44 The Old Surrey Fox Hounds 



good Old Surrey. " It is," he writes, " this union of the 

 elegant courtesies and business of life with the energetic 

 sports of the field that constitutes the charm of Surrey- 

 hunting, and who can wonder that smoke-dried cits, 

 pent up all the week, should gladly fly from their shops 

 to enjoy a day's sport on a Saturday ? The town of 

 Croydon, nine miles from the standard in Cornhill, is the 

 general rendezvous of those gallant sportsmen. The town 

 furnishes an interesting scene on a hunting morning, 

 particularly on a Saturday. At an early hour groups of 

 grinning cits may be seen pouring in from the London 

 side, some on the top of Cloud's coaches, some in taxed 

 carts, but the greater number mounted on good service- 

 able-looking nags of the invaluable species calculated for 

 sport or business, warranted free from vice and quiet both 

 to ride and in harness. Some few there are who, with 

 that kindness and considerate attention which peculiarly 

 mark this class of sportsmen, have tacked a buggy to 

 their hunter and given a seat to a friend, who, leaning 

 over the back of the gig, his jocund face turned toward 

 \i\sjidus Achates ', leads his own horse behind, listening to 

 the discourse of ' his ancient,' or regaling him with sweet 

 converse ; and thus they onward jog until the sign of the 

 Greyhound, stretching quite across the main street, greets 

 their expectant optics, and seems to forbid their passing 

 the open portal below." 



It is easy to imagine the gay sporting scene as thus 

 depicted. Those ancient sportsmen — even if some of 

 them came from the City — were thoroughly keen ; they 



