KENNELS AND STABLES 211 



hard day, I think I may say with safety of the Royal Hunt, 

 as I may say of other well-ordered hunting establishments, 

 that, in proportion to the risks run, the casualties are not 

 high. Casualties, of course, will always occur, but if a hunter 

 is in condition and fairly ridden, the effect of a severe day's 

 hunting soon passes off.' 



As I have said a little about hunt horses in this and in 

 other chapters, I must not close it without a few grateful and 

 affectionate words to the memory of one of the Queen's most 

 faithful and affectionate servants, Josiah Miles, for very 

 many years stud-groom at Cumberland Lodge. He died 

 in the Queen's service after a mercifully short illness in 

 the second year of my Mastership, greatly regretted and 

 respected by all who had ever known him. I know my 

 predecessors felt his loss and appreciated his ability and 

 devotion to his charges quite as much as I did. Duty was 

 ever his first thought; and his daughter writes me that 

 almost his last conscious words to her were to remind 

 my second horseman of a particular bridle which I had 

 desired should be used next hunting day. Miles started in 

 the Queen's service on his wedding day, October 4, 1843, as 

 second groom under Charles Bryant, and was appointed first 

 groom on Bryant's death in 1867. In the summer of 1893 

 the Queen presented him with a medal in honour of his fifty 

 years' service. I rode over to Cumberland Lodge the same 

 evening to see and congratulate Mr. and Mrs. Miles, tea and 

 a talk with Mrs. Miles being one of the many pleasant things 

 which came with the Mastership of the Queen's Hounds. 

 They had driven over to Windsor together, and the Queen 

 had given Miles his medal with her own hands. It was a 

 most happy tea. 



The present stud groom, Reuben Matthews, succeeded 

 Miles. He has been at Cumberland Lodge for a great 

 many years ; having been appointed second groom when Miles 



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