighbourhood. Of one thing we 

 may be quite certain, that in these days fashionable 

 hunts could not long exist if they were centres of 

 corruption. The lady of a house has, moreover, much 

 power, and, if she will take trouble, can render many 

 services to sport. It is not so much any active mis- 

 doing as idleness and self-indulgence which cause 



