SIR RICHARD SUTTON 231 



Twenty miles is said to have been the distance 

 between the two furthest points of this great run, but, 

 according to experts, hounds ran a distance of thirty- 

 seven miles, while a timekeeper declared that it lasted 

 for four hours and a quarter ; so there must have been a 

 little mistake somewhere, as hunters would be unlikely to 

 gallop nearly forty miles at a pace not far short of ten 

 miles an hour. 



In January 1851 Sir Richard Sutton narrowly escaped 

 a bad accident, through a boy riding hard against him 

 at a gateway and driving his leg against the post. Sir 

 Richard did not feel any ill effects at the moment, but 

 by the time he reached Lincoln, whither he had gone to 

 spend a few days, considerable inflammation had set in, 

 so a surgeon was sent for from London, but some time 

 elapsed before Sir Richard Sutton could ride again. 



Almost before he was convalescent, a charge was 

 made against him of buying foxes from a London dealer 

 and turning them down in his own country. In a letter 

 which was printed in the Leicester Journal, and which 

 was headed " Scarcity of foxes in the North Riding of 

 Yorkshire," an anecdote was related of a young man who 

 was desirous of having a fox. To satisfy his ambition, 

 he entered into negotiations with " an eminent dealer in 

 animals." living in London. The dealer wrote back to 

 say that he had "an unlimited order for all the foxes 

 he could ofet from Sir Richard Sutton." Sir Richard's 

 solicitors, on the matter being placed in their hands, at 

 once wrote to the Leicester Journal to give the most 

 unqualified denial to the statement of the ''eminent 

 dealer in animals." They declared in explicit terms that 

 Sir Richard Sutton had never given an order for a fox 

 to any one, and that he had never bought any. 1 That, 



1 In connection with this subject it may be interesting to point out that 

 for some years prior to the establishment of the Fox-hunting Committee at 

 Boodle's Club, some masters of hounds were in the habit of dining together 



