44 OBSERVATIONS ON FOX-HUNTING 



mangy fox where the owner of the covert strictly 

 preserved, and have invariably found them in 

 the neighbourhood of those known to be inimical 

 to Fox-hunting, and where the keepers lay poison. 

 If the animal has not taken sufficient to kill him 

 it will produce fever, and nature throwing it out 

 upon the skin, gives a similar appearance to the 

 mange in dogs, and it often happens a poor devil 

 in this miserable situation lingers for months, 

 and at last is starved to death. 



The very idea of poison makes me shudder ; 

 I have suffered from it both in my house and 

 in my kennel, and it seems to me an omission 

 in the Legislature that dogs were not included 

 in the " Black Act," for I cannot distinguish 

 any material difference between the crime of a 

 person who poisons a horse, and that of one who 

 thus destroys a valuable dog. In my lunnble 

 opinion, he who has the villainy to do either would 

 not hesitate to give you a dose likewise ; and the 

 sooner such rascals are brought to the scratch at 

 the Old Bailey, tant mieux pour tout le monde. 



You ask my opinion as to the method of 

 establishing earths in a country. The best I 

 know is to procure two young badgers, a male 

 and female, they will breed and make you 

 plenty of strong healthy earths ; many other 

 modes are adopted, but I think them all bad. 



