8 SPORTS AND ANECDOTES. 



all before him at the point of the bayonet, and 

 poke his adversary in the stomach, and stir up his 

 abdominal viscera with a foot and a half of cold 

 steel, or enjoy his coffee and pistols for two, and 

 slugs in a saw pit, with a sang froid which can- 

 not be surpassed even in these fast days, and the 

 long range of the Henry- Martini rifle. That the 

 generality of sports and pastimes had more real 

 pleasure in those days I have little doubt. 



The man who killed his fifty, or thirty, or I 

 may say even the humbler bag of twenty brace of 

 partridges over a brace of good pointers with his 

 old "Joe Manton " flint and steel gun laid his 

 head on his pillow at night more composed in mind 

 than the man of the present day who shoots with 

 his two or three breechloaders and is never satisfied 

 unless he has been constantly on the present all 

 day long and has killed more birds than any one 

 else of the party. Such was also the case with 

 hunting ; and it is my sincere belief that more real 

 fun was often got out of one horse in olden times 

 than many in the present day get out of two or 

 even three. 



You would no doubt laugh, not in your sleeve, 

 but right out, if you could see a meet of the 



