61 



and none of the expenditure among the gentry which took place long- 

 ago consequent upon the hunting. What that monetary loss is to the 

 Waterford community it is impossible to estimate, but I put it down 

 some years ago, when the figures were fresh in my mind, at something^ 

 like sixty thousand a year ! 



The races brought about an enormous circulation of money. 

 Between £2,000 and £3,000 a year was disbursed by myself alone, and 

 I was enabled to fix the amount paid in fares to carmen for driving 

 visitors to and from the course at over £200 a day — the distance 

 being a mile. 



It is a great mistake to think that a pack of foxhounds, well bred 

 and good workers, can be got together as easily as a stud of hunters. 

 It takes a man a long lifetime to bring to iierfection one pack, not to^ 

 speak of two, if he has to start with drafts from ordinary kennels, 

 and neither money, sagacity, nor assistance will hurry the process. 



That fact should be borne in mind before any old-established pack 

 of foxhounds is given up. 



Although perhaps only in a suggestive manner pertaining to this 

 chapter, I may be permitted to give a few reasons for what I have 

 just stated, and show how difficult it is to get together a pack even of 

 moderate pretensions, while it is a simjDle impossibility to get one 

 like the Curraghmore except under circumstances similar to Lord 

 Waterford's. 



It may astonish not a few to know that out of the many packs of 

 foxhounds which are in England and Ireland, the kennels from which 

 an M.F.H. such as Lord Waterford or Henry Briscoe would breed could 

 be counted almost upon a man's fingers. 



No doubt many indifferently-bred packs show capital sport — even 

 packs badly shaped and uneven do so oftentimes — and if a man 

 wants to keep hounds it is a vast deal better for him to have such 

 than not to have any at all. If the packs which are indifferently bred 

 and shaped were to be done away with in England it would, indeed, 

 be a bad day for the nation. 



Ingenuous youth, and all ye who asjoire to have the decoration of 

 "M.F.H." after your names, don't for one moment be carried away 

 with the idea that, even possessed as you may be of a great command 

 of money, you will get together a pack of foxhounds, even of the 

 most ordinary excellence, in a hurry, and to suit the country you 

 want them to hunt. 



If a man wants to establish a pack of foxhounds where none have 

 already been, he has of necessity to do so by purchase or by begging. 

 By neither process will he get anything from another man's kennel 

 except the refuse, for no man in his born senses would think of giving 

 even his own brother the best, or even moderately, good liounds. Well,, 

 then, after expending a very considerable amount upon buying or 

 otherwise getting together his pack — say forty couple— all entered^ 

 and from one to four years old, I am well within the mark whert 



