268 THE QUORN HUNT 



In preparation for the next season Captain Callander 

 bought the Toy House ; and the Old Club, which had 

 been occupied by the Hon. Major Morgan, was taken 

 by Count Batthyany. The gorse planted by Sir Harry 

 Goodricke had been burned and grubbed up, and though 

 in some quarters there were laments over the destruction 

 of the once favourite covert, Lord Stamford was held to 

 have acted rightly, as the unsportsmanlike conduct of a 

 neighbouring occupier had for some years prevented its 

 ever holding a fox. Who this unneighbourly person 

 was we are not told ; but to supply the place of Sir 

 Harry's Gorse, a new covert was made about a mile 

 further on. A Mr. Day appears to have taken the 

 coverts in hand ; those requiring it were fresh drained, 

 and other steps were taken to make the different coverts 

 attractive to foxes. The season was on the whole a 

 good one, the Ouorn having killed 6gh brace of foxes in 

 101 days, and there were no blank days. 



In August 1 86 1 there was a foxhound show at Yarm 

 in connection with the show of the Cleveland Agricultural 

 Society. There had been a previous show at Leeds, 

 but it appeared that masters of foxhounds had declined 

 to show there because, as a chronicler said, they did not 

 like "to allow their favourites to be mixed up with the 

 canine canaille. Perhaps, also, they may have had an 

 idea that flags were essential to fair judging." The 

 arrangements at Yarm, however, met with general 

 approval, and of fourteen entries in class two, for the 

 best couple of foxhounds not younger than one season 

 nor older than two season hunters, the Ouorn were 

 highly commended ; but in class four, for the best puppy 

 of i860, Lord Stamford's Blue Bell, by Statesman- 

 Blissful, was first. 



In the autumn of 1861 the railway companies appear 

 to have turned their attention to the accommodation of 

 hunting men, but members of Parliament were their first 



