THE CONDITIONS OF HUNTING. 245 



of which was a shire oountry, and one wa-s not even in the 

 Midlands. I may add that the old-fashioned, powerfully 

 made, short-backed and short-legged (as judged by present- 

 day standards) hunter which could carry about sixteen stone 

 throughout a long day, and jump every sort of fence, is hardly 

 to be found at the present time. He, when he is found, is 

 not fast enough for the days of burning scent, and the men 

 who rode him have given way to a generation who require 

 horses nearly a hand taller, with a longer reach, and greater 

 speed — and which can only be purchased at a high figure. 



We have it established then that the price of horseflesh has 

 gone up, as well as the cost of maintenance of a country, the 

 latter because there are more claims to pay, more to be pulled 

 out for fox preservation, more for puppy shows, hunt horse 

 •societies, and so forth; but individual expenses for saddlery, 

 clothes, and equipment generally have also risen in a consider- 

 able degree. Subscriptions have also risen, the minimum in 

 many hunts now being quite as much as what the three-or- 

 four-days-a-week man paid fifty years ago. Wages, too, are 

 •even now much higher than they were before the war, and 

 whereas good strappers some years ago would only take on 

 two horses in a well-regulated stable, three and a hack were 

 often the work of a single man in earlier times. Another 

 great change is the manner of reaching meets of hounds, for 

 before and since the war about ninei-tenths of eivery field 

 reached the scene of action in motor-cars, while the odd tenth 

 were hunting so near home that the car was a superfluity. 

 Hunting with a motor-car to the meet, and left somewhere for 

 the homeward journey, means seldom more than from four to 

 five hour j in thesaddle, and thus himting people generally have, 

 in recent years, spent little more than half the time in actual 

 riding that their forefathers did. Long rides to distant meets 

 were the lot of scores of people before the motor came; but some 

 hunting people drove, and a fair number used the train when 

 •convenient. Even some of the old school prefer to hack when 

 possible, and just before the war I heard of a Warwickshire 

 lady, whose daughter was going home in a motor, declining the 

 offer of a lift, as she " preferred to bump home." She had 

 nearly twenty miles to travel. 



