1 8 2 The Pytchley Hunt, Past and Present. 



but I hoge that some of tliem will be drafted after a bit. 

 I used to say that there was no ill of mind or body that 

 a good gallop across country could not cure; but that 

 was when I could get something to carry me. With the 

 pack with which I shall have to hunt for the rest of the 

 season, the hunting is of a kind that is apt to produce 

 many ills both to body and mind; but I shall have 

 pleasure in thinking that in pursuing the arduous labours 

 of the hunting at St. Stephen^s, I shall have the 

 sympathy and good wishes of the Members of the 

 Pytchley Hunt." (Loud cheers.) 



Mr. H. 0. Nethercote gave the health of the Chairman ; 

 and after speeches from Major Whyte Melville, Sir 

 Charles Isham, the Hon. H. Liddell and others, a 

 memorable evening came to a happy conclusion. 



Thus was snapped, after five years of satisfactory 

 wear, the last link that had united the Pytchley Hunt 

 with the " long Scotch Gentleman," whom the Warwick- 

 shire yokel advised should be sent for again, when on 

 one occasion a fox could not be persuaded to leave one 

 of the Atherstone covers. 



A writer in Society says, '^No man ever crossed 

 the formidably-fenced Pytchley pastures with more 

 determination than Captain Thomson; and though 

 hardly pretending, like Assheton Smith, always to be 

 in the same field with the hounds, he rarely allowed 

 them to get far away from him." 



Aided rather than stopped by weight, he would make 

 his horses crash through thick fences, and high timber 

 that others could not get over, and he was therefore a 

 very good man to follow, until a brook barred the way. 

 Into that he would plunge boldly, trusting to chance for 



