314 FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



man who rents a house at a watering-place for the 

 season. 



In practice this class gives very little trouble. 

 Before they come into the country they generally find 

 out what is expected of them. Indeed they are 

 generally anxious to be regarded as members of the 

 hunt and willing to pay for the honour. It is true 

 of course that such people may not always give quite 

 as much as they ought to do, but if they did they 

 would not perhaps be as rich as they are. 



There are two classes of people who must be con- 

 sidered. First the " borderers," the men who have 

 the bad luck to live near the border of one hunt and 

 find it convenient to hunt over the limit line with a 

 neighbouring pack once or twice a week. These 

 men probably subscribe to the hunt of the district 

 in which they live. But this is no reason why they 

 should hunt for nothing with a neighbouring pack. 

 A cap or special rate of subscription seems to apply 

 to this class and meet their case. But a class which 

 requires much more tact is the class of permanent 

 residents in the district. The men who have as 

 many hundreds to spend as the visitors have thousands, 

 the men who have other occupations and to whom 

 hunting is purely a delightful recreation or an un- 

 rivalled means of health or pleasure. These men, 

 too, should give what they can. But there might 

 be an attempt made — I am not sure that it has not 

 been done already — to make subscriptions so heavy 

 as practically to exclude all but the wealthy from 

 this sport. I repeat that I have no doubt what- 

 ever, and I do not think any man who has really 

 studied the subject carefully can doubt that such 

 an attempt, if successful, would bring about the 

 speedy downfall of hunting. What bad times and 



