180 THE QUORN HUNT 



ing farmers have their land crossed and breed horses ; 

 those who did hunt liked to have a horse to carry them 

 well, but did not care to encounter the trouble and ex- 

 pense of putting the horse into training ; and that the 

 stakes were, more often than not, won not by a hunter 

 but by some thoroughbred screw worth not more than 

 ^25, and which could not get over a country at all. 

 The writer further suggested that if the premiums he 

 suggested were given, the non-hunting as well as the 

 hunting farmer would stand the chance of being benefited. 

 It is curious to find that the lines proposed sixty years ago 

 by a farmer have been adopted by the Royal Agricultural 

 and Hunters' Improvement Societies, as well as by most 

 agricultural societies and promoters of horse shows. 



We learn very little about the sport of Lord Suffield's 

 hounds during November and December 1838. His 

 hounds were said to be slack drawers and as slow as a 

 man in boots, until one fine day when there chanced to 

 be something like a scent. 



A fox was found in Shearsby Gorse ; the hounds went away 

 on good terms with him ; left the hard-riding field behind at every 

 stride ; and, after having the fun all to themselves for three- 

 quarters of an hour over the Gumley country, rolled over their 

 fox and ate him up, "brush and all," without a man being within 

 two fields of them. At Gumley the leading men were in absolute 

 ignorance of their whereabouts, and had it not been for Mr. 

 Tilbury (the well-known dealer in hunters), whose quick eye espied 

 a couple of labourers running in the distance to the left, it is pos- 

 sible that no one might have seen them again. Tilbury, however, 

 making an excuse that he had lost a shoe, pulled up for a moment, 

 and when the rest of the field had ridden aimlessly on for some 

 distance, the astute old dealer turned away and galloped as hard 

 as he could to the left, where he had seen the labourers running, 

 followed by one person only, to whom he had given a hint of what 

 was going to happen, and none but these two could give any 

 account of what had taken place during the last ten minutes. 

 " Hounds ran mute from start to finish, and old Tilbury made the 

 most of what little he did see." 



