322 THE QUORN HUNT 



Coupland, was out cub-hunting when the hounds went 

 to Gartree Hill, .and while at the covert-side the pony 

 Master Webster was riding, on hearing the hounds, 

 became somewhat intractable. He reared up and fell 

 back upon the youthful sportsman, who received such 

 severe injuries that he died on the following morning, 

 at the age of ten years, while just afterwards a very 

 well-known horseman, Joseph Hobson, landlord of the 

 Railway Inn, Loughborough, was also killed while cub- 

 hunting with the Quorn. He endeavoured to jump a 

 gate ; his mare caught the top bar with her knees, and 

 falling, rolled right over her rider, who was put into a 

 dogcart in an insensible condition, and died on the way 

 to the hospital. 



It was just about this period that there commenced 

 that long dispute in connection with the Quorn country 

 and Mr. Tailby's. As the subject is mentioned else- 

 where, it is not here necessary to go into the pros and 

 cons of the incident, which gave rise to a long corre- 

 spondence and not a little trouble. 



A contemporary writer stated that amongst the 

 notices of applications to Parliament for the next ses- 

 sion there figured one from " the already twice accursed 

 Midland Railway Company," which had thrust itself 

 rudely over the land stretching from Leicester to Mel- 

 ton and Harborough. " To look at the list of names 

 mentioned," says the above-mentioned writer, "one 

 would gather that the whole of the south-east of Lei- 

 cestershire is shortly to be transformed into a kind of 

 Clapham Junction," and he stated that the line might 

 possibly involve the destruction of several famous and 

 valuable coverts. The company stated in their appli- 

 cation that they would vary or extinguish all existing 

 rights and privileges which would interfere with their 

 projects, but like many other matters, the threat was 

 scarcely carried out, and the institution of railways has 



