3i6 FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES 



is sometimes said that people want to hunt cheaply 

 and that strangers to a country are a great evil. To 

 the first we reply that of all the ways of supporting 

 a hunt money is, though indispensable, the least 

 important. A hunt does not at all rest on its wealth, 

 or we should find that the hunts with the largest 

 subscriptions would have the fewest difficulties in 

 their way, whereas we know that they are not in 

 the least exempt from wire or hostility. 



The real danger to hunting arises from three 

 causes, of which I will write frankly. First of all, 

 there is a certain arrogance — what we used at Oxford 

 in our possibly pedantic but not inexpressive phrase 

 to call " hubris " — on the part of a certain class. 

 Then there is carelessness about the duties and 

 courtesies of hunting ; there are gates left open and 

 fences broken down. Thirdly, the cloud of second 

 horsemen, who are a real source of irritation, and 

 worst of all the long trail of people behind the hunt, 

 who ride on enjoying themselves but breaking down 

 fences and doing mischief. At this point I may 

 say that, while we may legitimately jump at a fence 

 and possibly smash it in so doing, it is at the present 

 day absolutely inexcusable to dismount and de- 

 liberately break down a fence in order to make a 

 passage through it. If fences were only injured 

 by those who jumped them fairly, I believe that there 

 would be far less wire than there is. The sting of a 

 hunt, like that of a scorpion, is in its tail. 



Now, I am not saying that the farmer is faultless. 

 He has the failing of all the English middle class, 

 " tetchiness," and often does himself and the hunt 

 harm by keeping up wire on account of some quite 

 imaginary wrong that no one but himself has ever 

 thought of. But he, like other people, feels and 



