CHAPTER XIII 



DRESS AND EQUIPMENT 



Nimrod — The Essentials — Dress for the Horse — Second Horse- 

 man — Smoking in the Field— Lunch — Drinks — Importance 

 of Keeping Fit— Well-made Clothes Necessary — Saddles — 

 Straining the Muscles — The Ethics of Spurs — Whyte-Melville's 

 "Riding Recollections" — Often Necessary — Value of School 

 Training — Arguments in Favour of Spurs. 



This will not be a long chapter, because there is really 

 very little to be said. If the reader has no views 

 on the subject, then I think he cannot do better than 

 put himself into the hands of a first-rate tailor and 

 bootmaker and leave the matter to them. The only 

 peculiarity about dress for hunting in Leicestershire 

 is that if you are particularly well-dressed no one 

 will notice it, and if you prefer mufti, no one will 

 mind. I do not think masters as a rule in the Shires 

 are much disturbed if their followers do not come 

 out in pink. They have many other things to think of, 

 and, provided you do not ride over the hounds and 

 do no more damage than you can help, they do not 

 care how you clothe yourself. 



It was not always so, but then hunting society, like 

 every other, was much smaller, and the first historian 

 of hunting, Nimrod, was a dressy man and a bit 

 of a dandy. Besides, there is no great difference 

 nowadays between the dress of a Melton man and 



that of a well turned out man in the provinces, 



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