156 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



which will rend the vitals of those by whom it has been 

 fostered.' These prophecies need no comments. It may, 

 however, be worth remarking that many fashionable hunting 

 countries are finding it necessary to protect themselves by 

 stringent and scaled regulations as to subscriptions, because 

 of the immense expansion of hunting which train services 

 organised ad hoc mean. 



A short time ago the * Field ' newspaper took exception 

 to the ratcatcher costume of the Queen's field, and it must 

 be admitted that an intelligent foreigner, captivated, we will 

 say, by Sir F. Grant's picture of Ascot Heath and its patri- 

 cians, who hires a horse for a day with Lord Coventry, would 

 be aesthetically disappointed. We can no longer boast of a 

 d'Orsay, a Brummell, a Beaufort or an Alvanley. Black- 

 ing is no longer made of port wine and red currant jelly, or 

 boot-top liquid of champagne and apricot jam. We feel the 

 levelling tendency of the democratic tailor. 



The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Connaught always 

 wear scarlet out with the Queen's, and approve of the strictest 

 tenue. Of course it is the counsel of perfection. But it 

 must be remembered that the Queen's field has changed 

 very much in the last thirty or forty years. The loss of 

 the grass country, and the excellent sport shown by 

 Baron Rothschild — a pack like the Queen's without the 

 bondage of a subscription — over a fine country, essentially a 

 riding country, and in many ways a stag-hunting country, 

 have seduced the richer London contingent from Slough 

 and Uxbridge to Leighton Buzzard. The field is now 

 chiefly local and resident. Day in, day out, ten to twelve 

 would now be a high average of horses boxed from Padding- 

 ton, and comparatively few are kept at livery either at 

 Slough, or Windsor, or Ascot. As a matter of fact most 

 of the regular London gentlemen who hunt with the Queen's 

 Hounds have stuck to the traditions of the past and to scarlet. 



